Law and education must change since the realities they control and shape have changed.

Changes in reality requires changes in the law, in the ways we practice law, and in the ways we teach. What has been Best hasn’t been Best because it is the Best for all time but, rather, because it has been the Best way we’ve figured out how to do what we want under the circumstances that have faced us. Change the circumstances, and what’s Best changes.

Nothing the RIAA does to enforce the interpretations of copyright laws formed when record companies had a virtual monopoly on producing and distributing recorded music is going to change the inevitable consequences of the fact that the technology to produce and distribute recorded music is now available to any individual with a laptop and an internet connection.

Nothing lawyers scream at their clients is going to change the fact that personal expression is more public and more permanent than ever before. All the insistence in the world on traditional rules regarding the formation of contracts isn’t going to change the fact that applying those rules strictly to the online marketplace is going to create a mess.

And nothing is going to change the fact that my students and my kids spend their time differently than I did and want to use different tools to express themselves than I did.

Realizing my son’s obsessions with things that don’t seem to matter (video games) are not necessarily worse than the ones I grew up with (professional sports) might even help me communicate with him about what creativity is.