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See Lawrence Lessig At BayFF Monday
If you can be at Stanford University on Monday, Katina Bishop of the Electronic Frontier Foundation wants you to drop by the BayFF's 7 p.m. meeting, featuring law professor Lawrence Lessig (author of Code, and Other Laws of Cyberspace) speaking on "Architecting Innovation," to take place in room 290 of the Stanford Law School, Crown Quadrangle. (The event will also be Web cast; see the BayFF homepage for a link to the webcast.) I sat in on the online privacy debate BayFF hosted last August, and was very impressed.
Actually, if you read his book ("Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace") or any of a number of his writings, you'll see that you've taken him badly out of context. Lessig is very strongly anti-certs and pro-anonymity on the web. He's just very pessimistic; he feels that because certs and identifiability are strongly supported by business they will triumph.
In addition, if you'd actually bothered (again) to read his stuff, you'd see that he has a very reasonable position on government and the net. If government doesn't do it, business will. And if there is anything we can trust less than big government, it is big business. If you think that the mystical powers of the "internet" can somehow protect our rights against the DoubleClicks of the world without government intervention, you have another thing coming.
So... in short, you've deliberately trolled by misquoting Lessig, and you've done it in ways that aren't even plausible to anyone who has read substantial amounts of Lessig's work. He isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination- but please make more plausible critiques than these two.
IAAL,BIANLY
Prof. Lessig did not argue in favor of internet taxation. Let's look at the entire quote:
I call that a prediction or analysis rather than arguing in favor of.
As for keeping the government out of the Internet, let's start by keeping Big Business out of lawmaking. I can directly attribute bad laws, such as the DMCA, as coming from corporations and organizations like the MPAA who currently buy a louder voice than the average voter or activist group. I counter with Big Business must not be allowed to determine the direction of the Internet. Their needs must never take priority over any individual's.
You may get a couple of moderators on crack to think your trash talk means something but I can say this. It isn't you talking to the DC Court of Appeals against the Sony Bono Copyright Act. I don't see your signature on a Amici Brief to get the DMCA overturned. I don't see you out on the stump going head to head with Jack Valenti over IP.
Yeah, we should turn our backs on someone capable of and currently fighting for us on these issues just because he feels that Internet taxation is inevitable and that policymakers don't spend enough time thinking about how their laws will impact the Internet. What a betrayal!
And yeah I already know I've been trolled. HAND.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
What, is he gonna teach us to leverage our synergy to create dynamic paradigm shifts for prosumers?
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SecretAsianMan (54.5% Slashdot pure)
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
I agree that the law can be a bit tedious, but it's such an integral part of this community that you can't afford to act like you don't care. Lawrence consistently offers a number of critical views on which the entire Slashdot community bases its opinion of the digital age and free speech. The law may not be our greatest passion but we're compelled to understand it if we want to defend against it.
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In the intro to the interview, it is noted that Lessig will deliver a keynote titled "Free Code, Freeing Culture" at the O'Reilly Peer-to-Peer Conference on Friday, Feb. 16.
It is a fascinating interview. In fact, I am surprised that it didn't get posted here because it is both intelligent and educational. It stimulates the brain cells it does.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"