Lessig Defends Free Culture in Keynote

lisah writes "Professor Larry Lessig, a keynote speaker at this week's Linux World Expo, took issue with current copyright laws and their effect on a free read-write culture. Lessig says that, by today's standards, the simple act of creating a video mashup renders its creator a 'pirate' and argued for sweeping changes that would embrace a fair use culture. Lessig asked the audience to consider sharing works under a Creative Commons license and redirect money they would spend on restricted content to organizations that support a fair use and free culture. He says that opponents of a free read-write culture have strong financial and political backing so unified community support is crucial. 'If the debate is controlled by lawyers and lobbyists...," says Lessig, 'this debate will be lost.'"

Comments

More then Just Complaining, Lessig Rocks

[Shihar]

I had the pleasure of seeing Lessig speak a year ago. If you ever have the chance to see this man, do so. Even if you hate his message, he is an absolute god when it comes to speaking and presenting. His style of presentation has earned its own title of the "Lessig" style of presentation.

While I am somewhat awed by Lessig's ability to present, my real admiration for him comes from how he has pursued his cause. Lessig argues for radical change in current laws. He is not the only person to argue for radical change. What makes Lessig different is that had has not only made attempts to work within law to bring about change, but he has gone even further and tried to implement what he advocates within a voluntary and completely legal manner without reliance on the force of government to enact the change that he seeks. Lots of people advocate some sort of radical change in society, but relatively few make a genuine attempt to bring about such change through methods other then complaining to the government to use the force of law.

The Creative Commons is an incredible accomplishment. While the CC is in no danger of displacing current media, it has certainly started to make a dent. Will the CC ever make a dent large enough for the average Joe to really sit up and take notice without legislative change? Perhaps not, but what it has done is create an ecosystem to explore the 'fair use' world that Lessig envisions. Even those who find the watering down of copyright power revolting can not honestly proclaim any sort of mal-intent from creating a way for artists who want to offer their works to the public domain a simple and easily identifiable way to do so.

I strongly encourage anyone who is even vaugly interested in this debate to check out Lessig's book, Free Culture. Keeping in tune with Lessig's philosophy on copyright, the book is freely available online. Some enterprising readers of the book also have a complete reading of the book in MP3 format. Check it out.

Re:Mr. Lessig: Go get stuffed

[MrAndrews]

Authors have the right to be compensated under CC licenses by choosing CC-NC-SA. All a CC license does in that case is makes it clear to the readers of the book that they can enjoy the fair use privileges we used to take for granted. There's a distinction between consumers and resellers there that modern copyright fanatics forget: the law was not meant to keep me from giving my copy of Harry Potter to my friend, it was meant to keep me from printing a thousand copies without permission. Copyright's trying to remove all those rights, and CC is an attempt to clarify them again.

But the bigger issue is whether Jack Ryan is actually the exclusive property of Tom Clancy as a concept. Fanfic isn't strictly legal if you're a copyright maximalist. Exploring the characters and ideas that other authors have created should be encouraged. "Patriot Games" may not be the best book in the world, but it could be that someone out there will write the Best Novel of All Time based on a character Mr Clancy created. But no one will try that if they think they're going to get sued. CC content creates an environment where derivative works can be made without fear of retribution, and quite possibly lead to more revenue streams for the originating artist.

CC does not have to mean "nobody gets paid". It's more about "nobody has to be scared of lawyers".

Re:Money!

[ratboy666]

You are wrong about TV The producer/actors/etc involved in a TV production are paid on the first airing. By the commercial inserts. If the program HAPPENS to be successful and go into syndication, there will be additional payouts, but that is NOT guaranteed. And, in some cases, is rather ludicrous (examples off the top of my head: reruns of Jeopardy, American Idol, or Survivor?).

In other words, some shows MUST have made all the money on the first airing; we can presume that most others do so as well.

TV programs and movies cannot be, as a result, directly compared. "Piracy" cannot really hurt TV, unless the program is pirated BEFORE it is released with its commercials. Indeed, PVRs with commercial skip are a greater "threat" to the TV content producers. Which is why product placement becomes such a big deal. I watch "American Idol" (a guilty pleasure). I rarely (never) watch it "live", but from my PVR, with commercials deleted. However, I know Coke and Ford sponsor the program - product placement. (and, yes, I *am* influenced by the ads.

YMMV
Ratboy

"Piracy" can hurt movies; but not to a big extent. Specifically, it is still very costly to download a full-resolution (DVD) quality movie. I compute the typical cost in Toronto to be $5. Given that this is directly comparable to DVD rental, and considerably less convenient (days to download), AND is only DVD (SD) resolution, I don't think the theater experience is really threatened. And that is where the movies should be paid for -- the theatrical release.

Re:Money!

[dwandy]

Yes, that's true - ideas are nonrival goods. But they are not free goods, and they do roughly obey the law of supply and demand.

I'm not sure what you mean by this: ideas aren't goods, but they are 'free' as in anyone can trade time and neuron-cycles for one. The notion that intellectual monopoly should be called intellectual property is marketing speak by those that want to extort rents... ideas aren't 'goods' or 'property' as they can't be 'owned' in the physical property sense.

The question becomes how to create incentives for the production of ideas, if the ideas cannot be valuable to the idea-generator.

Well, the real question is why everyone thinks that humans need incentive to create or be creative.
Humans create.
Our creativity is one of the main reasons we are the dominant species on this planet. That creativity bubbles within us (more in some than others to be sure!) and wants to get out.

Creativity need no more a law to incent it than gravity does to attract bodies...

If you're really interested, read this. It's kinda long, it's PDF, but it's probably the best stuff I've ever read on the subject.