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Lawrence Lessig to Leave Copyright Sphere
brandonY writes "The founder of Creative Commons, the Stanford lawyer behind the 'Eldred v. Ashcroft' case, and the author of 'Code' has spent the last 10 years working tirelessly on behalf of limited copyright terms, net neutrality, and the public domain. Tuesday, Lawrence Lessig announced on his blog that he has "decided to shift my academic work, and soon, my activism" from fighting the good fight for the public domain to fighting the good fight against corruption and the influence of big money's effects on legislation in general."
..but good luck with that. :/
Good luck on your new venture Mr. Lessig. I appreciate your hard work and know you'll cause change for good especially with your ability to find critical insight in what you do.
Morality, filters both ways.
After all, who thinks we'd have the copyright terms we do now if it wasn't for Disney buying off congressmen?
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
I believe the fundamental reason for Lessig's shift in focus is that he sees systemic money-driven corruption to be the central disabling constraint for implementing enlightened copyright/patent/etc laws.
He's done a fantastic job and played a central role in promoting a movement toward enlightened legal treatment of intellectual and creative works. Coffee all around. I don't see him as abandoning this movement, just attacking the problems facing the movement at a deeper, more fundamental level.
These politicians are going to kill the internet as we know it.
Kudos to Mr. Lessig for realizing that we need smart people to treat the disease, and not just its symptoms. On the other hand, he's just expanded his target by a couple orders of magnitude...
Since Lessig admires Gore, it is worth pointing out that the three biggesst setbacks for the public domain (DMCA, 1998 Bono Extension, URAA) were signed by Clinton.
It does not help my impression of Gore either to get the Inconvinient DVD that says "share" this movie with your friends, while the movie starts with a $250,000 FBI threat against sharing the movie.
When they said "share", they meant "repurchase". Sales are more important than the message, I guess.
hopefully someone, as committed, will fill in but the net effect is that a good fighter just moved to another good fight. Good luck and good work Lawrence.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
One of the reasons big businesses throw money at politicians is because in government they have essentially unlimited money to spend on pet projects... It comes back tenfold. And... That money is borrowed.
Without the ability to borrow/spend unlimited amounts of cash (8,9,10 trillion is essentially infinite as far as I'm concerned, or at least, it tends to infinity), politicians wouldn't be anything like as powerful and wouldn't be such obvious and attractive targets for big business.
There you go. Corruption, built into the very basis of our monetary system from the ground up. It took me several years to come to this conclusion, I don't really expect you to accept it.
Deleted
They're starved because there's a correlation (and arguably a causation) between the amount of money a candidate spends and the probability of his (re)election.
Look at the election last year in CT between Lieberman and that other guy. He was a new comer business guy with a lot of money and he almost removed Lieberman. Was it all money? No, I'm not saying that. But without the big bucks, you are just a whisper in the mighty wind - no one will hear you or pay attention to you.
The other thing is the electorate gets their information from advertisements and, I really think this now, opinions from the pundits. Why do you think those "analysts" and pundits on all of the networks, internet and those radio talk shows get so much money and airtime - people listen to them. And I constantly hear people parroting what they've heard on TV or radio - I catch myself doing it sometimes, too.
I don't think big money will ever leave politics. You can put the brakes on the special interest groups, but that'll mean that only billionaires can run - Bloomberg.
We'll see.....
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Love your work. Completely agreed that the "corruption" you mention is at the root of the IPR problems, and that the latter cannot be solved without addressing the former. It has to take a lot of courage to switch from a field in which you are a (perhaps the) luminary.
Best wishes, god speed, and I'll be watching and looking for opportunities to help.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
By making this statement, I have wasted one modpoint.
There, that's doing it with a little more class. Just sit back and watch. It's like throwing crumbs to the pigeons.
Lessig is one of the more brilliant minds of our generation. Don't forget his efforts to bring Microsoft to task when that seemed an insurmountable obstacle. I've read some of his books and whether you agree with him or not, he as a way of attacking an issue and providing deep, insightful arguments. He's also very good at taking complex issues and distilling them down so that the average person can understand them. Don't count him out before he begins. If he manages to get some air time, he might be able to make a real difference. Either way, when one of our best minds announces his intention to take on a real issue in our society I think that's a good thing.
I think we're too far gone, at this point, to fight corruption in our government.
Ten years isn't going to be enough. In ten years' time, all of us working together would hardly even make a dent in it. Take down one corrupt politician and there's an entire party's worth to take his or her place.
We could use a new system. Perhaps if we pushed more of the decisions to the people it would become too expensive to 'buy' support? Or perhaps we could ban parties names from anything printed by/endorsed by the government? Or perhaps merely instituting a 'removal-by-popular-constituant-vote' system would do...
I do not have an answer, but repairing the current system just doesn't seem like a good use of time and effort to me.
Excellent choice, get the root cause, it will fix the symptoms.
God Speed.
In 10 years, 20% of you will be D-E-A-D. It's also possible all of you will be D-E-A-D.
Removing completely, yes. But cutting it down by 95% in the US is easy. Just stop the complete abuse of political funding that goes on at present; this really isn't hard. Nowhere else in the first world are corporations allowed to buy politicians in the way that happens quite normally in the US. Eliminate that and you're just left with real corruption (politicians selling out for personal gain, rather than as a necessary part of getting elected). This happens everywhere of course, and I'm sure the US is no exception, but it's a fart in a jacuzzi compared to the current situation.
Personal opinion (this is thinking of the UK more than the US): public funding of political parties. A few million per annum out of general taxation is a tiny price to pay for the sanctity of the political process.
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...is another man's freedom fighter.
I feel the same way about the corrupting influence of money. As government gets so big and so intrusive into every level of everyone' lives, everyone ends up having to make a payoff to someone just to get something done or simply to be heard.
Many are making simultaneous payoffs to all parties. People who are incumbents or might become incumbents.
And regulations that probably shouldn't even exist at a federal level merely get used as a central point of perversion to protect the status quo or create barriers of entry to the competition.
Is corruption the root of all evil? Or is big government the root of all this corruption?
Keep in mind, though, that Disney would never bribe senators. That might get people arrested! All Disney needs to do is offer millions of dollars (in Campaign Contributions) to people who support extending copyright. It works like this:
Disney: Canidate A, do you support extending copyrights?
A. No, I think it's stupid!
Disney: Too Bad.
Disney: How about you, Canidate B?
B. Yes! I do!
Disney: Okay, B! Here's a big sack of money! Now go get elected!
B. Woohoo!
Disney: How about you, Mr. C?
(C looks at A and B)
C. Um, yes, I support enlarging those copythingies!
You see, to the casual observer it may look like bribery, but to the discerning eye, it's clear that Disney is merely donating money to people who share idealogical similarities with Disney. Nowhere does Disney 'buy' votes, or 'bribe' people, it merely 'helps out' those who 'happen' to support Disney's viewpoints. I am in no way accusing Disney of bribery, or of the many fine senators in P2im3's list of accepting bribes. That would be libel!
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
The Democrat in Louisiana got caught with $90,000 in his fridge, pork is being piled into legislation by both sides, and Democrats are actively trying to prevent people from find out what pork they're throwing into bills....
I wish Lessig luck. He's going to need it.
It scares me to think that he's come to the conclusion that he's even more needed there than with what he's been doing so far. /.ers have a spare basement I could come hide out in?
Any of you fellow
"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." -- Benjamin Franklin (maybe)
Lessig is attacking the wrong enemy. I'm not saying that moneyed interest aren't often a problem -- but put all the laws and effects that the government passes for them on one side of the ledger. Now take all the money that is spent to influence the masses on the other: welfare, social security, health care, and god knows how many pork barrel projects at the local level (Alaskan bridge, anyone?). It's not even close.
I have met the enemy and he is YOU. The modern sense of entitlement is what's pulling us down.
(I will resist the urge to tie entitlement to the desire for all music for free)
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Not hard conceptually. Impossible in practice.
Why? Because to do so in practice requires that the existing players act against their own selfish interests.
The system itself is at the root of the problem. It's a positive feedback mechanism where the variable in question is the amount of control the corporations have over the government.
It works like this:
So in the U.S., there's no way out except through violent revolution. And guess who controls all the real guns (not the peashooters the civilians are allowed to have)? Yep: the government. So revolution is basically not an option on the table.
The bad guys have all the exits covered. We lose. Game over.
Lessig can try to fix this, but he'll fail.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Thats just code-speak for 'i want a piece of the action'
---- Booth was a patriot ----
the issue is the government's ability to grant or withhold these entitlements. as long as this exists, corruption will exist.
it's the same thing.
The DMCA is made from the same poison that corruption is: the undue influence that money has on Congress. By and large, these are not geniuses, like Lessig. They're looking for reelection, and the content providers give generously to reelection bids -- and, they write the legislation.
Collect a database of all contributions and fees collected by Congresscritters. Then correlate it to each ones voting record. If the voters saw the tie in for why their Rep voted for that (insert idiotic bill) piece of crap. This could be a way to remove the incumbants. Personally I vote against all office holders in every election, it's the only chance to change things. This would also work at the state level.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
I'll be a damn proud taxes payer when instead of spending so much on war and weapon, we'll have:
1) publicly financed and spend-capped election
1.5) free equal TV air time for all legitimate candidate: at LEAST those who also get secret service protection.
2) make election a holiday, heck, we should even spend tax $$ to get people to the polls.
Wanna fix corruption? Fix the election.
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
The difference is, it doesn't take a lot of money to buy a politician. A few hundred thousand is sufficient, not the billions that are spent on health care, or welfare.
Social security and welfare *benefit* society. Sure, there are those who take advantage of the system, but I can promise you, they are the minority. For most folks on welfare, it's a short-term thing, a stop-gap to fill in while they figure out their financial life since their ex-corporate masters outsourced their job to India or China.
As far as the Alaska bridge: it is often brought up, but what *isn't* mentioned is that it would've done the community of Ketchikan some good. And it would've been nice for the tens of thousands of tourists who visit Alaska each year. No, I don't think it would've been worth the federal moneys. Hell, that's what the $4 fee to use the ferry was for in the first place. (I was born in Ketchikan, grew up in Thorne Bay, a logging camp not far for Ketchikan. I'm not just guessing at this.) It would've been worth the money, in the long run, as it would've connected Ketchikan with its airport, which is on an island a stone's throw away.
Anyway.
These aren't just "pork." But really, they pale in comparison to what the government is spending on foreign aggression these days. And I submit that the war in Iraq feeds nothing back to the economy, whereas welfare and social security most certainly do.
As far as the topic goes:
Corporations of money are finding they get much better return on investment when they purchase themselves a politician or two. The best thing we could do would be to prohibit corporate influence in the political sphere. Of course, it won't happen, as the corporations have their tenterhooks in too deep.
In any event, I wish Mr. Lessig well. He's right, the corruption runs too deep to fight just copyright.
God help us all.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Think about it - the bulk of corporate power stems from copyright and patent law (no, it really does. They're quiet about it, but destroy patent law and you've seriously crippled the psychopathic entity that is the modern corporation). By attacking patents and copyrights, Lessig can cripple corporate money-making ability, and thereby reduce their influence.
Mr. Lessig has done amazing things in the copyright arena, I can only wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors, as he works his way up the chain to the source of corporate evil. The fact that he's going after what I consider to be the greatest destroyer of mankind makes his quest absolutely legendary. I just hope he doesn't get "disappeared" when he digs up the dirt.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I'm someone who works in Washington, so I'm posting as a coward.
I've seen Lessig talk, read a lot of his stuff, and must say that his announcement is the most egomanical thing I've read in a while. First: Lessig doesn't know Washington at all. He couldn't pronounce Congressman Goodlate's name correctly when Goodlatte was one of the top copyright people in town. Second: activism isn't all on the net. You have to show up and lobby once in a while. Lessig was absent most of the time. Third: corruption? Lawyers and lobbyists get paid to represent interests. There were LOTS of paid guys running around DC advocating the exact same things Lessig does because they were paid to. Many corporations are fighting copyright battles and pay well to do it.
Whether you agree with Greenpeace, hate GE, or just the opposite, there are paid people in DC arguing on your behalf. They are ALL lobbyists. And that doesn't make them corrupt. And it doesn't mean they are guns used to the highest bidder either. Most believe what they advocate. Passionately.
Lessig may know copyrights, but he don't know politics.
I'd say hes crazy but what if the problem is the current system needs to be fixed, not changed?
when loopholes become precedents, and innocent becomes guilty... (cue superhero plz)
Going for the cause instead of the symptom. Makes a lot of sense.
Exactly as he states, issues with IP are all because of the deeper roots. Fix the deeper problems, and IP issues would hopefully fix itself. Although as it often is, treating the cause instead of the symptoms are going to be a lot harder.
Good luck cleaing up the government, everyone!
I lost my sig.
However, someone will just buy him out.
Bono was a leading proponent of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act or so-called "Mickey Mouse Law", which extended the terms of copyright, a bill which the Church of Scientology supported so that they could keep access to their scriptures and OTIII documents.[10] Giving a speech on the floor of Congress in favor of the bill, Bono said: Actually, Sonny wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution. . . . As you know, there is also [Motion Picture Association of America president] Jack Valenti's proposal for the term to last forever less one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress.[11]
source: Wikipedia: Mary Bono
That Jack Abramoff, such a smart, friendly, likeable man--I'm sure she really didn't even *want* the 30k, but she felt like she *had* to take it, lest she risk offending him!
suck it like you mean it. lololol.
We Slashdotters hope for the day that either Microsoft discontinues it's illegal activities and becomes a fair player in the free market or dies a miserable, hated death.
Much appreciated. In fact, The entire Slashdot Collective thanks you!
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Every single one. Why ever do you think people make donations, if not to influence outcomes?
You're really naive, you know.
i mean if he wants access he could create websites on various issues that he cares about in order to stir up grass roots contributions to send to washington d.c. and make it enough green to counter big money. It does seem that that would be an effective way to go about it.
"After all, who thinks we'd have the copyright terms we do now if it wasn't for Disney buying off congressmen?"
_ Public_Domain.htm) Furthermore, the common copyright was abolished in the copyright term extensions, placing letters and unpublished works previously protected under perpetual copyright into the public domain.
i nal1.pdf)
Anybody who has done some research?
Ever since I started to do some research into this subject, I've noticed that this is a straw man argument that's brought up over and over again. And it's a straw man for a few reasons:
1. The United States has historically lagged behind the rest of the world in copyright terms. The Sonny Bono Act was brought into play to address this.
2. The European term of lifetime +70 years was put into play due to longer lifespans. The original Berne Convention term of lifetime +50 was to allow for the lifetime of the author plus children and grandchildren. With longer lifespans, 50 years was no longer considered enough.
3. In Europe, a policy decision had been made to consider all foreign copyrights to be expired upon their expiry in their home country. Therefore, American copyrights would expire 20 years before European copyrights did. This would impact not only American intellectual property, but also give European creative artists an advantage over American artists, as their copyrights would last longer, and therefore they would be more marketable. Therefore, a decision was made to harmonize with Europe to create a level playing field.
4. Retroactive copyright extensions were, as a rule, NOT granted in the United States. Material from the early part of the 20th century is under public domain in the United States. (http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle
5. It is one hell of a logical flaw to suggest that because a company supported a bill in public, it means that it was buying off congressmen. Particularly since the legislators were a bit more worried about harmonizing with Europe.
6. If this was an attempt to bring American Copyright Law into perpetual copyright, it failed miserably. Not only did American law simply harmonize to the MINIMUM European term, but the law also contains provisions for librarians and archivists to treat copyrighted material as public domain for archive purposes in the last 20 years of copyright protection.
So, the evil Sonny Bono act is simply...um...bringing American law up to an international standard that had existed for over twenty years or so. It's quite a far cry from Disney wanting to keep Mickey Mouse around (which, seeing as it's protected by trademark rather than copyright law, isn't an issue anyway).
(Note - my source for much of this material is http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-orig
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
We have alleged public airwaves. We also have 100 senators and 500-odd representatives, yet it is the same couple dozen or so on the news all the time. How about we get the FCC to require the broadcasters to give the same amount in minutes of face time to all those folks? They supposedly get a license to use the public frequency to be both of the public good and to make some money, but I don't see the public good being served seeing the same few faces night after night after night, then they automagically turn into the "front runner" candidates whenever elections roll around.
What to do with unelected but legitimate candidates and the news I am not sure, but something similar. Candidate x as an unelected person but made the requirements should get the same face time on the news shows as an already elected incumbent, so you would have to have an official election season, start and stop date. In between, news is news, but the rules on elected people remain, show one, you have to show them all, equally.
And we really need instant-runoff elections, so that third parties and independents can have a credible chance. This R and D and media picked front runner candidate action results in political lock-in, like vendor lock-in.
Long term, the more I think about it over the years, the more I am inclined to think eliminating political parties completely. yes I mean outlawing them, would be a good move. No political parties means that government would always be a much more random selection of the population and wouldn't split into what I think is a harmful and semi artificially created left-right schism. I also think we need "term limits" for all government employment, no careers, no pensions, call it ten years maximum government service in any capacity then back to the private sector. No more career politicians or bureaucrats. Get rid of the "us versus them" deal.
As to the cash, drop it down to ten bucks contribution from individual humans only, to any candidate you are allowed to vote for, $100 tops combined. Which means no cash to just a general party fund. I don't think a general fund or taxes are needed, just eliminate the huge amounts of cash necessary to run. Millions or billion dollar elections are ludicrous.
And absolutely nothing from corporations or NGOs, ever, for any reason. No free dinners, trips, gifts, nada, nothing, zero. Not so much as a stick of gum. No free travel on executive jets. No golf and booze and schmooze trips. Nothing. We just have to get rid of influence peddling, keep eliminating any loopholes the ratfinks find, and make violating it a pretty serious crime.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Well, yeah, it's a tough fight to take on. On the other hand though, it's a good thing. Most developers think that you shouldn't work around bugs, or fix surface problems, but should instead drill right down to the fundamental causes of things, and fix those. This way, you solve many problems in one go, and produce more elegant, lasting, maintainable solutions. You might say that this is what hackers are all about: finding ever more elegant solutions to problems that bug them.
The same thing really applies to the copyright vs. corruption issue. Take the stuff that happened over ODF in Boston, for instance: lots of great strides were made in copyright, education, human rights, civil liberties, etc. However, corruption meant that a man lost his job for doing those good things. We could try to fight harder and smarter at the high-level of copyright, but in the end, corruption will undermine any good efforts. I'm glad to hear that Lessig, who I greatly respect (from what I know of him, which is mostly his Free Culture book, and his involvement with FSF) will be tackling this.
I've been thinking about this since you posted it and (full disclosure, I've never even visited the US), this seems something of a defeatist attitude. I take your point that politicians will not/can not fix this for themselves, but at the end of the day America is a very democratic country. If reform was demanded by the voting public then it could and would happen. All that needs to happen is for US citizens at large to actually care.
Now you may well say that Lessig faces one hell of an uphill struggle to make them care, but that isn't a reason not to try - look at the evolution of British democracy. Decades after the US had declared independence, the House of Commons was voted on in a public vote by maybe 10% of the adult male population who were openly bribed by the local landowners - a great quote from a biography of William Wilberforce I'm currently reading, "they looked upon those two guineas as a birthright." Many protests, compromises, and almost revolutions since then have turned British democracy into universal suffrage by secret ballot.
All I'm saying is it just takes people to care. Lessig may have his work cut out for him, but it is only by activism that anything every changes.
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Even the desires of the people must succumb to the limits of physical reality.
The problem here is that even if the people wanted the kind of reform you're talking about, there is simply no way to get there from here anymore. You can't get an entity to act against its own interests except through coercion, and the people simply don't have the kind of coercive force required here. Said coercive force has a name: "violent revolution", and such a revolution would not succeed without a large amount of support from within the military. The nature of the military is such that I doubt the people would get that kind of support for that kind of action.
This is why brutal dictatorships are able to survive and prosper, the people be damned. Because in the end, it's not about what the people want, it's about who has the power and influence to enforce his will. In the U.S., the people lost that power a while back, and that power continues to diminish on a daily basis.
Even so, I agree Lessig should try if he's of the mind to do so. It's his call, and he more than anyone else will suffer the consequences if he fails. The payoff could be huge, though, and that makes it worth taking the chance. Regardless, it'll literally take a miracle for him to succeed.
I don't believe in miracles.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.