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."

Comments

He's just widening his scope.

[paladinwannabe2]

After all, who thinks we'd have the copyright terms we do now if it wasn't for Disney buying off congressmen?

Re:He's just widening his scope.

[nomadic]

After all, who thinks we'd have the copyright terms we do now if it wasn't for Disney buying off congressmen?

Myself for one. I think lobbying is very destructive in general, but it's never quite as cut-and-dried as "buying off" people. First of all, even with all the loopholes, it's very difficult for one donor to give enough money to a member of congress to severely sway them. I mean, these people are usually start out being comfortably well-off, even with the frequent pay cuts you get when you move from the private sphere to the public one.

Very few members of congress are going to let themselves be bought for a few thousand dollars. Just not worth it.

Also, there are a lot of people who are more attracted to politics because they value power over money. Not that it's any more noble a character trait, but for a lot of these people the power they wield is an end in itself. They like being able to call the shots, and a good number of them aren't going to trade that power for a little bit of money. If money was that important, a lot of them would have been better off staying in the private sector, where they would be making a hell of a lot more.

What happens with the lobbyists is that they're very, very good at their jobs. They're smart. They're friendly. They're likeable. They're charismatic. They can usually give their side of the story without any opposition. If a lobbyist comes into your office to talk about a subject you haven't really given much thought to, and lays a slick, professional presentation on you, cites a bunch of credible-sounding statistics, mentions the support of some industrial association, you're going to be naturally leaning towards their side.

Re:He's just widening his scope.

[BoberFett]

Myself for one. I think lobbying is very destructive in general, but it's never quite as cut-and-dried as "buying off" people. First of all, even with all the loopholes, it's very difficult for one donor to give enough money to a member of congress to severely sway them. I mean, these people are usually start out being comfortably well-off, even with the frequent pay cuts you get when you move from the private sphere to the public one.

Very few members of congress are going to let themselves be bought for a few thousand dollars. Just not worth it.

They're not being bought for a few thousands dollars during their term in office. They're being given lucrative positions after they leave office. That's the real payout.

Re:He's just widening his scope.

[0p7imu5_P2im3]

Here's 50 "donations" to start with:
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/topindivs.asp?ID=D 000000128&ContribID=U0000000007&Display=ID

More:
http://www.opensecrets.org/softmoney/softcomp2.asp ?txtName=Walt+Disney+Co&txtUltOrg=y&txtCycle=2005& txtSort=name

http://www.opensecrets.org/ is full of such records of "donations" made on behalf of Disney.
And that's just one website.

Now ask for something hard to find.
;)

Change of focus? Sorta.

[Raindance]

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.

Re:Change of focus? Sorta.

[truthsearch]

Lessig also had a special role in the Microsoft anti-trust case (IIRC he was specially chosen by the judge to submit independent briefs, then let go with no explanation around the time Bush came into office). So he has good knowledge of big business and the interaction with markets and the government.

Re:Change of focus? Sorta.

[kebes]

Quite right. Lessig specifically emphasizes this in his post:

I am someone who believes that a free society -- free of the "corruption" that defines our current society -- is necessary for free culture, and much more. For that reason, I turn my energy elsewhere for now.

I think he's done tremendous good. However during his work towards "sane copyright" he has seen how the system isn't able to work in the public's best interests. Having identified certain weaknesses in the current implementation of democracy, he's going to try to fix those problems. If those problems are fixed, then things like copyright reform (which is to the public's benefit) will come about naturally. So he's still very much working towards Free Culture. But as he says, a necessary condition for Free Culture is a non-corrupt (or less corrupt) legal system.

It's strange, though, because he is now tackling a problem that is much bigger and harder to solve. Rather than just get one set of laws fixed (copyright laws), he is now hoping to change all the laws that affect governance. Yet, he is undoubtedly right that without fundamental changes in the way governance occurs, any "wins" in other domains (be it copyright law, privacy, etc.) will be tenuous and short-lived.

Bravo.

[beavis88]

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...

Re:what about the good of the internet

[Watson Ladd]

...because big companies can profit off it. I suggest reading Empire by Negri and Hardt. One of their points is that a lot of the separate struggles for freedom have the same enemy, namely the interests of the propertied class.

Gore and public domain

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Gore and public domain

[ChaosDiscord]

Clinton signed the three bad laws. Okay. This may come as a surprise, but Bill Clinton and Al Gore are different human beings. Our constitution doesn't give vice-presidents any right to veto things. Even if Clinton's actions somehow taint Gore, it's possible to admire someone for the good things they've done, even if they have serious flaws.

As for sharing Gore's movie, remember that "share" can mean things besides "distribute copies of." You can loan your friends your DVD perfectly legally. You can invite a few friends over and show them your copy of the DVD without breaking any laws.

As for why it's for profit, there are trade-offs whenever one wants to get a message out. The people who funded the movie probably to make a profit. In exchange the movie got widespread distribution and plenty of media attention. Having the movie available in theaters across the country may have gotten his message out to more people than making a less polished movie freely available would have. Maybe Gore made the wrong trade-off, but it's not an obvious decision.

Re:Gore and public domain

[icydog]

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.

What kind of irresponsible site did you get your iso from? Mine just had the movie.

One step beyond

[Colin Smith]

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.

Re:One step beyond

[adelord]

Are you referring to the fractional reserve banking system as the source of new money? I just recently came across that, thanks to someone's sig line on here, which pointed to the "Money as Debt" instructional animation at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-905047436 2583451279 which is incredibly illuminating. It did take me a few weeks to prove to myself that it isn't bullshit though, and it helped that I have a friend who loan officer at a bank and he believes in the current system. He played a great devil's advocate.

Corruption is inherent in the system

[BobMcD]

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.

Re:Best of luck

[mike2R]

While it is a noble undertaking, I find such a statement somewhat humorous, as fighting the influence of big money on legislation is a futile endeavor.

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.

Re:I hate to be negative...

[kbielefe]

I've yet to see it seriously discussed

This is a surprising comment to me, given the general political awareness and libertarian leanings on slashdot. Not only has it been seriously discussed, it has been implemented in places. In Arizona, for example, statewide candidates have the option to run publicly funded campaigns due to an initiative that passed a few years ago. They must collect a certain number of $5 donations to qualify, then they get a set amount for the primary, and another set amount for the general election. If someone decides to go the private-funded route, whatever money they raise is matched dollar for dollar in the public fund.

There are a number of glaring problems with it:

• Freedom of speech issues. Think of the politician you most despise. Now imagine being forced to contribute to his or her campaign.
• The amounts were too small to mount effective campaigns, providing barely enough for one mailer and maybe one late-night TV commercial. This gives a huge advantage to candidates with more name recognition. Taxpayers wouldn't support any higher amounts.
• If you want enough money to actually get your message out, you have to go the private route, with the matching system effectively raising funds for your opponent.
• It creates all sorts of bizarre conditions on when money can be spent. For example, how to account for resources that are used from pre-announcement through post-election, like a web site.
• There is no time for violations to be sorted out in the courts before the election happens. Therefore, if someone breaks the rules to gain an unfair advantage, there is no remedy until after the election, and no way to determine if it would have affected the outcome. With the small amount of funds, violations that would otherwise be insignificant play a much bigger part.

Re:I hate to be negative...

[kbielefe]

I think the matching funds thing just sounds like lip service, since those who need the money the least get the most from the general fund.

I think I explained it wrong. If you are privately funded and you raise $1000, all your publicly funded opponents get $1000 from the general fund, but you get nothing from the general fund.

Taxpayer support? The money should come from those who want to spend it. The campaign contributions should all go thru one agency/filter. They all put their money in a pot, and they all draw from it equally.

The point is that no one wants to spend their money to fund candidates they don't agree with, so the only way it works at all is to fund it through taxes. I'm all for people having an equal opportunity to speak. I just don't think I should have to pay for it. There's a huge difference between equal opportunity and enforcing equality.

Don't know if you want to run yet? You don't get to dip into the pool yet, either.

The trouble is, when you put this together with the rule about not spending any money outside the fund, what do you do when you want to use a web site that was developed before you became eligible for funding? That web site would be an "extra" expenditure. That's just one example of things that pop up when you actually put it into practice.