Free culture
The internet as a commons
Since the beginning of the “information revolution” there has built up a tension between the rights of the owners of information and other intellectual property and the practical ability and desire of others to exploit that property using the developing technologies. This tension heightened considerably with the popularisation of the internet and the web as […]
Free Culture – the extended Remix
Remix: making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy (published in the UK by Bloomsbury Academic) is the latest in Lawrence Lessig‘s series on regulation of cyberspace. Lessig is undeniably the leading thinker on copyright in the digital age and, though many label him a radical, his arguments derive from those of earlier leading […]
Corruption 2.0
Corruption 2.0: The Next Problem Technology Must Solve was the title of Larry Lessig’s SCL 2008 Lecture last night. But, not to disappoint the largely IT/IP law-interested audience, in the event it was a distillation of his arguments about regulation and specifically copyright regulation in Code, The Future of Ideas and Free Culture with Corruption […]
The Future of Ideas
A little bit of a stir erupts as Lawrence Lessig persuades Random House to release his (2001) The Future of Ideas, in which he explores “the fate of the commons in a connected world”, under a Creative Commons licence. But don’t get too excited just yet. It’s currently available only as a single, dumb, 350-page […]
An optimal copyright term
Victor Keegan in How long should copyright last? covers the arguments for a shorter copyright term in the digital age. To exemplfy the absurdity of a strict application of copyrights, he points to Nate Andersen who reports that John Tehranian, a law professor at the University of Utah, totted up all the infringements he might […]
Where culture comes from
I can’t do better than quote verbatim from Jack Schofield in the Guardian Technology Blog: Over at Slate, Paul Collins makes the reasonable point that lots of examples of plagiarism may well come to light as more old works are digitised for Google Book Search. I should hope so! What he doesn’t point out is […]
Elvis is not going to produce any more recordings
In response to the proposed extension of UK copyright for recordings from 50 years to 95 years, Lawrence Lessig blogs on quantifying the value of the public domain pointing to this like-named paper by Rufus Pollock. He also refers indirectly to an article by Eric Flint for Jim Baen’s Universe Copyright: How Long Should It […]
Holiday reading?
Probably not in there with your Dan Browns, but here’s a some webby books I’ve read recently or plan to (listed oldest first). You could do worse than feed your brain with one of them this Summer. Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace (Paperback) by Lawrence Lessig (August 2000) A Brief History of the Future: […]
Free Culture
I’ve just ordered a nice print edition of Larry Lessig’s Free Culture – per one reviewer (and my snatches of it confirm this) – a “focused, measured argument of the issues around preserving and extending digital creativity”. Many feel it’s cool to cite his blog in their blogrolls. I don’t find that compelling reading; on […]
