Lessig Blog Archives

video TOSs compared

Posted on May 13, 2009 by Lessig

Markus Weiland has compiled an interesting comparison of the different terms of service for video hosting sites. You can read the report here.

Posted in good code | 5 Comments

Open Video Conference

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Lessig

New York, June 19-20, sponsored by the ISP at Yale Law School, and others.

Posted in free culture | 6 Comments

In my work to push citizen funded elections (the hybrid between public funding (which is citizen funds) and small-donor contributions (citizen funding)), I have been astonished and deeply depressed by the number of very rich souls who in theory should support this change, but who resist it because, as I sense, they don’t want to give up their own access to power.

These large Democratic Party contributors are different. They all signed a letter demanding the existing system be scrapped, and that citizen funded elections replace it.

Bravo. Reform begins at home.

Naomi Aberly
Grant Abert
Elaine Attias
Amb. Elizabeth Bagley
Smith Bagley
Robert Bowditch
William Budinger
James Kimo Campbell
Peter Copen
Rosemary Faulkner
Ron Feldman
Christopher Findlater
Murray Galinson
James Gollin
Lee Halprin
Francis W. Hatch
Arnold Hiatt
John Hunting
Greg Jobin-Leeds
John S. Johnson
Wayne Jordan
Craig Kaplan
Michael Kieschnick
Steve Kirsch
Arthur D. Lipson
Henry Lord
Anna Hawken McKay
Rob McKay
Sally Minard
Alan Patricof
Susan Patricof
Doug Phelps
Steve Phillips
Drummond Pike
Rachel Pritzker
Abby Rockefeller
Charles Rodgers
Marsha Rosenbaum
Manny Rouvelas
Vin Ryan
Deborah Sagner
Guy T. Saperstein
Dick Senn
Steve Silberstein
Alison Smith
William Soskin
Martin Stevenson
Pat Stryker
Ellen Susman
Steve Susman
Margery Tabankin
Kate Villers
Philippe Villers
Scott Wallace
George Wallerstein
Marc Weiss
Al Yates
Joe Zimlich

Posted in ChangeCongress | 7 Comments

from the enough-about-you department

Posted on May 4, 2009 by Lessig

So a bit sheepishly (as I’m in this film and really fat) (and I mean fat, not phat), let me push a favorite film by Brett Gaylor, RIP: A Remix Manifesto. The film is fantastic. Gillis (aka, GirlTalk) is amazing. And the technical execution (of course, the substance was a given for me) is extraordinary. If nothing else, remix the film (which you can at Brett’s OpenSourceCinema).

You can go to a screening, or host a screening, or buy a copy of this (CC-BY-NC) film on iTunes ($9.99), or pay whatever price you want at B-Side, or if you get it through the darknet, donate whatever you can to the company that made the film.

This is a rare filmmaker who practices what his film preaches. It is also a rare filmmaker who takes the time (and this took years) to understand a story well. Listen, and spread the word.

Read more in this great Wired piece. And thank you, Brett.

Posted in free culture, REMIX | 14 Comments

Wikipedians: Please vote (by May 3)

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Lessig

As I pleaded before, if you’re a Wikipedian (and if you’re not, you should be), and you’ve made more than 25 edits, then you are entitled to vote on whether Wikipedia should be relicensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (BY-SA).

If you are entitled, then please vote to make free culture interoperable. Voting ends May 3. That’s like minutes from now.

Creative Commons needs a coder

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Lessig

Creative Commons is hiring a software engineer after the amazing Asheesh Laroia is moving on to some very cool (and maybe secret so I won’t say more) project out East. If you can code for good, we pay some. More information here.

Posted in creative commons | Leave a comment

REMIX now ccFree

Posted on April 30, 2009 by Lessig

The Bloomsbury Academic Press version of REMIX is now Creative Commons licensed (CC-BY-NC). You can download the book on the Bloomsbury Academic page.

Posted in Uncategorized | 38 Comments

update on Warner Music (UPDATED) (AGAIN)

Posted on April 30, 2009 by Lessig

As you may have read me tweet, the organization that hosted me for this talk:

Received a notice that Warner Music had objected to its being posted on copyright grounds. Apparently, YouTube’s content-ID algorithm had found music in the video that they claimed ownership to. The organization is apparently responding by disputing the claim. I’ll report back when I hear more.

Meanwhile, Keith Irwin (site) has kindly gone through the talk and identified all the music that is used in the talk. All of that use is, imho, fair use. But here’s the list. Thanks to Keith for the work:

Danger Mouse – The Grey Album
DJ Mystik – Inspector Gadget Techno remix (no idea what record label)
The Muppets – Mah Na Mah Na (Muppets Holding Company <- Disney)
Diana Ross and Lionel Richie – Endless Love (Motown <- Universal)
DJ Unk – 2 Step (Koch Records)
Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em – Crank Dat Soulja Boy (Stacks On Deck <- Interscope <- Universal)
Girl Talk (IllegalArt)
will.i.am – Yes We Can (not released by a label)
Kutiman-Thru-You – Mother of all Funk Chords (not released by a label)

UPDATE: Apparently the protest filed by the uploader to the block was successful. This was the segment that was blocked. We’ll see if it sticks.

UPDATE II: I now have received the text of the block on YouTube. It said: “Your video, Part 2: Lawrence Lessig – Getting a Network the World Needs at OFC/NFOEC 2009, may have audio content from Mahna Mahna by The Muppets featuring Mahna Mahna & The Two Snowths that is owned or licensed by WMG.”

Posted in bad code, Copyright | 28 Comments

United carbon offset disappointment

Posted on April 27, 2009 by Lessig

I’m a big believer in carbon offsets (not so much the cap and trade game, but in the simple internalize-your-externality-sort). I talk about it in my Green Culture talk. IMHO, we all have an ethical obligation to offset our carbon footprint — now. My wife and I have been doing so for a couple years. We’re a couple months late buying credits for last year.

One reason we’re late (other than the obvious) is the insane complexity in calculating it well. I travel way too much. That’s the biggest chunk to cover. But to calculate it accurately requires churning through a pile of flights. I could estimate, no doubt. But I want something more accurate.

So I was really happy to see on the United page an announcement of a “Carbon Offset Program.” What I expected it to be was a simple way to at least know what the total carbon footprint from your flights for some period was (after all, they have all the data), and ideally, a simple way to buy offsets.

No such luck. United has simple linked to one of the million places where you can calculate a per flight carbon cost. It allows you to input total miles flown, but its Mileage Plus page doesn’t give you total miles flown, it gives you the total added to your account (included bonuses, etc.)

Looking forward to version 2.0.

Posted in bad code | 14 Comments

Fiction as policy in the New York Times (the book version)

Posted on April 27, 2009 by Lessig

Looks like novelist Mark Helprin is back. You might remember that in 1997, Helprin published an oped in the New York Times praising, as Peter Jaszi put it, perpetual copyright terms “on the installment plan.” (Helprin insists he doesn’t support perpetual terms; he just likes extending terms now to assure that grandchildren get the benefit of an authors work.) At the time, I invited the lessig-wiki community to pen a response. And amazing even to me, an extraordinary response they penned.

NPR retells the story today because apparently Helprin has a book which will be released on the 28th — “Digital Barbarism: A Writer’s Manifesto.” (Note: if you buy Helprin’s book from that link, Creative Commons will get the money.) The NPR page includes an interview with me (in my flu-ridden, 102 degree fever state, I’m terrified to listen to it again). But I am eager to read the book, and even more eager to read the review on the wiki.

Posted in creative commons, free culture, just plain wrong | 13 Comments