The most interesting part of the writers' strike

Posted on April 27, 2008 by Lessig

Just after the writer’s (and writers’) strike ended, Matt Prager (who worked for 15 years in Hollywood as a writer and executive) sent me this fantastic essay about what was really at stake in the strike (guess…). Here’s the start:

The WGA strike to date has been more or less characterized as a strike over money; most press reports have dealt with negotiation demands like residuals and up-front compensation on internet streams and downloads, jurisdiction over reality and animation, and other such issues. However, the press reports have missed the central, underlying issue of this strike: copyright. This battle is not “poor laborer” versus “greedy company” – everyone in Hollywood is pretty greedy frankly. Rather, in the same way that fiction is the business of Hollywood, so is the entire underpinning of Hollywood built on an enormous fiction. But to understand the fiction, you first need to understand some facts.

Here’s the balance.

Posted in free culture | 15 Comments

Change Congress @ UCSB

Posted on April 22, 2008 by Lessig

So here’s the last in this series for a while (I’m taking a break off the grid with my family starting next week — Madagascar). This version emphasizes the Framers and “independence.” Suggesting the meme — a new Declaration of Independence.

There’s a YouTube version which is better synced this time.

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

The RedState flap

Posted on April 22, 2008 by Lessig

Many of you have written about the REDSTATE blog entry, pointing to an excerpt of a talk I gave at Google in which I showed a video by Javier Prato in which Jesus is singing Gloria Gaynor’s “I will survive.” The YouTube video makes it seem as if this is all there was in my talk. And so my inbox has been filled with people outraged I would have made such a disrespectful video about Jesus, etc.

This will be obvious to everyone ordinarily here, but for the record:

(1) I did not make the “Jesus Christ: The Musical” video. Javier Prato did.

(2) I used the video in probably 5 or 6 out of 200 talks over the last three years, in the section of my talks in which I show examples of “remix” creativity.

(3) I show these videos not because I endorse the message, or even believe in the message. For example, here‘s a fantastically clever video about John Kerry I showed dozens of times during the 2004 election. It makes fun of Kerry — the man I supported for President. The point was not the substance of the message; it was to demonstrate the spread of the technique.

(4) The Jesus video was relevant to the story I was telling because the artist was threatened by the copyright holders because of the video.

(5) I decided to stop using the video when one Christian whom I knew told me he thought unhelpful to the purpose for which I was using it. That seemed right, so I dropped it.

It will be interesting (in a root canal kind of way) to see how far or deep PC-ism runs in this society.

Posted in Uncategorized | 52 Comments

Testifying @ FCC @ Stanford

Posted on April 18, 2008 by Lessig

I was asked to give some overview testimony at the FCC’s “Network Neutrality” hearing at Stanford yesterday. Here’s the testimony.

One panelist, George Ou, was particularly exercised about what he perceived to be a policy by Free Press and EFF to push for “metered access.” I don’t speak for the Free Press or EFF, but my view is simply that tiered access for consumers does not violate “network neutrality” principles. Obviously I’d prefer a world of flat rate, fast service. And if we actually had any meaningful ISP competition, we might get to that. But the narrow question I’ve addressed here is whether it would violate neutrality principles for ISPs to offer different bandwidth commitments for different prices. I don’t believe it does.

Posted in NetNeutrality | 55 Comments

A letter to Pennsylvania (or how to become a superdelegate)

Posted on April 16, 2008 by Lessig

I grew up in Pennsylvania, and went to university at Penn (as did just about everyone on my Dad’s side of the family). I spent a couple days near where I grew up about three weeks ago, speaking at Penn State and Bucknell, and then travelled to Philadelphia to speak at an Obama event at Penn.

It is surprising how home never quite leaves you, no matter how far away you may be. And so as I saw PA leading up to a primary, I thought about writing a letter. Pennsylvania was the last place where I dreamed about life as Superman (at the age of 7); here’s 9 minutes asking PA Democrats to become super-delegates.

(There’s a version at YouTube, but the quality is astonishingly poor. I don’t get the reason for the difference — it is the same file uploaded in both places. But the sync is way off.)

Posted in presidential politics | 16 Comments

CC Newsletter — this is really beautiful

Posted on April 9, 2008 by Lessig

Here‘s the latest CC newsletter. It is extraordinarily beautiful and well done.

Posted in creative commons | Leave a comment

The FCC @ Stanford

Posted on April 9, 2008 by Lessig

The FCC is coming to Stanford, Thursday, April 17. Read about it here.

Posted in NetNeutrality | 1 Comment

Please give comments on a lessig.org/blog comment policy

Posted on April 9, 2008 by Lessig

So I’d like to propose a policy change for comments at lessig.org/blog.

So far, my policy has been to delete comment spam only. I have not deleted any other type of comment, including (especially) comments critical of me or others.

I’d like to change that. I’d like to adopt a policy of deleting personal attacks on others. That means any comment that is directed against someone other than me, which is uncivil and attacking something other than the substance of what that person has written as a comment on my blog.

This change has been encouraged by many people, but prompted by one case in particular, where there’s apparently a stalker who is faking his/her ID (poorly, as I can see they all come from a common set of IP addresses), and attacking someone who left a couple comments on my blog. That’s not the sort of place I want here.

So I’d propose to ask a trusted volunteer to take requests to remove comments by people who believe they’re being uncivilly attacked. If that trusted volunteer agrees, the comment would be removed.

Again, and critically important: No comment attacking me or my work would ever be removed. This would only affect comments that were attacking others (1) uncivilly and (2) unrelated to what others have posted as comments on my blog.

Thoughts?

Posted in eye | 42 Comments

Tech Policy in an Obama Administration

Posted on April 9, 2008 by Lessig

If you’re near Philadelphia, and you’re interested in tech policy in an Obama administration, some key figures will be talking about it at the Wharton School. Saturday, April 12, at 5pm. Read about it here.

Posted in presidential politics | 2 Comments

will poker decide this election?

Posted on April 9, 2008 by Lessig

Watch the opening bid (read: tease) by the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society.

Posted in politics | 1 Comment