Category Archives: free culture

Somethings old, somethings new, lots that’s borrowed, none that’s blue. Watch it at the TED site here.
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So I’m back in the USA, welcomed with this very good news.
Months ago, we started a petition here calling on both parties to demand that presidential debates be free. Obama, Edwards, Dodd joined the call immediately. Congressman Livingston (Ret.) did so as well. CNN agreed quickly afterwards. But now, as MoveOn.org reports, ABC/NBC have taken significant steps to join the move to free the presidential debates. ABC’s policy is that footage is “without restrictions on use.” NBC’s is slightly more restrictive — “provided the primary intent is not commercial and that candidates don’t use NBC moderators in ads.”
These are both extremely important moves in the right direction. There will be important ambiguity in what “not commercial” means here (as we’ve been working through with CC licenses). But the move clears the field of unnecessary legal questions — which was the primary objective in our original call last April.
Thanks to everyone who joined the call, and especially the presidential candidates who took the lead in demanding it. Continue reading →

The Washington Post published this op-ed today. While my announcement about changing channels said I was not promising to go silent on these issues, this article was accepted by the Post long before my announcement. Continue reading →

So I posted the entry calling on people to write a reply to the Helprin piece, and then got on a plane in Boston. When I landed in Frankfurt, I got an email: “Wow! Pretty amazing wiki article.” And indeed it was (and is) — filled with useful facts and ideas, structured and accessible. A real improvement on the Lessig-averages no doubt.
I would have focused the attack in much the same way, though with some differences in emphases. In my view, the right answer comes not so much from careful attention to the metaphysics of property, but from a practical consideration of the burdens of different copyright systems. Where we know that after a very short time, the vast majority of work has no continuing commercial value at all, and that after a relatively short period of time, we’ve provided authors with all the incentives to create they could possibly need, what justification is there for the continued burden of copyright regulation? That question leads some to say “none,” and others to say (ala Posner), “well, at least require those wanting an additional term to take affirmative steps to claim it.” But all who adopt this practical perspective conclude the term should be well short of infinity.
The other thing that struck me about the essay was a point that often gets lost in the rhetoric around “originality” and “remix.” This debate is often couched in terms of “respect” for the author. The problem with the remixer, I’ve been told again and again, is that he doesn’t respect the author.
But compare Helprin’s piece with Jonathan Lethem’s, “The Ecstasy of Influence.” Lethem’s is constructed through the words of others. Helprin’s barely cites anyone. Yet Helprin’s topic is perhaps the most familiar in the history of copyright law. There must be a thousand interesting places where people have considered the same issue, and provided interesting, and compelling responses. (One favorite is Nimmer’s: “If I may own Blackacre in perpetuity, why not also Black Beauty? The answer lies in the first amendment. There is no countervailing speech interest which must be balanced against perpetual ownership of tangible real and personal property. There is such a speech interest, with respect to literary property, or copyright.” Melville B. Nimmer, Does Copyright Abridge the First Amendment Guaranties of Free Speech and the Press?, 17 UCLA L. Rev. 1180, 1193 (1970).)
Yet Helprin doesn’t bother with what others have written. He wakes up one morning puzzled by a feature of law that has been with us for more than two centuries, and rather than research the question a bit, or think about it in light of what others have said, he just fires off an op-ed to the New York Times.
Now between Lethem’s piece (pure remix) and Helprin’s (pure Helprin), which is more respectful of authorship? Continue reading →

So I’ve gotten (literally) scores of emails about this piece by Mark Helprin promoting perpetual copyright terms. “Write a reply!” is the demand. But why don’t you write the reply instead. Here’s a page on wiki.lessig.org. Please write an argument that puts this argument in its proper place. Continue reading →

Next week, Harvard will hold this year’s Free Culture National Conference. Go, join, multiply! Continue reading →

MSNBC wrote to me to say that the policy I quoted them as having respecting the Presidential Debates is not, in fact, their policy. We’re having a constructive conversation about what the policy should be. Meanwhile, here’s their statement to me.

As the producers of two Presidential Candidates’ debates so far this year, NBC NEWS, MSNBC and MSNBC.com believe strongly in our public interest obligations and the importance of a robust political dialogue on the internet.
The MSNBC / Politico.com GOP Debate and the MSNBC Democratic Candidates debate were both aired commercial free on MSNBC cable. In addition, the debates were streamed live in their entirety at our free website MSNBC.com, where both debates continue to be available through election day 2008 for streaming, in their entirety as well as in segments. The GOP debate also streamed live at Politico.com. Other news organizations as well as news and information websites are free to use substantial portions of both debates on their television, radio, and internet platforms. (Specific usage information has been released separately by NBC media relations.)
In the weeks ahead and until Election Day 2008, we will continue to make our coverage widely available on many platforms, and we welcome the ongoing conversation on ways to bring these important events to an even broader audience of Americans.

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When we launched CC Brazil, Glenn Brown and I christened a term that I’ve had to invoke way too much — W2C4M — Way too cool for me. The launch of Free Culture South Africa was W2C4M^2.