Category Archives: Uncategorized

So here’s an interesting struggle in a corner of creative space you might not expect it: Open Source Yoga. The attempt to resist the control of copyright over Yoga (yes, really) is described here.

Apparently these yoga people don’t realize that if yoga could only be propertized, and then sold to the highest bidder, it would be cared for, and protected. As Mr. Valenti has observed, without copyright protection, yoga is an orphan. But with perfect and perpetual copyright protection, it could be auctioned to the entity that could develop it best, and support its growth most strongly. Maybe Gold Gym could buy it, or MTV. Or maybe Mickey could take up yoga, after Disney bought yoga. See [a very interesting story in the LA Times from July 23 about the revival of Mickey’s image that I can’t link to because it is in a paid archive and Dave Winer hasn’t solved this problem yet]. The possibilities are endless. Continue reading →

So after the FUD about the FEC, EFF’s Marc Perkel has volunteered to host lessig.org and my blog. Thanks to all things EFF and especially Marc, and thanks to Jake Wachman and Patrick Berry for the extraordinary effort moving the site. Please update your links, if you want to keep following the thread, to http://lessig.org/blog, and RSS is here.

More on the FEC after I catch up, but thanks to Marc, Jake and Patrick again. Continue reading →

On the road, I�ve seen the power the Internet has to bring people together. In Austin recently, 3,200 people showed up for a rally�an experience that I found absolutely amazing. In Santa Fe, 2,000 people showed up, and in Seattle and Tucson, thousands showed up. All of these rallies were organized over the Internet. Only a few years ago building such an event would have taken months of preparation and a huge field staff. Today, it can be done online, and mostly by volunteers. I think that is a demonstration of how the Internet can help us restore active participation… Continue reading →

Thanks for the many, many comments. We’ve just arrived back to Vermont after six days on the road. I appreciate all the feedback. People asked what can be done about media deregulation. I think we need to re-regulate the media that has clearly abused its authority by censoring information that should be made available to the American people. Someone asked about the Patriot Act-we should repeal those parts that violate our constitution. In the second quarter, our campaign had over 73,000 donors. We have over 60,000 people on Meetup. Every one of them is making a difference. If everyone gets… Continue reading →

Thanks for all the comments on the blog last night. I haven�t had a chance to read all of the comments� we flew up from Miami to DC last night. But I will read them. Let me be perfectly honest. In the space of this week on the blog, I will not be able to answer every specific question. I know that people here care deeply about intellectual property. I�m here to listen. As a doctor, I�m trained to base my decisions on facts. This President never adequately laid out the facts for going to war with Iraq�perhaps, as it… Continue reading →

It�s been a busy day, but it�s great to blog here on Larry Lessig�s blog. I�ll be writing all week, but if there�s a day I can�t make it, Joe Trippi, my campaign manager, will fill in for me. Thank you Professor Lessig for inviting me. The Internet might soon be the last place where open dialogue occurs. One of the most dangerous things that has happened in the past few years is the deregulation of media ownership rules that began in 1996. Michael Powell and the Bush FCC are continuing that assault today (see the June 2nd ruling). The… Continue reading →

Joi Ito has posted a Privacy Report on technology and legislation across the world. It is available under a CreativeCommons license. Continue reading →

Doc has a brilliant and absolutely correct diagnosis at the American Open Technology Consortium website about how we lost in Eldred. Copyright is understood to be a form of simple property. The battle in Eldred thus sounded like a battle for and against property. On such a simple scale, it was clear how the majority of the Court would vote. Not because they are conservative, but because they are Americans. We have a (generally sensible) pro-property bias in this culture that makes it extremely hard for people to think critically about the most complicated form of property out there — what most call “intellectual property.” To question property of any form makes you a communist. Yet this is precisely our problem: To make it clear that we are pro-copyright without being extremists either way.

So deep is this confusion that even a smart, and traditionally leftist social commentator like Edward Rothstein makes the same fundamentally mistake in a piece published Saturday. He describes the movement, of which I am part, as “countercultural,” “radical,” and anti-corporate. Now no doubt there are some for whom those terms are true descriptors. But I for one would be ecstatic if we could just have the same copyright law that existed under Richard Nixon.

Our problem is, as Doc rightly points out, that we have so far failed to make it clear to the world who the radicals in this debate are. Until 1976, the average copyright term in the United States was 32.2 years (the maximum term was 56 years, but 85% failed to renew their copyright after 28 years). In the last forty years, that term has tripled — every single work copyrighted today will remain copyrighted for an average of at least 90 years. Rothstein says that lots has entered the public domain since 1928. Indeed, he is right. But that was because copyrights expired every year between 1928 and 1962, and copyright until 1976 required renewal for an author to get the benefit of a maximum term. Under current law, however, absolutely nothing created now will enter the public domain for at least a century. And because of the Sonny Bono Act, nothing will enter the public domain again in the United States until 2019.

How to change the debate is the hardest thing. But rather than philosophy, perspective and pragmatics seems the best way. Build a public domain (which CreativeCommons will help to do), and show people and companies how the public domain helps them. Indeed, of all the companies out there, this is the one point Disney should certainly understand: Now that they have won the Eldred case, they should be racing to embrace the Eldred Act. No company has depended more upon the public domain. The Eldred Act would give them much more to build upon. Continue reading →