March 17th, 2005
Lessig calls for copyright law remix
Larry Lessig made a call for the reform of copyright law this morning at Etech. Remixing culture is nothing new. Throughout history people have been doing it in “ordinary ways,” mainly with text. This is how cultures are made, Lessig said. But now, new technologies have changed the ordinary ways so does that mean that our freedoms change as well? It comes down to either reforming the law or reforming the technology, and since 1998 Congress decided to reform the latter to conform to 18th century law, according to Lessig. To wage the war, he advised four things we can do:
- Connect to lawmakers waging the war against new technology and speak their language
- Teach them about how powerful it is by showing them what kids do with the technology
- Change/update the idea of intellectual property
- Punish those who don’t get it (and join IPac)
Also check out Phil Windley’s take.
