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Quote by Lawrence Lessig

“As more and more citizens express what they think, and defend it in writing, that will change the way people understand public issues. It is easy to be wrong and misguided in your head. It is harder when the product of your mind can be criticized by others. Of course, it is a rare human who admits that he has been persuaded that he is wrong. But it is even rarer for a human to ignore when he has been proven wrong. The writing of ideas, arguments, and criticism improves democracy.”

Quote by Lawrence Lessig

Book:Free Culture
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Free Culture

Free Culture delves into the transformative effects of the internet on the traditional models of copyright, creativity, and commerce. The book examines how digital technology has changed the landscape of culture, including music, film, and literature, and the implications of these changes for society, artists, and consumers. more

Author

Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence Lessig

Lawrence Lessig is a distinguished political activist and legal scholar, recognized for his work in intellectual property law, copyright, and governance. He has been a professor at Harvard Law School and is the founder of the Creative Commons movement. more

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“I think the reality is that copyright law has for a very long time been a tiny little part of American jurisprudence, far removed from traditional First Amendment jurisprudence, and that made sense before the Internet. Now there is an unavoidable link between First Amendment interests and the scope of copyright law. The legal system is recognizing for the first time the extraordinary expanse of copyright regulation and its regulation of ordinary free-speech activities.”

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Author:Lawrence Lessig
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“There is a regulation of behavior on the Internet and in cyberspace, but that regulation is imposed primarily through code. The differences in the regulations effected through code distinguish different parts of the Internet and cyberspace. In some places, life is fairly free; in other places, it is more controlled. And the difference between these spaces is simply a difference in the architectures of control--that is, a difference in code.”

DifferentLife IsDifferencesSpaceInternetBehaviorArchitectureCodeControlledRegulationCyberspace
Book:Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace, Version 2.0
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“We live in a world with "free" content, and this freedom is not an imperfection. We listen to the radio without paying for the songs we hear; we hear friends humming tunes that they have not licensed. We tell jokes that reference movie plots without the permission of the directors. We read our children books, borrowed from a library, without paying the original copyright holder for the performance rights.”

WorldChildrenBookSongRightsDirectorsJokesPerformancesOur ChildrenOriginalsLibraryRadioTunesPlotImperfectionPermissionBorrowedCopyrightHummingChildren BookChildrens Book
Author:Lawrence Lessig
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“A free culture supports and protects creators and innovators. It does this directly by granting intellectual property rights. But it does so indirectly by limiting the reach of those rights, to guarantee that follow-on creators and innovators remain as free as possible from the control of the past. A free culture is not a culture without property, just as a free market is not a market in which everything is free. The opposite of a free culture is a "permission culture" -- a culture in which creators get to create only with the permission of the powerful, or of creators from the past.”

DoePastCulturePowerfulSupportRightsProtectIntellectualOppositesPropertyCreatorGuaranteesPermissionFree MarketProperty RightsInnovatorsGuarantees ThatIntellectual Property
Author:Lawrence Lessig
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“We are a cut-and-paste culture. The aim of the protectionists is to argue that a cut-and-paste culture is criminal. Well, it's only criminal if there's nothing out there that you can freely cut and paste. If we increasingly mark material as available for these non-commercial uses, then people will have the opportunity to see its importance.”

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Author:Lawrence Lessig
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“Monopolies are not justified by theory; they should be permitted only when justified by facts. If there is no solid basis for extending a certain monopoly protection, then we should not extend that protection. This does not mean that every copyright must prove its value initially. That would be a far too cumbersome system of control. But it does mean that every system or category of copyright or patent should prove its worth. Before the monopoly should be permitted, there must be reason to believe it will do some good -- for society, and not just for monopoly holders.”

IfsShouldBelieveMeanDoeReasonFactsWould BeCertainValuesTheoryProveBasesProtectionCategoriesJustifiedMonopolyProve ItPatentsExtendingCopyright
Author:Lawrence Lessig
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“As I've indicated, most books go out of print within one year. The same is true of music and film. Commercial culture is sharklike. It must keep moving. And when a creative work falls out of favor with the commercial distributors, the commercial life ends.”

YearsBookEndsFilmMovingFallCultureCreativeFavorsPrintKeep MovingCreative WorkDistributors
Book:Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity
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