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Quote by Lawrence Lessig

“"Writing" is the Latin of our times. The modern language of the people is video and sound.”

Quote by Lawrence Lessig

Author

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 if the copyright regime focuses on the people we are supposed to be helping, the artists and creators, and builds a system that gives them the freedom to choose and to protect and to be rewarded for their creativity, then we will have the right focus.”

People Ifs Thinking Giving Helping Artist Creativity Focus Protect Creator Supposed To Be Regimes Copyright Freedom To Choose

Author:Lawrence Lessig

“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.”

Doe Past Culture Powerful Support Rights Protect Intellectual Opposites Property Creator Guarantees Permission Free Market Property Rights Innovators Guarantees That Intellectual Property

Author:Lawrence Lessig

“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.”

People Ifs Wells Use Culture Opportunity Cutting Materials Importance Mark Aim Available Criminals Arguing

Author:Lawrence Lessig

“The legal system doesn't work. Or more accurately, it doesn't work for anyone except those with the most resources. Not because the system is corrupt. I don't think our legal system (at the federal level, at least) is at all corrupt. I mean simply because the costs of our legal system are so astonishingly high that justice can practically never be done.”

Thinking Mean Done Justice Levels Cost Resources Legal System

Author:Lawrence Lessig

“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.”

Ifs Should Believe Mean Doe Reason Facts Would Be Certain Values Theory Prove Bases Protection Categories Justified Monopoly Prove It Patents Extending Copyright

Author:Lawrence Lessig

“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.”

Years Book Ends Film Moving Fall Culture Creative Favors Print Keep Moving Creative Work Distributors

Book:Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity

Source: Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity

“It might be crazy to expect a high government official to speak the truth. It might be crazy to believe that government policy will be something more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests. It might be crazy to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our tradition for most of our history -- free culture. If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon.”

Source: Free Culture

“While appropriation art is critical to art, it's an ambiguous art form in the world of the Supreme Court.”

World Art Form Art Is Court Critical Supreme Supreme Court Ambiguous Appropriation

Author:Lawrence Lessig

“I have always been English, ever since I emigrated from England and since the kids in Canada beat me up at the age of twelve for having an East London Cockney accent. I thank them for the cockney taunts because the beatings turned me on to boxing. But on a serious note Canada has been kind to me.”

Kind Has Beens Kids Age Serious Beats England Notes East London Boxing Canada Twelve Accents Taunting Cockneys East London

Author:Lennox Lewis

“I've found that taking shortcuts will get you to the place you don't want to be much quicker than they get u to the place u want to be.”

Want Found Shortcuts

Author:Lennox Lewis