lol...Tom I was channeling Lessig
but seriously folks..."Take my wife, please"
The quote from the article starts at the
beginning with the quotation marks and ends
with the closed quotes.
""Washington, D.C.: ....and ends
with...culture are doomed. "
ok....here's the article
"
Transcript
Copyright in the Digital Age
Lawrence Lessig
Professor, Stanford Law School
Wednesday, April 14, 2004; 1:00 PM
Stanford Law School professor Lawrence
Lessig was online to discuss his book, "Free
Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and
the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control
Creativity." In his book, Lessig argues that
the entertainment industry conspires with
Congress to use copyright law to destroy our
traditional notion of freedom in culture.
washingtonpost.com reporter David McGuire
moderated the discussion.
A transcript follows.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators
retain editorial control over Live Online
discussions and choose the most relevant
questions for guests and hosts; guests and
hosts can decline to answer questions.
_____________________________________________
___
David McGuire: Dr. Lessig, thanks for
joining us. In your new book: "Free Culture:
How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to
Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity,"
you argue that the debate over piracy has
obscured a larger movement on the part of
the media industry (movie, music and
software makers) to "remake the Internet,
before it remakes them." How, practically,
is that movement unfolding? Where are those
battles being fought?
Lawrence Lessig: The content industry has
done a good job convincing the world that
the internet will enable what they call
"piracy." That has obscured the fact that
the internet will also enable an
extraordinary potential for creativity. And
it has obscured the fact that the weapons
they use to eradicate "piracy" will also
destroy the environment for this
"creativity." They spray DDT to kill a gnat.
We say: "Silent Spring."
_______________________
Bellingham, Wash.: What are your thoughts on
the debate on anticircumvention regulations
and how they may impact fair use? Do
antipiracy concerns outweigh the importance
of allowing legitimate uses of circumvention
software (for example, by DVD owners making
backup copies)?
Lawrence Lessig: The anticircumvention
regulations of the DMCA have been
interpreted in a way that does plainly
restrict any sensible understanding of "fair
use." They are therefore regulations that
will be found, imho, to violate the
constitution. As the Court indicated in
Eldred, fair use has a constitutional basis.
Congress is not free simply to remove it.
Thus whether Congress -- "persuaded" by the
content industry -- believes that antipiracy
concerns outweigh the constitution or not,
no law may outweigh the constitution.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: You are on the board of
the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which
has recently volunteered to defend alleged
copyright infringers that are being sued by
copyright holders, the RIAA.
As a law professor and a copyright holder
yourself (Free Culture book), do you feel
that the RIAA has a legitimate gripe in
protecting what property is legally belongs
to them?
Would you support a foundation established
to defend literary copyright suits, if
professors were to crack down on student
text book copying - or even worse, yours?
Lawrence Lessig: I believe that copyrights,
properly defined and reasonably balanced,
ought to be defended by copyright owners,
and organizations (whether the RIAA or
others) devoted to defending such rights.
I'm sure everyone at the EFF believes the
same. But just as a lawyer who defends
someone charged with auto theft does not
therefore support auto theft, so too with
the EFF: They are, rightly, defending the
rights of individuals that they believe,
rightly, should not be prosecuted in this
way under this law.
As a law professor -- and more importantly,
as a citizen of the United States -- I
absolutely support their actions. We here
are supposed to believe in the right to a
defense. We are supposed to believe that
laws are not to be overreaching in their
effect. We are supposed to oppose abuse of
the power of prosecution. And I
fundamentally oppose those who would
question anyone who would defend rights that
our constitution was designed to guarantee.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: Good afternoon - Prof.
Lessig, will you state once and for all that
the widespread theft (or whatever term you
wish to apply) of copyrighted works online
is illegal? Can the conversation about
copyrights in the digital age at least
recognize this? Don't you feel that it is a
dangerous society that believes that because
the Internet lets you do something, it is
permissible to do so...whether morally or
legally right or wrong? I find that in all
of your articulate presentations, you seem
to blame the people who create and invest in
the creation of music, movies etc. and place
no blame on those who take those works
without compensating the artists/copyright
holders.
Lawrence Lessig: Great question. First, I
have "recognized" this. Here's a great
derivative work of my book -- permitted
because I released my book free under a
Creative Commons license. (
http://trevor.typepad.com/blog/free_culture_lawrence_lessig_purple_numbers.html) On that
page, each paragraph of my book has been
marked by its own url. As you'll see at
paragraphs 84, 110, 367, 372, 377, 382, 388,
389, to mark a few. Or go to (
http://free-culture.org) and download the
book and look at the section "Why Hollywood
is Right" beginning at 124.
But my whole point is that if we as a people
can think about only one issue at a time,
then we as a culture are doomed. For if we
set our policy focused on one end only --
ending piracy -- then we will end a
tradition of free culture as well.
Yet the content industry has done so well
because they've convinced DC that there is
really just one issue out there -- piracy.
And they certainly are more successful than
I in shaping this debate. So it may well be
that we as a people can think about only one
issue at a time. And again, if so, then we
as a culture are doomed.
_______________________
Takoma Park, Md.: Is it fair to call
pervasive free availability of any
copyrighted song anyone can think of a
"gnat"? I appreciate your concerns but it
seems to me that you're downplaying the
impact of file-sharing on creative
industries.
Lawrence Lessig: Is it fair? Well, what's
the harm. In my book, I assumed there was a
substantial harm, and the question I asked
is: how might we minimize the harm while not
destroying the internet or its potential. So
I would push for different policies even
assuming the gnat is a lion.
But since my book was published, there has
been substantial work -- by independent
researchers, not paid by the content
industry or anyone else -- to suggest that
there is no substantial harm from p2p
sharing. More precisely, that when you add
up all the effects (people exposed to new
content which they buy, etc.), the effect of
sharing is statistically indistinguishable
from zero.
Whether you buy that analysis or not -- and,
I think we should remain skeptical about it
until it has had a good chance for further
peer review -- I do think that relative to
what we lose by waging this war, the
interests of one particular industry are
small.
By this system of federal regulation, we are
creating a regime of creativity where the
only safe way to create is to ask permission
first. You might think that's simple, but
just try it someday. But I'm with those who
think that there's something fundamentally
wrong about this regime, whether it is
simple or not. I as an academic don't need
anyone's permission before I write an
article criticizing someone else. But the
same freedom is not accorded a filmmaker, or
webmaster, under the rules as they exist
today.
_______________________
Madrid, Spain: Do you really think there
will be a unbreakable technology to protect
CD, video or stop MP3 exchanges in the web?
In others words, is it possible to protect
intelectual property with a piece of
software? Do you really think the
technological measures will be effective?
Lawrence Lessig: By "do you really think"
you make it sound as if I've suggested such
a "solution." I have not. Indeed, I think
all solutions that rely upon technology to
control access suffer important and
unavoidable costs. More importantly, an arms
race around technologies for locking up and
liberating content is a waste. We should
push for a regime that helps assure artists
get paid without simultaneously breaking the
most valuable features of the internet.
_______________________
New Orleans, La.: Do you think that the
Court's strict constructionist reading of
the Copyright Clause in Eldred blows open
the door to the continued and expanding
success of special interests appropriating
the public domain?
Lawrence Lessig: Yes, it absolutely does. By
ignoring the original meaning of the
constitution's text -- indeed, by ignoring
even the text, for the Court does not even
try to explain what the words "to promote
the Progress of Science" means -- the Court
has given Congress, and lobbyists, a
green-light to continue what they have done
so well over the past 40 years -- extend the
term of existing copyrights. It is totally
obvious that in 2018, there will be another
bill to extend copyright terms. It is
totally obvious that all the money in the
world will be spent by those who have
copyrights that are about to expire. And
totally obvious that nothing (yet) in the
Court's jurisprudence that would stop such
an extension.
Now of course, there's lots that can, and
must be done, independent of the Court.
PublicKnowledge.org, for example, is doing a
great deal of good to get Congress to
consider reasonable balances in the field of
copyright. They have, for example, taken up
the challenge of getting congress to pass
the Public Domain Enhancement Act, which
would require a copyright owner, 50 years
after a work has been published, to register
the work and pay $1. If the owner pays the
$1, he or she gets the benefit of whatever
term Congress has set. If he or she does
not, the work passes into the public domain.
We know from historical data that more than
85% of copyrighted work would pass into the
public domain after just 50 years under such
a regime -- clearing away a mass of legal
regulation governing the ability of people
to reuse culture. But even this reasonable
proposal is being resisted by, for example,
the MPAA.
_______________________
Georgetown: Isn't the source of the problem
in copyright law the extension of the
copyright to derivative works? This aspect
of copyright should be limited or eliminated
after, say 50 years. That way Disney would
be able keep selling its classics while the
others would be able to use the work as the
basis for new creations.
Have there been any such proposals in
Congress?
Lawrence Lessig: This is a great suggestion.
Yes, the one really radical way in which
copyright law today differs from the
copyright law our framers gave us is
derivative rights: They didn't protect them,
and we do. And that extension does, in my
view, muddy many issues. I understand and
support laws which control the ability of A
to sell a verbatim copy of B's copyrighted
work without B's permission. But whatever
wrong that is, it is totally different from
the "wrong" of building a work based on B's
work. Our law does not adequately
distinguish between the two, and it should.
A shorter term might be one solution. I
suggest others in my book. But it is plainly
an area where serious reform could do
serious good.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: How is distributing copies
of copyrighted works to a stranger without
the authorization of the artist, as in P2P,
not a violation of copyright? Do you not
agree that an artist's ability to copyright
his work, if he chooses to, creates
incentives for that artist to innovate and
create? Without intellectual property
protections incentives to innovate
disappear.
Lawrence Lessig: So I answered something
close to this question before, so I won't
repeat what I said there. But in summary:
(1) "How is distributing copies of
copyrighted works to a stranger without the
authorization of the artist, as in P2P, not
a violation of copyright?"
It may be under the law as it is just now.
I've not contested that generally.
(2) "Do you not agree that an artist's
ability to copyright his work, if he chooses
to, creates incentives for that artist to
innovate and create?"
OF COURSE I do! Absolutely it does. And most
of my work these days is devoted to making
it easier for ARTISTS to choose how best to
deploy the rights the law gives them. (see,
e.g.,
http://creativecommons.org).
(3) "Without intellectual property
protections incentives to innovate
disappear."
In some contexts, absolutely correct. In
other contexts, no. There's plenty of
incentive to innovate around Shakespeare's
work, even though no one has a copyright in
Shakespeare. There's would be plenty of
incentive for law professors to blather on
endlessly in law review articles, even
without copyright protection. In my view,
rather than treating (3) as a matter of
ideology, we should treat (3) as a question
of fact: IP is a form of regulation;
regulation makes sense where it does more
good than harm. So we should be asking where
IP protection does more good than harm.
_______________________
David McGuire: Does the pending case of 321
Studios over its DVD X Copy software --
which allows users to make copies of their
DVDs -- seem to you a likely vehicle to
address some of these fair use concerns
before the Supreme Court?
Lawrence Lessig: I don't think the Supreme
Court is ready for these issues. I thought
it was. I was wrong. I believe 321 should
prevail in the case, and I hope it does. But
the hysteria around this "war" is too great
just now for this Court to consider the
matter with the usual balance of judgment it
has displayed in (most) copyright cases.
_______________________
Alexandria, Va.: If a company has a valuable
copyright and it wants to continue making
money off it, why should it not be able to
renew that copyright forever? I understand
what copyright law says, but isn't it naive
or even greedy to suggest that everything we
create should ultimately be given away?
Lawrence Lessig: Well, first one might point
out that the Constitution says Congress can
grant copyrights to "Authors" not companies.
Second, one might observe that the
Constitution says Congress can secure
"exclusive rights" for "limited times." And
third, one might ask when the term granted
corporations is already almost a century,
who's being "greedy" here?
Of course one might well say the framers
were idiots about this, and we should reject
their wisdom and follow the wisdom of
corporate lobbyists on this. Maybe.
But I'd rather focus on the agreement we
have: you write, "why should it not be able
to renew that copyright forever?" I'm all in
favor of a renewal requirement. Indeed, I've
proposed a relatively long term (75 years)
so long as the copyright owner "renews" the
copyright every 5 year. No doubt that might
sound like a hassle -- and it is, given the
way the government typically does things.
But imagine one-click renewal. Imagine a
system that was simple. In that world, I'd
be totally ok with terms as long as they
are, so long as terms had to be renewed. We
know from history that the vast majority of
copyrights -- 85% - 95% -- would not be
renewed even after 28 years. So my aim -- to
minimize the senseless burden of endless
terms -- would be achieved with a renewal
requirement.
_______________________
Scranton, Pa.: It seems like you think the
entertainment industry's endgame is to
control all content from the cradle. At that
point, presumably, all content would be
puerile trash. But the industry likes this
idea because we've seen that the average
American consumer loves the smell of
garbage. Is this the depressing landscape
that you see on the horizon based on our
present course? Or is this scenario extreme?
Lawrence Lessig: I hope it is extreme. But
it is an aspect of what I fear. I think
ARTISTS and CREATORS are great. I think our
framers intended them to be benefited by
copyright law. But I believe our Congress
(and FCC) has produced a world where
PUBLISHERS (in the broadest sense of that
term) are the real beneficiaries of our
copyright system. And as they become fat,
slogging giants, the stuff they produce (or
allow to be produced) will be increasingly
awful.
_______________________
Anaheim, Calif.: Hello, Dr. Lessig. Is there
any way to clearly define the line between
fair use and infringement? I am not a
copyright expert nor am I a lawyer. Is there
a way to explain your answer in plain
English?
Lawrence Lessig: No, there is not, and that
95% of the problem. Fair use in America is
the right to hire a lawyer -- which is fine
for CBS, or NBC, but useless for most
creators. That's why I've proposed changes
that produce clear lines, rather than lines
requiring the services of $300/hr plus
professionals. The great thing about the
public domain, for example, is that it is a
lawyer-free zone. Anyone can use anything in
the public domain without asking permission
first (except if you use Peter Pan, but
that's another story all together...).
_______________________
Arlington, Va.: Reps. Boucher and Doolittle
have introduced a bill (H.R. 107) that seeks
to provide the kind of balance to the DMCA
that you suggest is important. Are you
familiar with and, if so, do you support
their legislation?
Lawrence Lessig: Yes, and yes. Boucher and
Doolittle have been rare but important
voices of balance in this debate. Zoe
Lofgren and Chris Cox too. All who believe
in sanity in this "war" should be doing
whatever they can to support these few,
brave souls. Especially Congressman Boucher,
who has a well funded opponent in this race
(funded by whom I wonder?)
_______________________
Flatland Crest, Mont.: You said earlier that
if we can only examine one issue at a time -
in this case piracy - then we as a culture
are doomed. Doomed to what? Will artists
fail to flourish because the entertainment
industry has a lockdown on copyright? I
doubt that a 13-year-old who set his or her
pen to paper and suddenly produces a
precocious, beautiful novel even knows what
"Fair Use" means.
Lawrence Lessig: I guess it depends on what
you think "fail to flourish" means. There
were many who thought art flourished in the
soviet union, even though the artist
couldn't publish or distribute his or her
art. Of course, we're not the soviet union,
but the same point is true nonetheless: I
don't believe we have a FREE CULTURE if
creativity is criminal. I don't believe we
respect the tradition of FREE SPEECH if the
act of remixing culture is an act that
requires permission from publishers first. I
don't believe we will have a vibrant FREE
MARKET if it is so heavily regulated by
lawyers. So even if in the dystopian future
I describe, a 13 year old is physically able
to create an "precocious beautiful novel,"
we don't live in a free culture unless she
can create that work without hiring a lawyer
first.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: In a recent article
published in Forbes by Stephen Manes, he
says that you are going to harm the creator
and reward the people doing illegal activity
as well as put "the U.S. at odds with
international law." How do you respond?
Lawrence Lessig: I've responded at length on
my blog:
http://lessig.org/blog. But I'll
say that there was no review that more
disappointed me than Mr. Manes'. I've got
great respect for Forbes the man, and Forbes
the magazine. And as, for example, Stu Baker
in the Wall Street Journal noted, my
argument is not really an argument for the
left. Indeed, as he argued quite
effectively, it is more powerfully an
argument for the right. (Copyright law, as
he put it, is the "asbestos litigation" of
the 21st century). So I was very surprised
both with the substance of Mr. Manes's
review (which was unthinking and
ill-informed) and with its tone (which was
rude and abusive). Both seemed to me to be
beneath the quality of the publication. And
as I said in my first response to Mr. Manes,
it just goes to show how much more work we
in this movement have to make to make our
ideas understandable.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: Hi Prof. Lessig - with
each book that you release on the subject of
IP rights and the 'net, I think you've
become more readable for the masses. I'm
thrilled with this, because I think these
issues are of incredible importance for
everyone. However, I think that there
remains a long way to go before the general
public thinks of "fair use" as anything
other than an excuse used by those
music-stealin' college kids. How can we
better present your (our) concerns to the
public in a way that helps them better
understand the importance of these things to
their lives?
Lawrence Lessig: Thanks for the kind words.
It is extraordinarily easy as a professor to
believe your ideas are clear and obviously
right. And the hardest lesson of the last 5
years for me has been the recognition of how
many ideas I was sure are right are, it
turns out, wrong, and how hard it is to make
the rest understandable. That's especially
hard for me, and it has taken many years to
learn differently.
I agree that it will take a great deal of
work to make these ideas even more
understandable. But I think the way to do it
is by showing people the law, not arguing
about it. Show parents the extraordinary
creativity the technology of Apple enables.
Show them what their kids can do with it --
the music they can make, the films they can
produce, etc. And then show them the billion
ways in which the law would deem that
creativity criminal. When people begin to
see that this is a war we're waging against
the next generation, they might begin to
wake-up to its threat.
(Then again, it's not as if our policy today
is really much concerned with our kids at
all. We don't tax ourselves so we can tax
our kids (deficits); we don't pay to clean
up our environment so our kids will; we wage
wars that will excite a generation of hatred
directed against -- again -- our kids. Etc.
So I guess it is not surprising that here
again, we wage a war whose primary target
and victims will be our kids.)
_______________________
Edgartown, Mass.: Good afternoon. Is this
the first time that you have permitted your
book to be made available for free on the
Internet? How are the sales of your latest
book stacking up against your previous
works?
Lawrence Lessig: It is the first time I've
succeeded in convincing my publisher, yes. I
have tried before, but am blessed this time
to have a great and innovative publisher
(Penguin Press) and an astonishing editor.
(It was my editor who did the real work
convincing the publisher). And sales are
going much better than with any other book.
But the part that has been the most
interesting and surprising to me is not the
sales. It is the derivative works. I
released my book under a Creative Commons
license, which left others free to make
derivative works. If you go here
http://free-culture.cc/remixes/ you can see
a list of the amazing number of "remixes" of
the book that people across the net have
made. There are many different formats
available now (we released a PDF only).
There are audio versions. There is a Wiki
(which allows anyone to change or extend the
book). I never expected the energy that the
net has demonstrated. And as that energy
will assure the ideas spread broadly, I am
extraordinarily grateful.
_______________________
San Francisco, Calif.: During the mid to
late 1970's, the music industry be came
moribund by it marketing ploys of only
promoting large sales music groups who could
fill arenas and stadiums. The response of
musicians and consumers to the lack of
creativity in rock music were the punk
movements and new wave which developed on
small independent labels. These were later
coopted into the larger music industry just
as rap was in the '90s. Are such
consumer/artist uprisings still possible in
our media controlled environment?
Lawrence Lessig: They are possible, but
would be more possible if the law was not
such a heavy handed regulator in this space.
More important to me, it would be possible
if labels would be more tolerant of
experiments by authors. Creative Commons,
for example, has launched a number of
licenses that enable authors to mark their
content with freedoms -- freedoms that will,
many believe, lead to more sales of records.
But these artists have been met with strong
resistance by the traditional labels. We
should all recognize something that no one
admits: None of us know what will work best
in the future. So in the face of that
ignorance, we must depend upon a competitive
market offering alternatives, and
encouraging experiments. And a room filled
with lawyers is not a great way to inspire
experimentation.
_______________________
David McGuire: Professor Lessig was good
enough to take an extra half hour to answer
more of the many insightful questions we
received. Unfortunately we're out of time.
I'd like to thank the professor for taking
the time to join us today and our audience
for contributing so many thoughtful
questions. "
George D. Ziemann
pepe512000
independentm...
CodeWarrior
ronnie71
hawk7771
