by Lawrence Lessig
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Product Description
Lawrence Lessig, “the most important thinker on intellectual property in the Internet era” (The New Yorker), masterfully argues that never before in human history has the power to control creative progress been so concentrated in the hands of the powerful few, the so-called Big Media. Never before have the cultural powers- that-be been able to exert such control over what we can and can’t do with the culture around us. Our society defends free markets and free speech; why then does it permit such top-down control? To lose our long tradition of free culture, Lawrence Lessig shows us, is to lose our freedom to create, our freedom to build, and, ultimately, our freedom to imagine.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 essential for 21st century, 2008-09-30
our culture is becoming increasingly digitized and intellectual property is an oft-disputed domain. this book is absolutely essential if you have any concern towards media and policy regarding said media.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
A lucid, thoughtful defense of moderation in copyright law and preservation of the public domain, 2008-08-03
It is indicative of the widespread misconceptions about the nature and purpose of intellectual property law that Bill Gates could get away with so foolish a statement as to conflate the open source movement with communist dogma.
And it is to such misguided notions that professor Lessig responds with this work. The issue at stake with the current debate on copyright, Lessig contends, is not a simplistic battle of unrewarded creators against thieving pirates, as the content industry would have us believe. Nor is it a conflict between those who support individual property rights and aspiring property abolitioners. If anything, such strawmen have been set up for no other purpose than to vilify moderates on the copyright debate and frame discourse on a divisive ideological basis.
Contrary to media perceptions, those attempting to subvert the status quo have been the intellectual property extremists who favor limitless copyright terms, instead of the careful balance between incentives for creative work (through the state-enforced copyrights), and infusion of creative work into the public domain after a reasonable time frame.
That balance has been the rationale behind modern copyright law, and not the misguided notion that a corporation may hold perpetual ownership of the ideas conceived by its employees - "for ever minus one day", per Jack Valenti's infamous quip. This latter restrictive, extremist approach to copyright, Lessig argues, would hamper the fertilization of public domain with new ideas, stifle innovation and go to the face of copyright law's goals.
"Free Culture" provides numerous examples of how the eventual flow of copyrighted works into the public domain buttresses innovation and creativity ; how the staunchest sponsors of limitless copyright extensions have they themselves tapped into the public domain for some of their most cherished values, and how creativity, just as much as artistic and individual liberties are compromised by the tidal wave of copyright extremism.
In light of the encroachment upon consumer rights, creative freedom and the public domain by such restrictive measures as anti-circumvention laws and retroactive copyright extensions, Lawrence Lessig's book is an eloquent, indispensable call for some long-needed moderation in copyright policy.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Free Mickey, 2008-04-07
This is a must read as the issues that Lessing addresses have implications that go way further than the entertainment industry. I agreed with almost all of his argument although I did find at some point he was pushing it BUT overall he makes a righteous argument and I choose that word "righteous" carefully. This is an issue that effects all of us in everything from education to health care and his arguments resonate in these times of wars for oil and legalized dope dealing by the health care industry. Freeing Mickey is really the least of it but nevertheless lies at the center of the issue and makes a great symbol. However I caution the potential reader to not multitask and read this book while viewing The Pirates of The Caribbean as the outcome is that they will go on to raise the colors and break the law!
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
A must-read for anyone interested or concerned about copyrights, 2007-10-24
This book is not only a history lesson on copyright, but it shows how big corporate enterprises obtain and used material, through the same methods they now want to deny the general public, in order to get to the powerful presence they are today.
Example: Disney using lots of old fairy-tales which were in public domain. And today they fight for everything never to go into public domain in order to keep profit to themselves, while at the same time going after creative use that would expand our culture and art.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Fascinating, 2007-10-09
This book is worth the price just to hear the constant process of American culture - be a pirate, fend off "the man" to build your industry, become "the man," then go after the pirates who are presumably cutting into your business. Money makes hypocrites of us all. Please, RIAA, don't sue me for reading this book (although I'm sure you'll find a way, if there aren't any grandmothers or poor college students you can harass).
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