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[FYI] Lawrence Lessig on the fate of copyrights and computer networks in the digital future.
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- Subject: [FYI] Lawrence Lessig on the fate of copyrights and computer networks in the digital future.
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- Date: Sat, 8 Jun 2002 10:36:30 +0200
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http://www.reason.com/0206/fe.jw.cyberspaces.shtml
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June 2002
Cyberspace’s Legal Visionary
Lawrence Lessig on the fate of copyrights and computer networks in
the digital future.
Interviewed by Jesse Walker
[...]
Reason: When you were interviewed on Slashdot, you sometimes seemed
angry at that site’s community of open-source programmers and
advocates. You said they were "political slugs," "pathetically
apolitical," and addicted to "irrelevant bickerings." What were you
getting at?
Lessig: In a sense I’m trying to shame them into doing something.
These people, more than anybody, understand the values built into the
Internet. But they are among the least politically active segment of
our community, out of libertarianism or just a deep skepticism about
the use of government. They just don’t want to pay any attention to
it, don’t have any respect for what government does.
If they were to become more politically active, however distasteful
that may be to them, that could begin to put a check on what is
achievable by others who have no hesitation about being politically
active.
Reason: Some of them would argue that they’re active in the form of
civil disobedience.
Lessig: In a world where civil disobedience was treated with
toleration, that might be a good strategy. But we’re in a world where
disobedience is treated with felony convictions. The idea that you
are going to get lots of civil disobedience against the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act is just crazy. You’re going to get lots of
prosecutions and people going away to jail. The cost of disobedience
has become too high, and I’m not sure it’s a viable strategy anymore.
There’s some basic cultural differences here. Many of the people who
have great ideas in the Slashdot context about the way to run the
world -- if you put them in Washington, they just don’t fit.
Reason: Aren’t you facing the same problem? Some of the proposals in
Future are guaranteed to be political non-starters. The chances that
Congress is going to adopt five-year renewable copyright terms in
this political context are zero.
Lessig: I am not writing because I think it’s likely that policy
makers will sit down and figure this stuff out right now. I’m more
writing about what I think is true, and hoping that eventually a
group of people who have the time to think through it will try to do
something about it.
Over 15 or 20 years, the movement that Reagan is associated with got
the world to think about policy things differently, through many
small chips at taken-for-granted assumptions about the world. So
eventually it can happen.
[...]
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