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Reviews * "To those attorneys given to reflection upon the human experience as the context for our profession, Free Culture will provide much to contemplate." Does Copyright Law Inhibit Creativity? - The Vermont Bar Journal & Law Digest, Winter, 2005 * "Free Culture is one of the few things written about the "copyright war" in the U.S. that goes beyond the "companies vs. pirates" view." Our Free Culture - Janra, June 17, 2004 | Comments (0) * "Vous croyez que le droit d’auteur protège les artistes? Qu’il permet une plus grande diversité culturelle? Free Culture vous fera voir les choses… différemment. Son auteur, Lawrence Lessig, n’est pas contre le concept du droit d’auteur, il est contre ce qu’il est devenu au fil des ans – et des amendements législatifs." Free Culture: ce que devrait être le copyright - Gilles Guénette, June 15, 2004 | Comments (0) * "It's an interesting and provocative book, and one that ought to be read by artists and others who make their living creating, buying and selling pieces of culture. The history and context of the commercial exploitation of creative work might help readers understand its future, too." Author Analyzes Subversion of Copyright Law - Richard Pachter, May 20, 2004 | Comments (0) * "In an age of information technology, control of the culture is a critical battleground. Free Culture is a lucid introduction to the problem, an impassioned contribution to the fight, and a fine slogan to rally around." * "Loaded with fascinating examples, Free Culture is a thought-provoking read, though at times it slows under the weight of repetition. It's a book designed to make you angry at the status quo, and on that level it works superbly well, but those hoping that Lessig will come down squarely on the side of the millions of file-swapping Christian teenagers will be disappointed." * " There is much to Prof Lessig's arguments, but I think he is overly pessimistic. I see the music industry's behaviour as desperate. There are too many people downloading free music to stop it. In a New York Times interview in 2002, David Bowie said: 'The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years . . . I'm fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist.'" Michael Skapinker, Free world makes for hard times, May 18, 2004. (subscription required) | Comments (0) * "In his new book, Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity, Lessig takes on the entire system of cultural ownership and production. The book's subtitle is awkward, and slightly misleading, since his target isn't so much big media as 'Big Copyright.'" Andrew Potter, Will it be free, or feudal?, May 17, 2004. | Comments (2) * "Lessig writes about the music business (naturally), as well as architecture, copy machines, software, drugs and other aspects of what's been placed under the umbrella of 'intellectual property.' It's an interesting and provocative book, and one that ought to be read by artists and others who make their living creating, buying and selling pieces of culture. The history and context of the commercial exploitation of creative work might help readers understand its future, too."Richard Pachter, Big media firms twisting intellectual property laws, professor writes, May 13, 2004. | Comments (0) * "Anyone seeking an intellectual justification for what music and film companies regard as simple theft starts at Stanford. . . No wonder, as readers will discover. [Lessig] has a brilliantly fertile mind, and laces his attacks on corporate forces such as the Recording Industry Association of America with vivid stories and lucid reasoning. As a sympathiser with companies, and the role of the profit motive in encouraging innovation and spreading wealth, I did not expect to find as much of his argument as persuasive as I did."John Gapper, Creative control The case for - and against - extending intellectual property rights, May 15, 2004. (subscription required) | Comments (0) * Dagens Nyheter, a Swedish daily newspaper Sverker Lenas, Kulturens banemus, May 3, 2004. (in Swedish) | Comments (0) * "Free Culture is a more focused, measured argument of the issues around preserving and extending digital creativity than Lessig's earlier book, The Future of Ideas, though his critics would probably argue there's still too much of the ad hominem in it (just look at the subtitle). Hey ho. Lessig certainly takes considerable time to tease apart the binary standpoints of those who would rather control all creative material via All-Rights-Reserved copyright and those who would like everything free (as in beer as well as speech)."Mark Broatch, Counting the cost of strong IP laws, April 24, 2004 | Comments (0) * "Once again Lessig calls to our attention the increasing disconnect between law and digital culture. We see studio moguls, recording executives and Beltway insiders all seeking to impose what Lessig calls an 'extremist' agenda by divorcing copyright law from its moorings in the Constitution as a balanced copyright bargain struck between creators and the public. Instead, we're now seeing a new brand of intellectual property, where digital 'property' rights are valued above all else and "piracy" is portrayed as the common enemy." * "Read Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig's new book 'Free Culture' and you're likely to agree with his conclusion that he's told a "dark story." The way Lessig sees it, big bad media companies and their henchmen in Washington are threatening to all but obliterate creative expression. Like some Hollywood mafia family, the conglomerates and their lawyers are using copyright law as a club against well-meaning artists, and extorting music-downloading teenagers out of their last dimes. After awhile, it's tempting to roll your eyes at all these gloomy pronouncements by an author seemingly striving for the title of the Internet age's Nostradamus. But dig beneath the proclamations of doom, and you'll find that Free Culture is yet another book well worth reading by one of the nation's most thoughtful cyberlawyers." Seth Stern, Butterflies May Be Free, But Should Expression Be?, April 16, 2004 | Comments (0) * "Why does the Recording Industry Association of America bring enormous punitive lawsuits against high school kids who have used their browsers to download MP3s? Why do online archives grind to a halt in the face of a copyrighted poem? And why does Congress now enjoy the effective power to renew copyrights in perpetuity -- even though no less an authority than the U.S. Constitution states flatly that such congressional grants can exist only "for limited Times"? Stanford law Professor Lawrence Lessig looks at these and other mysteries of U.S. copyright enforcement in "Free Culture," a more judicial-minded sequel to his earlier book 'The Future of Ideas.'" Chris Lehmann,A critical eye on copyright law, San Jose Mercury News, April 11, 2004 | Comments (0) * "'Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity' is, for this argument, a depressing book. Over the past half-century, the copyright powers owned by creators have grown enormously in duration, scope, reach and force. Lessig chronicles the creeping expansion, and he concludes that because of the powers granted to authors by the law and by technology, "Never in our history have fewer had a legal right to control more of the development of our culture than now." The book can thus be read as a kind of eulogy for Mickey Mouse. While the cartoon character might still live on, protected by a cadre of lobbyists who descend on Washington every time his legal status is threatened, the ideas Mickey embodies -- the power of creativity, the freedom to create -- face an uncertain future." Farhad Majoo,The mouse who would be king, Salon.com, April 8, 2004 (subscription required) | Comments (0) * "Lawrence Lessig is a gloomy soul. And the little black clouds floating over the head of this lawyer, a Stanford Law School professor and one of America's best-known commentators on intellectual-property issues, show little sign of disappearing any time soon. In Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity, he insists that our very ability to make cultural products is newly endangered. Although this book is far from a breezy read, it offers an accessible and compelling case for the need for balance: The power that copyright holders have over their works must not limit the ability of others to produce related new creations." Heather Green, Creativity in Chains, Business Week, April 5, 2004 (subscription required) | Comments (0) * "Lessig became one of American's foremost public figures on issues of the law and technology.... at least until Eldred vs. Aschroft, the Supreme Court case in which Lessig defended Eric Eldred's rights against Congress' brand new law hypercharging Big Media's power to sue the little guy into oblivion. In front of the world, Lessig got his ass handed to him by Justice Ginsberg in a 7-2 decision that was the judicial equivalent of cutting off Lessig's hand, informing him of the true identity of his father, throwing him down an air duct and leaving him hanging on to a weathervane on the underside of Bespin City mewling piteously for the Millennium Falcon. In the aftermath of the case Eldred himself was, as it were, dipped in carbonite and shipped off to Jabba the Hut, while Lessig retreated to seclusion to think his options through. Now, in 2004, Lessig's training is complete and he is ready to continue his battle against the Empire. He's even constructed his own lightsaber, a new book entitled Free Culture. It rocks..." Alex Golub, Gapers' Block, April 2, 2004. | Comments (1) * "The shrinking of the public domain, and the devastation it threatens to the culture, are the subject of a powerfully argued and important analysis by Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law School and a leading member of a group of theorists and grass-roots activists, sometimes called the ''copyleft,'' who have been crusading against the increasing expansion of copyright protections. Lessig was the chief lawyer in a noble, but ultimately unsuccessful, Supreme Court challenge to the copyright extension act. ''Free Culture'' is partly a final appeal to the court of public opinion and partly a call to arms." Adam Cohen, 'Free Culture': The Intellectual Imperialists, New York Times, April 4, 2004. | Comments (2) * "Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig has long starred in these battles, serving as a top general for the troops seeking open access and sharing. Often the first intellectual to understand and explain new technologies, Mr. Lessig is the country's most prominent critic of restrictions on computer users and advocate of the public domain. He is also a prolific writer, and has just churned out his third book on information technology and freedom, "Free Culture." Nicolas Thompson, Setting Mickey Mouse Free, New York Sun, March 24, 2004 (not online) | Comments (1) * "His new book is his most casual and most accessible. His prose is improving as he drops the footnote-heavy habit of legal writing and adopts a bloggier style driven by anecdotes and personal revelation. And what anecdotes he has -- Lessig's years on the barricades have given a surprisingly large collection of tales that will make any artist or citizen cringe." Peter Wayner, Slashdot, March 25, 2004. | Comments (0) * "In looking after us, Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, has his eye on the eternal. With an idea he may have cribbed from Kafka's parable "The Coming of the Messiah," he's proposed that copyright protection should last forever less one day. That way it would be limited, the way the framers of the Constitution wanted it. That's right, you have Valenti's permission to rip, mix and burn on the day before the world ends. You probably won't even have to return the DVDs you rented the night before." A.S. Hamrah, A Pirate's Life For Me, New York Newsday, March 28, 2004. | Comments (0) * "Big Copyright is one special interest that Republican strategists should love attacking. What's to fear, that Hollywood will end its generous support of Republican candidates? And talk about wedge issues. Voters under 40 are already more Republican than any other generation. What if the administration stood with them on this issue, proposing a cap on the damages that the industry can extract from college students for downloading music? Say, $1 a song, or even $10, instead of $150,000. Karl Rove could put that on the table, sit back and let John Kerry choose between his contributors and our kids. If that happens, Mr. Lessig could end up next to Ralph Nader in the pantheon of liberals that the Republican Party has learned to love." Stewart Baker, Wall Street Journal, W6, March 26, 2004 | Comments (1) * "As the rest of "Free Culture" makes clear, the arcane ins and outs of today's copyright battles now mask a much deeper cultural struggle in which the stakes have grown unthinkably high." Chris Lehmann in the Washington Post | Comments (0) * "Free Culture . . . is a provocative and engaging polemic against The Man for trying to keep down his peeps hanging on the Net." * "Contrary to Lessig's rants, today's technology has made creators freer than ever to devise and distribute original works. But technology has also given consumers powerful weapons of mass reproduction with strong potential for abuse. The intellectual property issue of our time is how to balance the rights of creators and consumers." * "It's never too late to try a little common sense, Lessig says. It's only one of the things that makes him such an unusual law professor -- and such an important voice in the ongoing copyright wars." * |
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Free
Culture by Lawrence Lessig How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity Hardcover | 5.00 x 7.51 in | 348 pages | ISBN 1594200068 | 25 Mar 2004 | The Penguin Press |
