14 Nov
Larry Lessig: Creativity Strangled By The Law
From the 2007 TED Conference: Larry Lessig offers an elegant presentation of “three stories leading to an argument.” The Net’s most adored lawyer brings together John Philip Sousa, celestial copyrights, and the “ASCAP cartel” to build a case for creative freedom. He pins down the key shortcomings of our dusty, pre-digital intellectual property laws, and reveals how bad laws beget bad code. His argument is strong, as far as it goes…but what it doesn’t address is remixes leading to profits for the sites where they are displayed or driving traffic to their own sites (again leading to profits) which are not shared with the original artists. But he still makes some terrific points.