Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity

Lawrence Lessig, andldquo;the most important thinker on intellectual property in the Internet eraandrdquo; (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 canandrsquo;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.

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.

Lawrence Lessig is a professor at Stanford Law School and the founder of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. The author of The Future of Ideas and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, he is the chair of the Creative Commons project. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Cambridge University, and Yale Law School, he has clerked for Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Judge Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Preface

Introduction

"PIRACY"

Chapter One: Creators

Chapter Two: "Mere Copyists"

Chapter Three: Catalogs

Chapter Four: "Pirates"

Film

Recorded Music

Radio

Cable TV

Chapter Five: "Piracy"

Piracy I

Piracy II

"PROPERTY"

Chapter Six: Founders

Chapter Seven: Recorders

Chapter Eight: Transformers

Chapter Nine: Collectors

Chapter Ten: "Property"

Why Hollywood Is Right

Beginnings

Law: Duration

Law: Scope

Law and Architecture: Reach

Architecture and Law: Force

Market: Concentration

Together

"PUZZLES"

Chapter Eleven: Chimera

Chapter Twelve: Harms

Constraining Creators

Constraining Innovators

Corrupting Citizens

"BALANCES"

Chapter Thirteen: Eldred

Chapter Fourteen: Eldred II

Conclusion

AFTERWORD

Us, Now

Rebuilding Freedoms Previously Presumed: Examples

Rebuilding Free Culture: One Idea

Them, Soon

1. More Formalities

Registration and Renewal

Marking

2. Shorter Terms

3. Free Use Vs. Fair Use

4. Liberate the Music - Again

5. Fire Lots of Lawyers

Notes

Acknowledgments Index