The author of Free Culture shows how we harm our childrenaand almost anyone who creates, enjoys, or sells any art formawith a restrictive copyright system driven by corporate interests. Lessig reveals the solutions to this impasse offered by a collaborative yet profitable ahybrid economya.

Lawrence Lessig, the reigning authority on intellectual property in the Internet age, spotlights the newest and possibly the most harmful culture waraa war waged against our kids and others who create and consume art. Americaas copyright laws have ceased to perform their original, beneficial role: protecting artistsa creations while allowing them to build on previous creative works. In fact, our system now criminalizes those very actions.

For many, new technologies have made it irresistible to flout these unreasonable and ultimately untenable laws. Some of todayas most talented artists are felons, and so are our kids, who see no reason why they shouldnat do what their computers and the Web let them do, from burning a copyrighted CD for a friend to abitinga riffs from films, videos, songs, etc and making new art from them.

Criminalizing our children and others is exactly what our society should not do, and Lessig shows how we can and must end this conflictaa war as ill conceived and unwinnable as the war on drugs. By embracing aread-write culture, a which allows its users to create art as readily as they consume it, we can ensure that creators get the supportaartistic, commercial, and ethicalathat they deserve and need. Indeed, we can already see glimmers of a new hybrid economy that combines the profit motives of traditional business with the asharing economya evident in such Web sites as Wikipedia and YouTube. The hybrid economy will become ever more prominent in every creative realmafrom news to musicaand Lessig shows how we can and should use it to benefit those who make and consume culture.

Remix is an urgent, eloquent plea to end a war that harms our children and other intrepid creative users of new technologies. It also offers an inspiring vision of the post-war world where enormous opportunities await those who view art as a resource to be shared openly rather than a commodity to be hoarded.

"Should anyone besides libertarian hackers or record companies care about copyright in the online world? In this incisive treatise, Stanford law prof and Wired columnist Lessig (Free Culture) argues that we should. He frames the problem as a war between an old 'read-only' culture, in which media megaliths sell copyrighted music and movies to passive consumers, and a dawning digital 'read-write' culture, in which audiovisual products are freely downloaded and manipulated in an explosion of democratized creativity. Both cultures can thrive in a 'hybrid' economy, he contends, pioneered by Web entities like YouTube. Lessig's critique of draconian copyright laws — highlighted by horror stories of entertainment conglomerates threatening tweens for putting up Harry Potter fan sites — is trenchant. (Why, he asks, should sampling music and movies be illegal when quoting texts is fine?) Lessig worries that too stringent copyright laws could stifle such 'remix' masterpieces as a 'powerful' doctored video showing George Bush and Tony Blair lip-synching the song 'Endless Love,' or making scofflaws of America's youth by criminalizing their irrepressible downloading. We leave this (copyrighted) book feeling the stakes are pretty low, except for media corporations." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

The author of "Free Culture" shows how the current copyright system harms anyone who creates, enjoys, or sells any art form. Lessig, the reigning authority on intellectual property, argues that artistic resources should be shared openly rather than a commodity to be hoarded.