Lessig – Remix
Lawrence Lessig is releasing a new book in the next few months entitled “Remix”. In the book, Lessig essentially argues that the current incarnation of the law is strangling creativity. From the Amazon review:
America’s copyright laws have ceased to perform their original, beneficial role: protecting artists’ creations while allowing them to build on previous creative works. In fact, our system now criminalizes those very actions.
Without a doubt, computers are aiding a revolution in the way music is made. Sampling is much simpler now that high performance desktop computers are available fairly cheaply and the internet means accessing music in a form ready to be edited is easier than before. Holding a home music revolution back is the legal jiggery-pokery surrounding the continued extension of copyright terms. Holding back software development with old (unsupported) code is the idea of software being treated as equivalent to other forms of intellectual property.
It’s clear that a shake-up is needed given that large media corporations are able to apply to America’s Congress for copyright extensions and have the help of the FBI in raiding homes of all sorts of regular citizens who were interested in listening to the latest Metallica album (as an example of an artist who aggressively defend their IP).
Lessig outlines three ideas in “Remix”:
- The war on our kids has to stop
- We need to celebrate (and support) the rebirth of a remix culture
- That a new “hybrid” form of business will flourish as we better enable this remix creativity
I am keenly looking forward to the release of this book.
