Customer comments on this selection.
 A lucid, thoughtful defense of moderation in copyright law and preservation of the public domain
It is indicative of the widespread misconceptions about the nature and purpose of intellectual property law that Bill Gates could get away with so foolish a statement as to conflate the open source movement with communist dogma.
And it is to such misguided notions that professor Lessig responds with this work. The issue at stake with the current debate on copyright, Lessig contends, is not a simplistic battle of unrewarded creators against thieving pirates, as the content industry would have us believe. Nor is it a conflict between those who support individual property rights and aspiring property abolitioners. If anything, such strawmen have been set up for no other purpose than to vilify moderates on the copyright debate and frame discourse on a divisive ideological basis.
Contrary to media perceptions, those attempting to subvert the status quo have been the intellectual property extremists who favor limitless copyright terms, instead of the careful balance between incentives for creative work (through the state-enforced copyrights), and infusion of creative work into the public domain after a reasonable time frame.
That balance has been the rationale behind modern copyright law, and not the misguided notion that a corporation may hold perpetual ownership of the ideas conceived by its employees - "for ever minus one day", per Jack Valenti's infamous quip. This latter restrictive, extremist approach to copyright, Lessig argues, would hamper the fertilization of public domain with new ideas, stifle innovation and go to the face of copyright law's goals.
"Free Culture" provides numerous examples of how the eventual flow of copyrighted works into the public domain buttresses innovation and creativity ; how the staunchest sponsors of limitless copyright extensions have they themselves tapped into the public domain for some of their most cherished values, and how creativity, just as much as artistic and individual liberties are compromised by the tidal wave of copyright extremism.
In light of the encroachment upon consumer rights, creative freedom and the public domain by such restrictive measures as anti-circumvention laws and retroactive copyright extensions, Lawrence Lessig's book is an eloquent, indispensable call for some long-needed moderation in copyright policy.
 Free Mickey
This is a must read as the issues that Lessing addresses have implications that go way further than the entertainment industry. I agreed with almost all of his argument although I did find at some point he was pushing it BUT overall he makes a righteous argument and I choose that word "righteous" carefully. This is an issue that effects all of us in everything from education to health care and his arguments resonate in these times of wars for oil and legalized dope dealing by the health care industry. Freeing Mickey is really the least of it but nevertheless lies at the center of the issue and makes a great symbol. However I caution the potential reader to not multitask and read this book while viewing The Pirates of The Caribbean as the outcome is that they will go on to raise the colors and break the law!
A must-read for anyone interested or concerned about copyrights
This book is not only a history lesson on copyright, but it shows how big corporate enterprises obtain and used material, through the same methods they now want to deny the general public, in order to get to the powerful presence they are today.
Example: Disney using lots of old fairy-tales which were in public domain. And today they fight for everything never to go into public domain in order to keep profit to themselves, while at the same time going after creative use that would expand our culture and art.
Fascinating
This book is worth the price just to hear the constant process of American culture - be a pirate, fend off "the man" to build your industry, become "the man," then go after the pirates who are presumably cutting into your business. Money makes hypocrites of us all. Please, RIAA, don't sue me for reading this book (although I'm sure you'll find a way, if there aren't any grandmothers or poor college students you can harass).
 Obscure and not totally convincing (3.25 *s)
The author is a well-known advocate for "free culture," a culture where creators and innovators are supported and protected, which he claims is part of our tradition. Copyright laws have ensured that authors have a property right in their work for a limited duration. Part of the reason for a limitation is that cultural advancements and change have always drawn upon past culture to produce the new. Copyrights extending into perpetuity would harm cultural growth.
The author is alarmed by two developments: the extension of copyright to 95 years from an original period of 28 years via the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) of 1998 and, with the rise of the Internet and the ease of copying and sharing content, the ability of technology controlled by big media companies to discover copying, whether illegal or not, and their willingness to rigidly enforce, even unfairly, copyright laws. Ironically, as he points out, many large companies in film, television, and music have often advanced by borrowing content from past work. Now it seems that similarly-situated companies want to slam the door shut.
Not all use of copyrighted materials is illegal. There is the legal concept of "fair use," where such material is incidentally used not for direct financial gain. But the author claims that we are becoming a "permission" culture, where expensive, legal action is required to gain access to copyrighted material for even innocuous purposes. The author gives several examples where users of original content were clearly not involved in piracy, yet found themselves on the losing end of legal proceedings largely because of a lack of sufficient resources.
The author shows a narrow legal perspective with his view that he had considered the massive consolidation of media that has occurred over the last few decades to have had a non-harmful impact on creativity (p 164). Now he is changing his mind. He apparently ignored the tremendous amount of commentary on the ability of huge media corporations to censor independent views and to dumb-down the culture, if not engage in propaganda.
One of the prime motivating factors for this book was the author's role in a losing effort as the principal litigator in Eldred vs. Ashcroft at the Supreme Ct, which was an attempt to overturn the CETA on the Constitutional right of Congress to promote progress in ideas by granting exclusive rights to works and discoveries for a limited time. In reviewing his arguments, the author admits to not demonstrating a decided decrease in creativity due to copyright extension. And that is a problem with the book.
The book is actually somewhat obscure. The interaction of computer software and technology within and over the Internet combined with the application of copyright law is vaguely presented. Beyond some horror stories, it's hard to determine the true impact on creativity. The author agrees that selling copyrighted material without compensating the author is illegal whether on or off the Internet. There is no doubt that commercial web sites can impose any restrictions on accessing their content, regardless of copyright status. The author seems to suggest that cracking down on replicating thousands of copies of copyrighted content on the Internet stifles creativity and is contrary to the precedence established by reading or reselling books. But such issues within the scope and instant access of the Internet are complex and are far from being resolved.
Far more persuasive in terms of suppressing the free advance of ideas in our society is the growth of mega-corporations squeezing out small producers of cultural content and homogenizing our culture. Within such huge organizations independent voices like journalists are controlled or silenced. The free and widely disseminated exchange of ideas so vital to a vibrant democracy is hurt by the massive consolidation of the media intent on not offending and accommodating the status quo. The author notes the rise of web-logs on the Internet. It is unclear as to whether such random postings can counter the huge trend of controlling information.
Our culture is suffering. We as a society and as individual citizens are uninformed and lack empowerment. No more evidence is needed than our political debacles and international misadventures over the last few years. Overagressive enforcement of copyrights on the Internet may be problematical but is hardly our main problem in the assault on a free culture.
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