ETech: Lawrence Lessig
Some notes summarizing Lawrence Lessig's 15 minute speech today:
As technologies change, do freedoms change? Laws have not kept up with technology.
Intellectual property owners would rather limit remixed content. This means we can't teach younger generations how to use the tools they use everyday to be creative.
So, we either reform the law or reform the technology. Congress wants to reform the technology.
Here's how to fix the situation.
here's how to fix:
1. Connect more with the lawmakers. Call piracy, piracy (it's important to use their language). If the war was about getting music for free, it wouldn't be worth fighting. We must be willing to say there is something wrong with piracy. We need to be able to use today's technologies as people have always used words: to remix them.
2. Teach the lawmakers. Show them the value of what our kids are doing, the value of remixing.
3. Demand change in the laws that are radically out of date with the technologies. This is not a call for the end of intellectual property, but a call to update copyright laws so they are appropriate for the technology.
4. When they don't, punish them. Find ways to deliver the message effectively. Establish clear messages about what freedom means. In the north we believe in property and freedom, in the south it's property. We have to define the sane limits of property and defend our freedom. Quote from NPR reporter to Lessig: "It's a civil war." (he agrees)
He ended with a call to action, kind of: "We have to change the law because they will destroy your technology."
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