In Defense of Piracy is Lessig‘s latest, in The Wall Street Journal. Some bottom lines:
| …our attention is not focused on these creators. It is focused instead upon “the pirates.” We wage war against these “pirates”; we deploy extraordinary social and legal resources in the absolutely failed effort to get them to stop “sharing.” |
| This war must end. It is time we recognize that we can’t kill this creativity. We can only criminalize it. We can’t stop our kids from using these tools to create, or make them passive. We can only drive it underground, or make them “pirates.” And the question we as a society must focus on is whether this is any good. Our kids live in an age of prohibition, where more and more of what seems to them to be ordinary behavior is against the law. They recognize it as against the law. They see themselves as “criminals.” They begin to get used to the idea. |
| That recognition is corrosive. It is corrupting of the very idea of the rule of law. And when we reckon the cost of this corruption, any losses of the content industry pale in comparison. |
| Copyright law must be changed. Here are just five changes that would make a world of difference… |
Specifically, deregulate amateur remix, deregulate “the copy“, simplify, restore efficiency, and decriminalize Gen-X. Under “simplify”, he says, “Tax-code complexity regulating income is bad enough; tax-code complexity regulating speech is a First Amendment nightmare.”
All helpful reform fodder for the new Congress and Administration.
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