Free culture
Lessig details the history of copyright law as it pertains to digital media, how it has affected creativity and expression online. Title for the hardcover and PDF versions: Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity
Stats for nerds
28recommend
62mentions
53people
2008–2026years
52% recommend45% neutral3% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Lawrence Lessig’s book Free Culture is a great read in this space. It discusses all the societal issues with long copyright terms. Mostly, long copyright terms are driven by Mickey Mouse. Every time Mickey is near going into the public domain, Disney lobbies Congress for an extension. This has an impact on culture in that culture is a mashup of all the things that have gone before. Disney, for instance, made a fortune making animated movies based on stories that were existing fairy tales and legends and therefore out of copyright. Now, Disney wants to prevent others from doing the same with its characters. Yes, we want creators compensated. But we can do that without letting copyright policy be driven by the special interests of a global mega corporation like Disney.
- I didn't mean us two. I meant the collective consensus.
You didn't win. You lost. Read Free Culture by Lessig.
> My point is. Nobody cares about your conversation especially when ALL of those conversations you're referencing are utterly wrong.
Who the hell is "nobody"? Everything you've said so far is "not even wrong", it's utterly nonsensical. Go read what's been said about the topic for the last two decades, then come back and debate from an informed point of view.
Go back to pirating your games while decrying the harm it does. Your position is so inconsistent it makes no sense to debate you.
- > Wait, I thought we decided we were using the word "theft" informally.
Nope. We were discussing with someone else (before you chimed in) who argued it was exactly theft.
When shown this was false, the person argued it was morally equivalent (this was also false).
> Again, if you want to nitpick over the word "theft" look at the long list of examples I posted above
I'm not nitpicking, you're factually wrong.
Have you read important works about the distinction, such as Lessig's "Free Culture"?
It's frustrating because this is akin to discussing, yet again, the moral panics of the olden days, long settled but (apparently) brand new generations without an understanding of the past want to resurface them.
- For those who don't know the specifics of intellectual property law:
Copyright is unwavering. The law says that the author/owner gets exclusive use of that content for a really fucking long time (something like life + a century, thank you Disney lobbyists). Full stop.
The courts recognize that that lack of nuance is unreasonable. Therefore, they have ruled that copyright law doesn't apply if the use is "fair," hence the phrase "fair use." There's no hard-and-fast way to know if something is fair use. You're basically betting that if you ever get sued, the court will be on your side. There are axioms that the court has given (for instance, if you are making money from your use, it's less likely to be fair) that help you guess if the ruling leans in your favor.
The reason for these exemptions is that it's in the public's interest for certain kinds of expression to transcend copyright, such as news and satire. (This is also where the folks belief that you can't get in trouble if it's a parody come from.)
"Clearance and Copyright," and "Free Culture" are both great books to learn more about this. The author of the latter, Larry Lessig, is the guy who fought Disney's copyright lobby in court. His experience inspired that book, and also inspired him to found the Creative Commons.
All of that is to say that there are carve outs to copyright where the public interest overrides the private content monopoly, and a public official speaking in an unflattering way certainly qualifies.
[update] apparently those axioms were actually codified into law in 1976, but they are still merely defensive - nudges for how the court might rule, not protections in their own right.
- If you haven’t read Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture, I highly recommend it for addressing some of these issues. It’s vintage now but all the arguments are still relevant. Lessig was one of the drivers of the Creative Commons licenses.
- I still can't believe that everyone alive in the 21st century has been damned to forego a vibrant public domain because some lawyers were afraid Mickey Mouse might fall out of copyright.
Free Culture by Larry Lessig was an excellent book on the subject. He fought the copyright extension in the Supreme Court and founded the Creative Commons. The experience showed him the degree to which money has corrupted the US political system, so he moved his expertise from intellectual property to election reform. He was briefly a protest candidate for president, who vowed to make his reforms and then resign.
