This is our last week of class and the topic is remixing and copyright law using StephenColbert's interview with Lawrence Lessig as the focal point of study. Lessig, an advocate of change to the copyright law as it is now, has written a book titled “Remix:Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy.”
Wikipedia gives an excellent bio of Lessig. In it they note “he is a director of the
Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard
University and a professor of law at Harvard Law School Stanford Law
School Creative Commons Software
Freedom Law
Center
Lessig certainly has an estimable career and believes firmly that copyright law needs to be changed in order to move this society forward. As it is, in Lessig’s view, the law makes criminals of our young instead of encouraging them to be creative and collaborative.
I find myself still believing firmly in the copyright law,
but I am also going to try and look at copyright law through the eyes of
Lessig. His focus is more on video and
music copyright rather than text. He
brings up the examples of kids mixing copyrighted music with YouTube video and
in turn used by the same media companies who issue threats when that said music
is downloaded. What Lessig is looking
for is a more lenient copyright law that would allow for downloading of music
by kids for their own creative purposes.
A suggestion for remix of the Colbert interview with Lessig was included with this assignment. It was optional. And, as I thought of ways to do it, I realized it could be done with music with a Creative Commons license. Also, I find I cannot do it out of respect for Lessig.
Resources:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/215454/january-08-2009/lawrence-lessig
http://www.amazon.com/Remix-Making-Commerce-Thrive-Economy/dp/1594201722#_
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig
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