A free culture is not a culture without property; it is not a culture in which artists don't get paid. Lawrence Lessig More Quotes by Lawrence Lessig More Quotes From Lawrence Lessig If you are explaining, you're losing. It's a bumper sticker culture. People have to get it like that, and if they don't, if it takes three seconds to make them understand, you're off their radar screen. Three seconds to understand, or you lose. This is our problem. Lawrence Lessig three culture people [Congress] and their cronies secure more than one hundred billion dollars in corporate welfare Lawrence Lessig cronies welfare dollars Overregulation corrupts citizens and weakens the rule of law. Lawrence Lessig rule-of-law citizens law Power runs with ideas that only the crazy would draw into doubt. Lawrence Lessig crazy running ideas Some blame the drug companies. I don't. They are corporations. Their managers are ordered by law to make money for the corporation. They push a certain patent policy not because of ideals,but because it is the policy that makes them the most money. And it only makes them the most money because of a certain corruption within our political system-a corruption the drug companies are certainly not responsible for. The corruption is our own politicians' failure of integrity. Lawrence Lessig political law integrity For however much the state may gain by not having to fund roads on its own, society would lose in aggregate if the open commons of transportation were lost. Lawrence Lessig gains lost may Money corrupts the process of reasoning. Lawrence Lessig reasoning process This does not mean that every copyright must prove its value initially. That would be a far too cumbersome system of control. But it does mean that every system or category of copyright or patent should prove its worth. Lawrence Lessig patents doe mean I think the archaic idea is actually winner take all, because the principle of "one person, one vote" is a principle that was introduced as a fundamental principle in American law in 1962, long after states had moved to "one person, one vote." Lawrence Lessig law ideas thinking While the creative works from the 16th century can still be accessed and used by others, the data in some software programs from the 1990s is already inaccessible. Once a company that produces a certain product goes out of business, it has no simple way to uncover how its product encoded data. The code is thus lost, and the software is inaccessible. Knowledge has been destroyed. Lawrence Lessig data creative simple Creation always involves building upon something else. There is no art that doesn't reuse. And there will be less art if every reuse is taxed by the appropriator. Lawrence Lessig reuse creativity art Lawyers rarely test their power, or the power they promote, against this simple pragmatic question: "Will it do good?" When challenged about the expanding reach of the law, the lawyer answers, "Why not? Lawrence Lessig why-not simple law There's no reason for the electors to overrule the popular choice. Lawrence Lessig no-reason choices reason A free culture has been our past, but it will only be our future if we change the path we are on right now. Lawrence Lessig path culture past [Conservatives] go to church, they do lots of things for free for each other. They hold potluck dinners. ... They serve food to poor people. They share, they give, they give away for free. It's the very same people leading Wall Street firms who, on Sundays, show up and share. Lawrence Lessig wall motivation inspiration Americans have been selling this view around the world: that progress comes from perfect protection of intellectual property. Lawrence Lessig intellectual views perfect The popular choice, by more than 2 million votes, is a completely qualified candidate for president. Lawrence Lessig vote choices president Believing we know what makes prosperity work, ignoring the nature of the actual prosperity all around, we change the rules within which the Internet revolution lives. These changes will end the revolution. Lawrence Lessig internet-revolution prosperity believe Copyrights have not expired, and will not expire, so long as Congress is free to be bought to extend them again. Lawrence Lessig congress aggravation long All around us are the consequences of the most significant technological, and hence cultural, revolution in generations. Lawrence Lessig significant generations revolution