If the Internet teaches us anything, it is that great value comes from leaving core resources in a commons, where they're free for people to build upon as they see fit. Lawrence Lessig More Quotes by Lawrence Lessig More Quotes From Lawrence Lessig By the time Apple's Macintosh operating system finally falls into the public domain, there will be no machine that could possibly run it. The term of copyright for software is effectively unlimited. Lawrence Lessig apples running fall A free culture is not a culture without property; it is not a culture in which artists don't get paid. Lawrence Lessig property artist culture If the only way a library can offer an Internet exhibit about the New Deal is to hire a lawyer to clear the rights to every image and sound, then the copyright system is burdening creativity in a way that has never been seen before because there are no formalities. Lawrence Lessig library creativity rights Everybody's vote should count equally in the United States. Lawrence Lessig vote united-states should Overregulation stifles creativity. It smothers innovation. It gives dinosaurs a veto over the future. It wastes the extraordinary opportunity for a democratic creativity that digital technology enables. Lawrence Lessig creativity technology opportunity Remember the refrain: We always build on the past; the past always tries to stop us. Freedom is about stopping the past, but we have lost that ideal. Lawrence Lessig stopping trying past All of the great Disney works took works that were in the public domain and remixed them. Lawrence Lessig internet motivation inspiration Of all the creative work produced by humans anywhere, a tiny fraction has continuing commercial value. For that tiny fraction, the copyright is a crucially important legal device. Lawrence Lessig tiny important creative A free culture is not a culture without property; it is not a culture in which artists don't get paid. A culture without property, or in which creators can't get paid, is anarchy, not freedom. Anarchy is not what I advance here. Instead, the free culture that I defend in this book is a balance between anarchy and control. Lawrence Lessig balance artist book But it is as silly to think about peer-to-peer as applying just to music as it would have been to think about the Internet as applying just to pornography. Whatever the initial use of the technology, it has nothing to do with the potential of the architecture to serve many other extremely important functions. Lawrence Lessig technology silly thinking Code plus law is combining to reduce rights consumers used to have. Lawrence Lessig used rights law Companies will often use the legal system to scare people away from attacking them. But we all should be free to make critical statements about anybody, unless those statements are malicious. Lawrence Lessig scare use people I'm pushing for citizen equality not because of some moral idea, but because this is the essential way to crack the corruption that now makes it so Washington can't work. Lawrence Lessig cracks essentials ideas Creativity is enhanced by less-than-perfect control over what content is on the network. Lawrence Lessig creativity perfect Why should it be that just when technology is Lawrence Lessig creativity technology law We always build on the past; the past always tries to stop us. Lawrence Lessig refrain trying past If zero percent of the elites support something, very low chance it's going to pass, if 100% support something, very high chance it's going to pass. Same thing for organized interest groups. But for the average voter, it's a flat line. Which says it doesn't matter whether zero percent of the public believes something or 100% of the average voters believe something - it doesn't affect the probability that that thing will be enacted. Lawrence Lessig zero average believe Legislation needs a better reason than that lawyers like it, and that America does it. Lawrence Lessig doe america needs You and I both know that as long as our representatives are held hostage to their funders - and their funders are not all of us - our system will not work Lawrence Lessig hostage representatives long Every generation welcomes the pirates from the last. Lawrence Lessig pirate generations lasts
