by Flemming Funch
Lawrence Lessig delivered an excellent speech at the Chaos Communication Congress, which you can see here. He talked in part about if we don't succeed in changing copyright laws so that we can do the creative things we naturally do, like mash-ups, we can at least switch our preferences over to alternative systems, like obviously Creative Commons. If enough people just start preferring alternative licenses to 95 year locked-away copyrights, things will change. And to comment on Lessig's speech there's then an interview with John Perry Barlow. Who, in usual style says it more directly and poetically. Like, to answer the question of how we might succeed in crashing the old system:If you wanna share something - share it. If you wanna use something - use it. Try to do so ethically in the sense that, you know, don’t take things without attribution, attribute. Make sure that the people who did create actually have the opportunity to get some enhanced reputation and thereby, you know, greater economic return. But, you know, pay no attention to these people when it comes to being creative. Go ahead and do the stuff that Larry showed in the beginning of his talk and do lots of it. And every time they put a lock on - break it. And every time they pass a new law - break that. You know. Sooner or later they’re dealing with such a massive level of civil disobedience that they have to address it. And that’s where we’re headed in a, I think, a hell of a hurry. I mean, you go to California and you drive down the 280, which is sort of the main artery of Silicon Valley and connects to San Francisco, and all those cars are going 85 mph where the speed limit is 65. But it’s a good road and there are good cars generally and they’re good drivers and there’s not a damn thing anybody can do about it. What are they gonna do? Arrest the entire highway? No. So the cops are right there cruising along with you at 85 mph. And that’s still against the law but nevertheless people have asserted the freedom to drive as fast as they think which is reliably safe under those circumstances. And we have to do the same thing. Clearly and obviously. Oppressive and senseless laws only stay in place because most people willingly go along with them. They can't sue or arrest everybody, however many corrupt politicians they have on their side. They still need to make money, and the politicians still need to get re-elected, and if nobody buys their stuff and nobody votes for them, it just ain't happening.
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