READING RESPONSE: Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig

ARE YOU A GOOD PIRATE OR A BAD PIRATE?

I am not sure what else I can add to the previous reading responses. It is difficult to distill 175 pages into 500 words and be more original than my talented classmates.

The first half of this book is a legal, moral, social, and financial argument built upon case histories written in a story-telling format. The argument Lessig writes about is copyright law and the distinctions that need to be made regarding piracy and property as they relate to free culture. Specifically, he addresses the Internet and our ability not only to store information, but to share information. He argues about the pitfalls of extremism and monopoly in ownership rights. The United States government treats intellectual property similarly to physical property; however, only a select few, who are wealthy and powerful, benefit from the laws enforcing copyright. American culture suffers the stifling of its creativity.

Lessig takes us on a historical journey to support his argument about copyright as it relates to new technologies. He shares stories about the various creators of different inventions: photography, the airplane, AM and FM radio, synchronized sound in film, and the Internet. He examines these events in the context of the legal rights the inventors had juxtaposed with the need for everyone in our culture to share (pirate) and expand upon these inventions for the greater creative good.

As Lessig progresses in his argument, he shares examples of individuals expanding and improving upon existing technologies, which would benefit millions of people while threatening the fattened pocketbooks of the owners or inventors of these technologies. He tries to make distinctions between good pirates and bad pirates. He writes that in some cases, there are clear examples of right and wrong ways to copy and distribute information. However, he warns that some instances of piracy need to be examined more closely. As stated before, sometimes piracy rises out of a need for a culture to take advantage of a new technology in a more democratic way to promote creativity and intellectual growth.

Lessig defines piracy as born of a history of each new medium pirating on the generation of technology before it. He gives examples of these “pirates” as film, recorded music, radio, and cable television. He cites clear examples in each industry of piracy. He later differentiates types of piracy into four categories: those who download music without purchasing it (bad), those who use shared networks to sample music (good), those who share networks to access material no longer sold (good), and those who use shared networks that give access to material without copyright (good). (p. 68-69)

Although I simplify the various types of piracy as good or bad, Lessig takes the definition of piracy and teases it apart. He argues that it is not valid to define piracy as good or bad – that it requires a deep investigation to understand if the laws that protect against piracy are logical.

In the second half of Lessig’s book, as has already been written about in the previous response readings, he examines the nature of property. He states that our tradition is to think of property as something physical – I own the land. It is difficult and often times ridiculous to apply the same laws to intellectual property. He gives an example of a director creating a celluloid homage to Clint Eastwood. The director had to spend an enormous amount of time, one year, to clear and cover all the possible copyright infringements. Each actor that had ever been in any Clint Eastwood film for even a second had to be found and compensated in order for that minute or two of old film to be incorporated into something new without legal consequences. It seems wasteful to spend that much time in obtaining permission and waiting that long to create. Lessig gives another example of a man making a documentary. During filming, he captured a Simpsons broadcast on a television set for about 4 seconds. He was allowed to include that 4-second footage if he was willing to pay an exorbitant $10,000.

Lessig poses that copyright should not be regarded solely as property, but as a balance of incentives to artists and authors with public access to their work. He argues that free culture suffers when creativity requires permission and legal advice.