The Commons
Last night I heard Lawrence Lessing give a talk at the Royal Geographical Society as part of LIFT 2004. Lessig is a Professor at Stanford Law School, an expert on copyright, DRM and the internet, and is heavily involved with things like Creative Commons and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. His talk was on two IPs, Intellectual Property and Internet Protocol, and it was very good indeed.
I thought he would concentrate on the creative aspects of freeing up copyright laws and that did take up a large chunk of the talk. However, he also talked in detail about the political aspect of copyright, an area I hadn't really been engaged with (and one he lamented most people had not). His case is that people like the Recording Industry Association of America are waging a war against a whole generation, that this is prohibition and like all prohibition it will fail to do anything but unnessesarily criminalise a swathe of the (young) population. He spoke very well, had many interesting examples and as his speech developed it became actually very powerful and moving (particularly with regard to drug patents and Africa).
He also briefly touched on BBC Creative Archive, the consultation panel of which he has just been invited to join as a permanent member. The BBC Creative Archive is a great idea and one that sparked a lot of interest when it was announced last year. What his talk brought out, that I had not really thought about, was that as well as stimulating creativity it will also stimulate technology and the take-up of technology. Once vast amounts of the information the BBC holds are available for any use everyone will want broadband, more and more people will want sophisticated video editing software and the machines to run it, content will drive its own distribution.
(It occurs to me that others who read this might have wanted to go. Sorry, I only decided at the last minute.)
I thought he would concentrate on the creative aspects of freeing up copyright laws and that did take up a large chunk of the talk. However, he also talked in detail about the political aspect of copyright, an area I hadn't really been engaged with (and one he lamented most people had not). His case is that people like the Recording Industry Association of America are waging a war against a whole generation, that this is prohibition and like all prohibition it will fail to do anything but unnessesarily criminalise a swathe of the (young) population. He spoke very well, had many interesting examples and as his speech developed it became actually very powerful and moving (particularly with regard to drug patents and Africa).
He also briefly touched on BBC Creative Archive, the consultation panel of which he has just been invited to join as a permanent member. The BBC Creative Archive is a great idea and one that sparked a lot of interest when it was announced last year. What his talk brought out, that I had not really thought about, was that as well as stimulating creativity it will also stimulate technology and the take-up of technology. Once vast amounts of the information the BBC holds are available for any use everyone will want broadband, more and more people will want sophisticated video editing software and the machines to run it, content will drive its own distribution.
(It occurs to me that others who read this might have wanted to go. Sorry, I only decided at the last minute.)