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Lawrence Lessig Biography

Lawrence Lessig

Lester Lawrence "Larry" Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Lessig was a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, but withdrew before the primaries.

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Lawrence Lessig Quotes

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.

Creative, Data, Program, Software, Works

We are on the cusp of this time where I can say, "I speak as a citizen of the world" without others saying, "God, what a nut. "

Atheism, Citizens, Cusp, Nuts, Saying, World

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.

Artist, Artists, Balance, Book, Defend, Freedom

Creativity builds upon the public domain. The battle that we're fighting now is about whether the public domain will continue to be fed by creative works after their copyright expires. That has been our tradition but that tradition has been perverted in the last generation. We're trying to use the Constitution to reestablish what has always been taken for granted--that the public domain would grow each year with new creative work.

Copyright, Creativity, Fighting, Public, Taken, Tradition

Permission from the government is an expensive commodity. New ideas rarely have this kind of support. Old ideas often have deep legislative connections to defend them against the new.

Deep, Expensive, Government, Ideas, Kind, Support

The current term of protection for software is the life of an author plus 70 years, or, if it's work-for-hire, a total of 95 years. This is a bastardization of the Constitution's requirement that copyright be for "limited times. "

Copyright, Limited Time, Protection, Requirement, Requirements, Years

My claim is that we should focus on the values of liberty. . . If there is not government to insist on those values, then who?. . . The single unifying force should be that we govern ourselves.

Claim, Focus, Government, Liberty

Some may not like the Constitution's requirements, but that doesn't make the Constitution a pirate's charter.

Charter, Constitution, Make, May, Pirate, Requirements

I think if the copyright regime focuses on the people we are supposed to be helping, the artists and creators, and builds a system that gives them the freedom to choose and to protect and to be rewarded for their creativity, then we will have the right focus.

Artist, Copyright, Creativity, Protect, Supposed, Thinking

There is still the illusion that if we could declare corporations are not people or that money is not speech, all would be solved. Regardless of the good in those ideas, it wouldn't.

Ideas, Money, People, Regardless, Speech, Would Be

A free culture has been our past, but it will only be our future if we change the path we are on right now.

Past, Culture, Path, Future, Change

I'm a lawyer. I make lawyers for a living.

Lawyer, Lawyers, Living, Make

Under the principle of equality, we should get as close to respecting equal votes of every citizen as we can, given our constitutional structure. And I think if we did that, then the will of the people would not be overturned.

People, Principles, Structure, Think, Thinking, Under

So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in ideas that we don't even notice how monstrous it is to deny ideas to a people who are dying without them.

Accept, Dying, Ideas, People, Property

Code plus law is combining to reduce rights consumers used to have.

Consumers, Law, Plus, Rights, Used

Before the monopoly should be permitted, there must be reason to believe it will do some good - for society, and not just for monopoly holders.

Believe, Good, Monopoly, Reason

Freedom is about stopping the past.

Freedom, Past, Refrain, Stopping

I find focusing clearly on the problem is the first step to seeing a solution. The problem is (a) the insane amount of time spent raising money from (b) a freakishly tiny proportion of America. Basically. 05% are the "relevant funders" of campaigns, meaning candidates can't help but be overly sensitive to the views of that tiny fraction relative to the rest of us. IF that's the problem, THEN the solution is to spread the funders out: to increase the range of us who are the relevant funders of elections, through schemes like vouchers or coupons given to every voter.

America, Focusing, Help, Increase, Insane, Views

So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in culture that we don't even question when the control of that property removes our ability, as a people, to develop our culture democratically.

Culture, Democratically, Ideas, People, Uncritically

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.

Running, Fall, Apples, Term, Copyright, Possibly

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