You are here: Fairness.com > Resources > Prof. Lawrence Lessig Esq.

Prof. Lawrence Lessig Esq.


Self Description

November 2004: "Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school’s Center for Internet and Society. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, he was the Berkman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Lessig was also a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and a Professor at the University of Chicago Law School. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.

More recently, Professor Lessig represented web site operator Eric Eldred in the ground-breaking case Eldred v. Ashcroft, a challenge to the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Lessig was named one of Scientific American's Top 50 Visionaries, for arguing "against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online."

He is the author of The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. He also chairs the Creative Commons project. Professor Lessig is a boardmember of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a Board Member of the Center for the Public Domain, and a Commission Member of the Penn National Commission on Society, Culture and Community at the University of Pennsylvania.

Professor Lessig earned a BA in economics and a BS in management from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in philosophy from Cambridge, and a JD from Yale.

Professor Lessig teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, contracts, comparative constitutional law, and the law of cyberspace. He is currently planning a course, Law and Virtual Worlds, for Spring 2003 with Julian Dibbell.

For more information, please see Steven Levy's profile of Professor Lessig in the October 2002 issue of Wired: Lawrence Lessig's Supreme Showdown or see his curriculum vitae."

http://www.lessig.org/bio/short/

July 2004: Law professor at Stanford University, author of Author of The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace and a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation board.

Third-Party Descriptions

March 2010: "Nearly a year ago, we wrote about how a YouTube presentation done by well known law professor (and strong believer in fair use and fixing copyright law), Larry Lessig, had been taken down, because his video, in explaining copyright and fair use and other such things, used a snippet of a Warner Music song to demonstrate a point. There could be no clearer example of fair use -- but the video was still taken down. There was some dispute at the time as to whether or not this was an actual DMCA takedown, or merely YouTube's audio/video fingerprinting technology (which the entertainment industry insists can understand fair use and not block it). But, in the end, does it really make a difference? A takedown over copyright is a takedown over copyright."

http://techdirt.com/articles/20100302/0354498358.shtml

February 2009: 'Mr. Malamud represents a perspective of openness and transparency that is much in tune with the new administration’s, said Lawrence Lessig, a law professor at Harvard who is a leading advocate for free culture. “The principles are those that Carl has been at the center of defining,” he said.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13records.html

November 2008: "‘If your whole game is to increase market share,’ says Lawrence Lessig, speaking of Google, ‘it’s hard to . . . gather data in ways that don’t raise privacy concerns or in ways that might help repressive governments to block controversial content.’"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.htm

November 2008: 'Obama's most prominent tech advisers include ...along with "free culture" proponent Larry Lessig (who backed away from the campaign after being a little too vocal about his atheistic views).'

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2333935,00.asp

October 2008: 'On Tuesday, the McCain campaign sent a formal letter to YouTube asking for this two-tier system for "fair use" complaints. Copyright-guru Larry Lessig called it a "fantastic letter", adding "bravo to the campaign" in a post to his blog. Since then, the technology press has been pretty supportive, although the focus of the coverage seems to mainly be along the lines of "McCain realizes that fair use claims are uphill battle." This is the wrong message to send, and as much as I respect Professor Lessig, I have to call him out here. He is wrong. McCain should be criticized for his attempt to get special treatment, and Google/YouTube need to treat all users the same way.'

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-10066570-46.html

July 2008: "[LiveJournal] took the unusual step of soliciting community feedback and setting up an advisory board with prominent Internet scholars such as Danah Boyd and Lawrence Lessig and two user representatives elected in May."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080706/ap_on_hi_te/tec_disappearing_freedoms

February 2008: "On Friday, a lawyer named Anthony Falzone filed his side’s first big brief in the case of Warner Bros. Entertainment and J. K. Rowling v. RDR Books. Mr. Falzone is employed by Stanford Law School, where he heads up the Fair Use Project, which was founded several years ago by Lawrence Lessig, perhaps the law school’s best-known professor. Mr. Falzone and the other lawyers at the Fair Use Project are siding with the defendant, RDR Books, a small book publisher based in Muskegon, Mich. As you can see from the titans who have brought the suit, RDR Books needs all the legal firepower it can muster."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/business/09nocera.html

November 2007: "Carol Loeb Shloss, an acting professor of English at Stanford, has won the right to publish her scholarship on the literary work of James Joyce online and in print based on a settlement agreement with the Joyce Estate."

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/april4/joyce-040407.html

June 2006: "In the midst of her fight with Stephen, Shloss met Lawrence Lessig, a law professor at Stanford, who was willing to take on her case pro bono. Lessig had just argued before the Supreme Court against Congress’s 1998 extension of copyright. He had lost the case, but he was eager to find another way to show that distended copyright laws were not in the public interest. Shloss gave him the correspondence that Stephen had sent her over the years, and he was excited by what he read. “The letters were extreme,” he recalled."

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/06/19/060619fa_fact

August 2007: When disputes over the provenance of an idea become particularly turbid, disappointed entrepreneurs will look to the courts, which often are of little help. As Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law School, said, “The general rule is that ideas are free unless strapped down by contract or patent.” In practice, a great idea is owned by whoever expresses that idea most successfully.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/business/yourmoney/12stream.html

September 2004: "We want some system in place to filter out works that have no reason for continuing copyright protection from works that do," said Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law School who also represents Kahle and Prelinger.

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,64494,00.html

Relationships

RoleNameTypeLast Updated
Student/Trainee (past or present) Cambridge University (University of Cambridge) Organization Aug 13, 2007
Founder/Co-Founder of Center for Internet and Society Organization Aug 13, 2007
Possible/Unclear Center for the Study of the Public Domain Organization Aug 13, 2007
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) Founder/Co-Founder of Creative Commons Organization Aug 13, 2007
Director/Trustee/Overseer (past or present) Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Organization Aug 13, 2007
Employee/Freelancer/Contractor (past or present) Harvard University Organization Aug 13, 2007
Advisor/Consultant to (past or present) LiveJournal Organization Jul 7, 2008
Employee/Freelancer/Contractor (past or present) Standard Media International Organization
Employee/Freelancer/Contractor (past or present) University of Chicago Organization Aug 13, 2007
Student/Trainee (past or present) University of Pennsylvania, The ("Penn") Organization Aug 13, 2007
Student/Trainee (past or present) Yale University Organization Aug 13, 2007
Advisor/Consultant to (past or present) Eric Eldred Person Aug 13, 2007
Cooperation (past or present) Colleague/Co-worker of (past or present) Anthony Falzone Esq. Person Feb 10, 2008
Researcher/Analyst of Steven Levy M.A. Person Aug 13, 2007
Supporter of (past or present) Carl Malamud Person Feb 15, 2009
Subordinate of (past or present) Judge Richard A. Posner Person Aug 13, 2007

Articles and Resources

25 Articles and Resources. Go to:  [Next 5]

Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
Mar 02, 2010 Bogus Copyright Claim Silences Yet Another Larry Lessig YouTube Presentation

QUOTE: Nearly a year ago, we wrote about how a YouTube presentation done by well known law professor (and strong believer in fair use and fixing copyright law), Larry Lessig, had been taken down, because his video, in explaining copyright and fair use and other such things, used a snippet of a Warner Music song to demonstrate a point...Amazingly enough, it appears that almost the exact same thing has happened again.

 Techdirt
Oct 09, 2009 Too Much Information, Not Enough Common Sense

QUOTE: A new Oklahoma law will require the details of every abortion to be posted on a public website.

 Atlantic Online, The (Atlantic Monthly)
Oct 09, 2009 Against Transparency: The perils of openness in government.

QUOTE: More information,[from greater government transparency]" as [Archon] Fung and his colleagues put it, "does not always produce markets that are more efficient." Instead, "responses to information are inseparable from their interests, desires, resources, cognitive capacities, and social contexts..."

 New Republic, The (TNR)
Feb 13, 2009 An Effort to Upgrade a Court Archive System to Free and Easy

QUOTE: Mr. Malamud, 49, has a long record of trying to balance openness with privacy, and has also pushed the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Patent and Trademark Office to put their records online free. But the issue is a thorny one with court documents, which often contain personal information.

 New York Times
Nov 28, 2008 Google’s Gatekeepers

QUOTE: As more and more speech migrates online, to blogs and social-networking sites and the like, the ultimate power to decide who has an opportunity to be heard, and what we may say, lies increasingly with Internet service providers, search engines and other Internet companies like Google, Yahoo, AOL, Facebook and even eBay....some House Democrats and Republicans have introduced a bipartisan bill called the Global Online Freedom Act, which would require that Internet companies disclose to a newly created office in the State Department all material filtered in response to demands by foreign governments.

 New York Times
Nov 05, 2008 Google Wins the Presidential Election (So Does Obama)

QUOTE: if Lessig has Obama's ear, you might see more policies leaning towards "fair use" of other people's copyrighted works. That also dovetails with Google's agenda, which needs net neutrality and could use less content protection so it can take over the world by providing other people's content and its own advertising over other people's pipes.

 PC Magazine
Oct 15, 2008 McCain seeks special 'fair use' copyright rules for VIPs

QUOTE: McCain is calling for VIP treatment for the remixes made by political campaigns. All claims of fair use are equal--yet some claims are more equal than others.

 CNET
Jul 06, 2008 'Public' online spaces don't carry speech, rights

QUOTE: Rant all you want in a public park. A police officer generally won't eject you for your remarks alone, however unpopular or provocative. Say it on the Internet, and you'll find that free speech and other constitutional rights are anything but guaranteed.

 Yahoo News
May 20, 2008 Little Orphan Artworks

QUOTE: The problem of orphan works is real. It was caused by a fundamental shift in the architecture of copyright law. Before 1978, copyright was an opt-in system, granting protection only to those who registered and renewed their copyright, and only if they marked their creative work with the famous ©. But three decades ago, Congress created an opt-out system. Copyright protection is now automatic, and it extends for almost a century, whether the author wants or needs it or even knows that his work is regulated by federal law.

 New York Times
Feb 09, 2008 A Tight Grip Can Choke Creativity

QUOTE: [Rowling] is essentially claiming that....no one else can use [her characters] without her permission....copyright holders have tried to impose rules on the rest of us — through threats and litigation — that were never intended to be part of copyright law...

 New York Times
Aug 11, 2007 Slipstream: Who Owns the Concept if No One Signs the Papers?

QUOTE: WHO owns a bright idea? If the technology associated with an idea is new and the opportunities it offers are valuable, it will have many authors — most of whom may argue over ownership.

 New York Times
Mar 22, 2007 Court Rejects Law Limiting Online Pornography

QUOTE: Senior Judge Lowell A. Reed Jr. of Federal District Court ruled that [a 1998 law that made it a crime for Web sites to allow children to gain access to material deemed “harmful.”] was ineffective, overly broad and at odds with free speech rights. Judge Reed added that there were far less restrictive methods like software filters that parents could use to control their children’s Internet use.

 New York Times
Jun 19, 2006 The Injustice Collector: Is James Joyce’s grandson suppressing scholarship?

QUOTE: [Stephen Joyce's] primary motive has been to put a halt to work that, in his view, either violates his family’s privacy or exceeds the bounds of reputable scholarship. The two-decade-long effort has also been an exercise in power—an attempt to establish his own centrality in regard to anything involving his grandfather. If you want to write about James Joyce and plan to quote more than a few short passages, you need Stephen’s consent....Most prickly literary estates are interested in suppressing unflattering or intrusive information, but no one combines tolltaker, brand enforcer, and arbiter of taste as relentlessly as Stephen does....Joyceans find it especially galling that the estate representing one of the most censored writers of his day—“Ulysses” was banned in America until 1934—has itself become a censor....Yet, for the first time, a Joycean is fighting to free herself from Stephen’s control.

 New Yorker
Sep 20, 2004 Saving the Artistic Orphans

QUOTE: ...older books, films and music -- are often out of print and considered no longer commercially viable, but are still locked up under copyright. Locating copyright owners is a formidable challenge because Congress no longer requires that owners register or renew their copyrights with the U.S. Copyright Office.

 Wired
Sep 17, 2004 Cash Bounties For Spammers Win Limited FTC Backing

QUOTE: The Federal Trade Commission yesterday gave limited endorsement to offering cash rewards to people who help track down e-mail spammers...

 Washington Post
Jul 11, 2004 How to Make a Guerrilla Documentary

QUOTE: "Outfoxed" has been made in secret. The film is an obsessively researched expose of the ways in which Fox News, as Greenwald sees it, distorts its coverage to serve the conservative political agenda of its owner, the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.

 New York Times
Jan 18, 2003 Protecting Mickey Mouse at Art's Expense

QUOTE: The Supreme Court decided this week that the Constitution grants Congress an essentially unreviewable discretion to set the lengths of copyright protections however long it wants, and even to extend them.

 New York Times
Oct 10, 2002 Justices Hear Challenge to Copyright Law: Extensions Stifle Access, Opponents Say; Government Claims Congressional Prerogative

QUOTE: ...a much-anticipated oral argument on a novel constitutional issue: For how long may Congress extend copyrights on literature, art, music and film?

 Washington Post
Oct 07, 2002 Court to Review Copyright Law

QUOTE: Experts on both sides of the closely watched case say that its outcome could reshape the way cultural products are consumed and how their profits are divided.

 New York Times
Mar 14, 2002 Should Geeks, Or Governments, Run the Net?

QUOTE: "The original noble 'experiment' – and it was noble – to see whether a purely private entity could successfully manage a critical global resource simply will not work..."

 Washington Post

25 Articles and Resources. Go to:  [Next 5]