Lawrence Lessig

Lawrence Lessig
Born	June 3, 1961 (1961-06-03) (age 49) Rapid City, South Dakota, U.S.
Occupation	Founder, Creative Commons Founder, Stanford Center for Internet and Society Professor, Harvard Law School
Spouse	Bettina Neuefeind
Website
www.lessig.org

Lawrence "Larry" Lessig (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic and political activist. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications.

He is a director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University and a professor of law at Harvard Law School. Prior to rejoining Harvard, he was a professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of its Center for Internet and Society. Lessig is a founding board member of Creative Commons, a board member of the Software Freedom Law Center and a former board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.^[1]

Contents 1 Academic career 2 Attitudes 3 Constitutional Convention 4 "Code is law" 5 Lessig Method 6 "Free Culture" 6.1 Wiki-related activities 7 Combating sexual abuse 8 Political activity 9 Media references 10 Notable cases 11 Bibliography 12 See also 13 References 14 External links 14.1 Columns 14.2 Interviews 14.3 Audio/video

Academic career

Born in Rapid City, South Dakota, Lessig grew up in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and earned a B.A. in Economics and a B.S. in Management (Wharton School) from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in philosophy from the University of Cambridge (Trinity) in England, and a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1989. After graduating from law school, he clerked for a year for Judge Richard Posner, at the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, Illinois and another year for Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court.^[2]

He started his academic career at the University of Chicago Law School, where he was Professor from 1991 to 1997. From 1997 to 2000 he was at Harvard Law School, holding for a year the chair of Berkman Professor of Law, affiliated with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.^[2] He subsequently joined Stanford Law School, where he established the school's Center for Internet and Society.^[3] He returned to Harvard in December 2008 as Professor and Director of the "Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics".^[4]

Attitudes

Lessig is considered a liberal, but he did clerk for Posner and Scalia, two influential conservative judges.

Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or libertarian political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active Teenage Republican serving as the Youth Governor for Pennsylvania through the YMCA Youth & Government program^[5] in 1978 and almost pursued a Republican political career.

What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy there and develop his changed political values. During this time, he also traveled in the Eastern Bloc, so acquiring a lifelong interest in Eastern European law and politics.

Lessig refuses to embrace conventional libertarianism. While Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention, he favors regulation by calling himself “a constitutionalist”. Because of his relative youth, and his views of American legal theory, Lessig has often been cited as a potential candidate to fill vacant federal appellate judgeships in a future Democratic presidential administration.

In his blog, Lessig came out in favor of then-Democratic primary candidate Barack Obama, citing the transformative nature of Obama's campaign as one of his chief reasons. Lessig commended the McCain campaign, however, for defending fair use rights.^[6]

A campaign to draft Lessig to run for the US Congress from the Bay Area began in February 2008.^[7]

Lessig claimed in 2009 that because 70% of young people obtain digital information from illegal sources that the law should be changed.^[8]

Constitutional Convention

In 2010 Lessig began to organize for a national constitutional convention.^[9]

Lessig, along with Mark McKinnon, wrote the following in an e-mail proposing their idea of a constitutional convention to the public:^[10]

The framers left open a path to amendment that doesn't require the approval of Congress: a convention. Article V of the Constitution requires Congress to call a convention to propose amendments if 34 state legislatures demand it. Any proposed amendment would then have to be ratified by both houses of 38 state legislatures (three-fourths of the states). This entails 76 separate votes in the affirmative by two houses of 38 state legislatures. Easy to do? No. But possible? Certainly, yes. There hasn't been a time when there has been such anger and frustration directed at our nation's capitol. There hasn't been a moment when the opportunity to organize to build a movement among the states has been as real. The beauty of a convention is that it would provide a forum of possibility for conservative Tea Party types who might want an amendment calling for a balanced budget, or a line-item veto for the president as well as progressives who would like to amend the constitution to make it possible to enact meaningful campaign finance reform. The only requirement is that two-thirds of the states apply, and then begins the drama of an unscripted national convention to debate questions of fundamental law. It would be a grand circus of democracy at its best.

"Code is law"

In computer science, “code” typically refers to the text of a computer program (i.e., source code). In law, “code” can refer to the texts that constitute statutory law. In his book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Lessig explores the ways in which code in both senses can be instruments for social control, leading to his dictum that “Code is law”. Lessig later updated his work in order to keep up with the prevailing views of the time, releasing the book Code: Version 2.0 in December 2006.

Lessig Method

Lessig is also known for using a style of computer presentations typified by rapid display of short phrases or pictures.^[11] James MacLennan calls his presentation style the “Lessig Method”.^[12] The Takahashi method is similar.

"Free Culture"

In 2002 Lessig received the Award for the Advancement of Free Software from the Free Software Foundation (FSF), and on March 28, 2004 he was elected to the FSF’s Board of Directors.^[13] In 2006, Lessig was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.^[14] Lessig is also a well-known critic of copyright term extensions.

He proposed the concept of “Free Culture”.^[15] He also supports free software and open spectrum.^[16] At his “Free culture” keynote at OSCON 2002, half of his speech was also about software patents, which he views as a rising threat to both free/open source software and innovation.

Wiki-related activities

In March 2006, Lessig joined the board of advisors of the Digital Universe project.^[17]

A few months later, Lessig gave a talk on the ethics of the Free Culture Movement at the 2006 Wikimania conference.

Combating sexual abuse

In May 2005, it was revealed that Lessig had experienced sexual abuse by the director at the American Boychoir School which he had attended as an adolescent.^[18] Lessig reached a settlement with the school in the past, under confidential terms. He revealed his experiences in the course of representing another student victim, John Hardwicke, in court.^[19] In August 2006, he succeeded in persuading the New Jersey Supreme Court to radically restrict the scope of immunity that had protected nonprofits which failed to prevent sexual abuse from legal liability.^[20]

Political activity

At the iCommons iSummit 07 Lessig announced that he will stop focusing his attention on copyright and related matters and will work on political corruption instead.^[21] This new work may be partially facilitated through his wiki — “Lessig Wiki” — which he has encouraged the public to use to document cases of corruption.^[22] In February 2008, a Facebook group formed by law professor John Palfrey encouraged him to run for Congress from California's 12th congressional district, the seat vacated by the death of U.S. Representative Tom Lantos. Later that month, after forming an "exploratory project", the decision was made not to run for the vacant seat.^[23]

Despite having decided to forgo running for Congress himself, Lessig remained interested in attempting to change Congress to reduce corruption.^[23] To this end, he worked with political consultant Joe Trippi to launch a web based project called "Change Congress".^[24] In a press conference on March 20, 2008, Lessig explained that he hoped the Change Congress website would help provide technological tools voters could use to hold their representatives accountable and reduce the influence of money on politics.^[25] He is a board member of MAPLight.org, a nonprofit research group illuminating the connection between money and politics.

Lessig has known president Barack Obama since their days teaching law at the University of Chicago, and had been mentioned as a candidate to head the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the telecommunications industry.^[26] However, this position is now held by Julius Genachowski.^[27]

At his talk at the 2009 Aspen Ideas Festival, Professor Lessig talked about Forbin Problems in a talk entitled Will Technology Change Our Lives?^[28] and also about his idea that the American public has lost faith in the central institution of our democracy, Congress.^[29]

Media references

Lessig appears as a character in a 2005 episode of the television political drama The West Wing (“The Wake Up Call”, season 6, episode 14). Lessig’s character, portrayed by Christopher Lloyd, is intended to be a realistic depiction including such details as citing his book The Future of Ideas and his expertise in Eastern European constitutional law. (Lessig’s comments on his blog)

Artist group Monochrom performed a "Love Song for Lessig" on Boing Boing TV in the 2007-11-15 episode.^[30] The German term "lässig" (meaning "cool" or "relaxed") is pronounced the same as Lessig's last name, and "Love Song for Lessig" uses the homonym for humor.

Notable cases

• Hardwicke v. American Boychoir (representing plaintiff John Hardwicke) Pending^[20]
• Golan v. Gonzales (representing multiple plaintiffs)
• Eldred v. Ashcroft (representing plaintiff Eric Eldred) Lost
• Kahle v. Ashcroft—(also see Brewster Kahle) Dismissed
• United States v. Microsoft (special master and author of an amicus brief addressing the Sherman Act^[31])
  • Lessig was appointed special master by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in 1997. The appointment was vacated by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.^[32] The appellate court ruled that the powers granted to Lessig exceeded the scope of the Federal statute providing for special masters. Judge Jackson then solicited Lessig’s amicus brief.
  • Lessig himself says about this appointment: "Did Justice Jackson pick me to be his special master because he had determined I was the perfect mix of Holmes and Ed Felten? No, I was picked because I was a Harvard Law Professor teaching the law of cyberspace. Remember: So is 'fame' made."^[33]
• MPAA v. 2600 (submitted an amicus brief with Yochai Benkler in support of 2600^[34])

Bibliography

• Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (2000) ISBN 978-0-465-03913-5
• The Future of Ideas (2001) ISBN 978-0-375-50578-2 - available as a free Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical (by-nc) licensed download [1]
• Free Culture (2004) ISBN 978-1-59420-006-9 - available as a free Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licensed download [2]
• Code: Version 2.0 (2006) ISBN 978-0-465-03914-2 - available as a free Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (by-sa) licensed download [3]
• Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy (2008) ISBN 978-1-594-20172-1 - available as a free Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (by-nc-nd) licensed download [4]

See also

• Copyleft
• Free software movement
• Free content
• FreeCulture.org
• Open educational resources
• Gratis versus Libre
• Open content
• Law of the Horse

References

External links

• Official site
• Lawrence Lessig on Twitter
• Transcript of his oral argument and the Court's Opinion for Eldred v. Ashcroft
• 2002 FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software
• coverage of Lessig's opposition to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act
• The 'Lessig' Method of Presentation
• The Anti-Lessig Wiki, a wiki started by Prof. Lessig intended to provide a space to catalog critics and oppositions of his ideas (currently mostly inactive)
• An Interview with Lawrence Lessig on Creative Commons
• Change Congress A national movement started by Lessig and Joe Trippi to end corruption in America's congress
• Libre Culture: Mediations on Free Culture

Columns

• How I Lost The Big One—Lessig's account of why the Eldred v. Ashcroft case went to Ashcroft
• Some Like It Hot essay by Lessig in Wired 12.03 excerpted from Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity
• Lessig admits having been wrong on Microsoft's monopoly power and the potential for a competitor to arise.

Interviews

• Lawrence Lessig's Supreme Showdown—Wired magazine interview from October 2002
• Seven Questions: Battling for Control of the Internet, Foreign Policy, November 2005
• Slashdot interview
• Remixing Culture: An Interview with Lawrence Lessig, O'Reilly Network, 2005-2-24
• “Lawrence Lessig and the developing Nations License”, Worldchanging, November 16, 2006
• “Lessig discusses implementing Change Congress”, Make Something Happen, July 22, 2008
• "Debate with Richard Epstein on Public Financing of Elections", August 7, 2009.
• "Live Interview with Professor Lawrence Lessig", February 18, 2009.

Audio/video

• Press Conference Announcing the release of the Change Congress website
• “Free Culture” keynote from OSCON 2002 (including an audio and Flash with the presentation as well as the presentation itself)
• Who Owns Culture?—Jeff Tweedy and Lawrence Lessig in conversation with Steven Johnson
• Who Owns Ideas? Radio interview on Philosophy Talk
• Debate between Lessig and Jack Valenti.
• Lessig's keynote from OSCON 2005 (with comments, audio and presentation)
• Christopher Lydon Interviews… Audio interview.
• The Lawrence Lessig interview on Radiophiles.org
• IT Conversations—Audio programs featuring Lessig
• Lawrence Lessig interview on This Week in Tech
• Lessig on Digital Village Radio, December 3, 2005
  • Part 1 (MP3)
  • Part 2 (MP3)
• Lessig on the Triangulation podcast, December 5, 2005. Topic: Google Books
• An archive of speeches
• Lessig discusses Network Neutrality in this video taken at Rochester Institute of Technology on March 24, 2006
• Lessig discusses the concept of the Read-Write Society at the Wizards of OS (138 MB) (alternatively you can hear the audio recording: 36 MB)
• Lessig speech at Wikimania 2006 at Google Video (Adobe Flash video)
• Lawrence Lessig—On Free, and the Differences between Culture and Code from the 2006 Chaos Communication Congress
• Video—Interview (mainly in English with German intro and German subtitles): Part 1, Part 2
• Creative Commons Explained: Lawrence Lessig on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos
• Lessig participating in a Panel Discussion, Free Culture Forum, March 23, 2006, sponsored by the Northeastern University Libraries in Boston, MA.
• TED Talks: Larry Lessig says the law is strangling creativity at TED in 2007
• Lawrence Lessig on "Open Source Cinema", an open source documentary film about copyright.
• Lawrence Lessig interview in "Good Copy Bad Copy", a documentary about copyright and culture. Denmark, 2007.
• Change Congress Project Launch, Sponsored by the Sunlight Foundation, and held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on March 20, 2008
• The Future of the Open Internet in America, FCC hearing at Stanford University on April 17, 2008
• Audio and transcript of Eldred v. Ashcroft hearing, from Oyez.org
• Video (and audio) of conversation between Lawrence Lessig and Thomas E. Mann on Bloggingheads.tv
• Re-thinking Remix First Monday Podcast, 2008-12-3
• Colbert and Lessig on REMIX, audio of interview with Stephen Colbert, on ccMixter.
• Lessig interviewed 'The future of copyright in a digital age', audio of interview with Phillip Adams on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Late Night Live.
• Well-Rounded Radio mp3 audio interview with Lawrence Lessig on Remix book and Creative Commons and music from the history of remix culture.

Key figures in the history of free software Rick Adams · Eric Allman · Brian Behlendorf · Keith Bostic · Alan Cox · Matthias Ettrich · Miguel de Icaza · Theo de Raadt · Jim Gettys · John Gilmore · Jon "maddog" Hall · Jordan Hubbard · Lynne and William Jolitz · Lawrence Lessig · Marshall Kirk McKusick · Eben Moglen · Ian Murdock · Tim O'Reilly · Keith Packard · Brian Paul · Bruce Perens · Eric S. Raymond · Bob Scheifler · Mark Shuttleworth · Richard Stallman · Linus Torvalds · Theodore Ts'o · Andrew Tridgell · Guido van Rossum · Rasmus Lerdorf · Larry Wall

Persondata
Name	Lessig, Lawrence
Alternative names
Short description	Founder, Creative Commons, Founder, Stanford Center for Internet and Society, Professor, Harvard Law School
Date of birth	June 3, 1961
Place of birth	Rapid City, South Dakota, U.S.
Date of death
Place of death