Free culture: how big media uses technology and the law to lock down culture and control creativity

In Free Culture Lawrence Lessig argues that current technology -- specifically the rise of the Internet and the attendant peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing possibilities -- has made for new conditions that have been both inadequately and incorrectly addressed by law-makers. As he shows, contemporary copyright protection has come to be much more far-reaching than ever before, and he expresses great concern about the stifling and chilling effect this has on cultural production and creativity (in their broadest possible definitions). Free Culture offers a good overview of the changing nature of copyright, and the legislative responses to technological advances. New technologies have often threatened (or appeared to…

• SL
  Stanford Law School