Copyright law! That's right, folks, I read a book about copyright law. And a fascinating book, at that. Lessig takes us through the ins and outs of these ever-changing rules, sprinkled liberally with relevant examples. Should students be sued for their life savings for sharing music files? Should copyright automatically be renewed, even if the original holder is disinterested or even dead? Are fanart and fanfic actually a threat to creators of the content on which they are based? How does the internet change the way content is shared, and how should copyright law to reflect this? Lessig goes through this all in great detail. It's an important book for most netizens, particularly those members of fandom.As one might expect giving the subject matter, this entire text of this book is available for free download, as well as how I experienced it: a free audiobook podcast. ( )

The well-articulated case for a cultural commons which turned me on to the CC movement. ( )

This book is an important one for anyone and everyone to read. Copyright laws greatly affect our culture, and as they stand now, aim to have a negative one. Lessig makes a powerful point that copyright is good, but in its very limited environment. The extensions to copyrighted content are much more harmful than than good. People need to wake up to the reality and scope of this problem, and fight against copyright's escalating bounds before it is too late. ( )

This is a book that deserves to be compared with Milton's Areopagatica. Like Milton 350 years earlier, Lessig makes an emotional and passionate, yet calm and well reasoned argument against the system that aims to limit creative freedom. A very important read. ( )

I read the first section of this book, "Piracy", for one of my foundation courses at the University of Michigan's School of Information. Later, I read the rest of the book on my own while taking a class on intellectual property and information law and found that it complemented the coursework very nicely.

Since the relatively straightforward first copyright act in implemented in 1790, United States copyright law has become increasingly complicated and makes fair use exceedingly more difficult. Constitutionally speaking, copyright was created for the public good; congress was granted the power--

"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive rights to their respective writings and discoveries."

But more recently, it seems that the "Big Media" is using its powerful lobby to lock down intellectual property. Lawrence Lessig argues that the United States was once based on a "free culture" (free as in free speech, not free beer) in which the rights of creators are in balance with the needs of society. But that balance has been thrown out of whack. Free Culture is written to oppose the extremism at both ends of the copyright spectrum--those who want to get rid of copyright entirely and those who want to extend its reach even further.

Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law School, is anything but anti-copyright. Rather, he argues that the current system has gotten out of hand and needs to be reevaluated. He encourages a return to the balance between the rights and privileges of creators and the rights and privileges of those who would use their work. However, he doesn't just object to the current state of affairs; he offers concrete ideas and plausible solutions to the mess that is U. S. copyright law.

The book provides a fantastic overview of copyright in the United States, past and present; especially as it applies to the Internet and related technologies. Lessig's style is both approachable and understandable, even for readers unfamiliar with the subject. Some of his visual aides were a bit confusing, and therefore not very useful, while others got his point across clearly. Overall, I would highly recommend this to anyone who has even the slightest interest in intellectual property. Actually, I would probably recommend this book even to those who don't because it's such an important subject that will only become more so as the law struggles to keep up with technology.

Free Culture is available for free here on Lawrence Lessig's website, Free Culture.

Experiments in Reading ( )