Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity

A new study on the social dimension of creativity examines the destruction of the larger public domain of ideas, assessing the creative and innovative repercussions of America's long terms of copyright, as well as the impact of new technologies, big media, and cultural monopolies on our freedom to create, construct, and imagine. Reprint. Examines the destruction of the larger public domain of ideas, assessing the creative and innovative repercussions of America's long terms of copyright, as well as the impact of new technologies, big media, and cultural monopolies on our freedom to create, construct, and imagine.

Lawrence Lessig, athe most important thinker on intellectual property in the Internet eraa ("The New Yorker"), masterfully argues that never before in human history has the power to control creative progress been so concentrated in the hands of the powerful few, the so-called Big Media. Never before have the cultural powers- that-be been able to exert such control over what we can and canat do with the culture around us. Our society defends free markets and free speech; why then does it permit such top-down control? To lose our long tradition of free culture, Lawrence Lessig shows us, is to lose our freedom to create, our freedom to build, and, ultimately, our freedom to imagine.

A powerfully argued and important analysis... surprisingly entertaining. ("The New York Times Book Review") An entertaining and important look at the past and future of the cold war between the media industry and new technologies. (Marc Andreessen, cofounder of Netscape)

PREFACE		xiii
INTRODUCTION		1	(14)
"PIRACY"		15	(66)
CHAPTER ONE: Creators		21	(10)
CHAPTER TWO: "Mere Copyists"		31	(17)
CHAPTER THREE: Catalogs		48	(5)
CHAPTER FOUR: "Pirates"		53	(9)
Film		53	(2)
Recorded Music		55	(3)
Radio		58	(1)
Cable TV		59	(3)
CHAPTER FIVE: "Piracy"		62	(19)
Piracy I		63	(3)
Piracy II		66	(15)
"PROPERTY"		81	(94)
CHAPTER SIX: Founders		85	(10)
CHAPTER SEVEN: Recorders		95	(5)
CHAPTER EIGHT: Transformers		100	(8)
CHAPTER NINE: Collectors		108	(8)
CHAPTER TEN: "Property"		116	(59)
Why Hollywood Is Right		124	(6)
Beginnings		130	(3)
Law: Duration		133	(3)
Law: Scope		136	(3)
Law and Architecture: Reach		139	(8)
Architecture and Law: Force		147	(14)
Market: Concentration		161	(7)
Together		168	(7)
PUZZLES		175	(34)
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Chimera		177	(6)
CHAPTER TWELVE: Harms		183	(26)
Constraining Creators		184	(4)
Constraining Innovators		188	(11)
Corrupting Citizens		199	(10)
BALANCES		209	(48)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Eldred		213	(35)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Eldred II		248	(9)
CONCLUSION		257	(16)
AFTERWORD		273	(34)
Us, Now		276	(11)
Rebuilding Freedoms Previously Presumed: Examples		277	(5)
Rebuilding Free Culture: One Idea		282	(5)
Them, Soon		287	(20)
1. More Formalities		287	(5)
Registration and Renewal		289	(1)
Marking		290	(2)
2. Shorter Terms		292	(2)
3. Free Use Vs. Fair Use		294	(2)
4. Liberate the Music-Again		296	(8)
5. Fire Lots of Lawyers		304	(3)
NOTES		307	(24)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS		331	(2)
INDEX		333