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Lawrence Lessig

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The most powerful and sexy and well loved of lobbies really has as its aim not the protection of "property" but the rejection of a tradition. Their aim is not simply to protect what is theirs. Their aim is to assure that all there is is what is theirs.
It is not hard to understand why the warriors take this view. It is not hard to see why it would benefit them if the competition of the public domain tied to the Internet could somehow be quashed.

 
Lawrence Lessig

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Some people view the public domain with contempt. In their brief before the Supreme Court, the Nashville Songwriters Association wrote that the public domain is nothing more than "legal piracy." But it is not piracy when the law allows it; and in our constitutional system, our law requires it. Some may not like the Constitution's requirements, but that doesn't make the Constitution a pirate's charter.
As we've seen, our constitutional system requires limits on copyright as a way to assure that copyright holders do not too heavily influence the development and distribution of our culture. Yet, as Eric Eldred discovered, we have set up a system that assures that copyright terms will be repeatedly extended, and extended, and extended. We have created the perfect storm for the public domain. Copyrights have not expired, and will not expire, so long as Congress is free to be bought to extend them again.

 
Lawrence Lessig
 

We Americans have a long history of fighting "big," wisely or not. That we could be motivated to fight "big" again is not something new.
It would be something new, and something very important, if an equal number could be rallied to fight the increasing extremism built within the idea of "intellectual property." Not because balance is alien to our tradition; indeed, as I've argued, balance is our tradition. But because the muscle to think critically about the scope of anything called "property" is not well exercised within this tradition anymore.
If we were Achilles, this would be our heel. This would be the place of our tragedy.

 
Lawrence Lessig
 

Americans have been selling this view around the world: that progress comes from perfect protection of intellectual property. Notwithstanding the fact that the most innovative and progressive space we've seen — the Internet — has been the place where intellectual property has been least respected. You know, facts don't get in the way of this ideology.

 
Lawrence Lessig
 

"The majority believes that everything hard to comprehend must be very profound. This is incorrect. What is hard to understand is what is immature, unclear and often false. The highest wisdom is simple and passes through the brain directly into the heart"

 
Viktor Schauberger
 

"The majority believes that everything hard to comprehend must be very profound. This is incorrect. What is hard to understand is what is immature, unclear and often false. The highest wisdom is simple and passes through the brain directly to the heart. -- Viktor Schauberger."

 
Viktor Schauberger
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