who is lawrence lessig and what is his relationship to the creative commons movement?

Interview with Lawrence Lessig

Feb 2011

Amid the gathering copyright storm of the early "noughties", which pitched the established copyright world against new-found digital creators, Lawrence Lessig and his colleagues sought to plant a middle ground past launching the Creative Eatables (CC) Project. In this interview, Professor Lessig explains how Creative Eatables came about, and why he thinks information technology is and then pop. He also shares his views about what needs to be done to translate copyright's legal compages, born in the 19th century analogue world, to the realities of the 21st century digital earth.

Lawrence Lessig talks almost
Artistic Commons.
(Photograph: L. Lessig)

What motivated you to set up up Creative Eatables?

At the turn of the century, we saw a kind of "perfect storm" for civilization on the horizon. We had a digital infrastructure that encouraged a wide range of sharing, remixing and publishing that just could not have happened in the 20th century. We also had an architecture that triggered copyright law each time a copy was produced. This put digital creators on a standoff course with the law, whether they recognized it or not. For many, particularly those operating in what I call the sharing economic system, this fabricated no sense. A large percentage of them continued to create on digital platforms irrespective of copyright police, and piracy rates skyrocketed.

We feared that a collision of these 2 forces would produce either a movement that sought to cancel copyright or a rigid system of enforcement that would shut down all of these dandy new activities.

At the time, the prevailing view was if you weren't in the traditional "all rights reserved" camp, you lot must be anti-copyright or a pirate. We sought to establish some center basis because we recognized that, in fact, many people believed in copyright but did not believe that their creative works should be as tightly regulated every bit they were under the all rights reserved model.

We decided to build a voluntary opt-in organisation whereby creators could marking their works with the freedoms they wanted them to carry. This system affirms a conventionalities in copyright, because it is in essence a copyright license, but it besides affirms the values that underpin those creative environments – or ecologies – in which the rules of exchange are non defined by commerce but depend on the power to share and build on the work of others freely.

In how many countries is Creative Commons present?

Artistic Eatables has launched projects in around 80 countries. Our influence is constantly expanding as new jurisdictions come on board. CC'due south piece of work effectually the globe is largely accomplished through a dedicated network of CC affiliates who undertake a range of promotion and outreach activities in various jurisdictions. These include raising awareness near CC legal tools mostly – helping communities use CC licenses for example, to develop open educational resources and supporting would-be adopters in agreement how our licenses work. In 2009, the Creative Commons (CC) Project experienced its strongest burst of growth and at present covers at to the lowest degree 350 million objects on the spider web.

The Middle East has become i of the biggest growth areas. Arab republic of egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have all begun processing CC licenses. What is very interesting is that, in these countries, CC actually encourages greater respect for copyright. Then it seems that, in a context in which copyright is not widely respected, a more moderate claim past copyright owners for rights to be practical in some areas while allowing freedom in others, is more than likely to encourage that respect past consumers. CC is a way to build understanding and respect for copyright and that is what nosotros are seeing in the Middle E.

Why do you think it has become such a popular model?

There are political and practical reasons for this. The political reasons are related to what I phone call the "copyright wars". Some people desire to find a different style to regulate inventiveness, and do not believe that a narrow and rigid application of copyright police in the digital age makes sense, especially for activities in the areas of education and scientific enquiry and for apprentice works. In that location are also of import practical reasons equally well. In universities, for example, in the same style that students need to learn to write, they also need to larn how to use digital media, for video, film or remixing music. That is what it means to be literate in the 21st century.

Creative Commons has launched projects in
some lxxx countries

CC-licensed material is a condom alternative to the extremely expensive and cumbersome process of obtaining licenses for students to engage in the creative opportunities presented by digital technologies. It is an alternative to merely ignoring copyright and to exposing academic institutions to significant liability.

Is a CC license something anybody tin can utilize?

If they cannot, it is a failure on our office. Our idea was to create a simple way for authors and copyright owners to make content available with the freedoms they intend it to carry. In sum, it is a "some rights reserved" model whereby certain rights are reserved past the copyright owner and others are released to the public.

The licenses are structured in a mode that gives creators choices in the uses and freedoms they would like to let. The licenses back up different ecologies of creativity – those with money1 at the core and others operating in the sharing economy2. By selecting simple freedoms and restrictions, creators tin can choose to enable others to share their work or remix it, bailiwick to the restriction that this use must be merely for not-commercial purposes or that any derivative must be released under a similar "share akin" license.

Different licenses support different artistic ecologies. The non-commercial license, for example, supports the apprentice ecology of inventiveness, assuasive creators to know that their works will be used by others co-ordinate to the rules of sharing and not the rules of commerce. When you produce a photo and mail service it on Flickr, selecting a not-commercial license for its use indicates that you are happy to share it with others for non-commercial purposes. If, still, someone wants to use it to illustrate the encompass of a CD they intend to sell, the Creative Commons Plus Protocol offers a simple, cost-free ways of licensing that same work for commercial purposes.

The simplest and freest license, the attribution only license, supports the professional, amateur and scientific ecologies of creativity, because it produces free resources that can be drawn on and used at will. The attribution license indicates that licensors are completely open to others making commercial use of their artistic works. In 2010, for instance, the broadcaster Al Jazeera released a huge archive of its video material under such a license, meaning that anyone tin can accept that raw footage and use information technology equally long as the content is attributed to Al Jazeera. This serves the organisation's commercial objectives, enabling it to spread its brand using infrastructure-gratuitous licensing. In 2009, Wikipedia also adopted CC for all its licensed textile and happily encourages its commercial use. The only requirement is that if you make changes, yous must allow others to use the inverse material under the aforementioned type of license.

Is there any concrete evidence that businesses are growing upward around this model?

Sure businesses could not exist were information technology not for this kind of licensing. For example, businesses supporting remixed music – sites that encourage people to contribute remixes or to take their music and to remix on top of it. Without CC-licensed music, it would be impossible to do this legally. Music encompasses an extremely complicated suite of rights, and negotiating those related to publishing and recording is extraordinarily complicated. CC licenses radically lower transaction costs for such works. At that place is now a huge archive of CC- licensed music. I am non proverb that illegal versions practise not exist, but that legal versions depend essentially upon this kind of licensing.

"Laws for a complimentary gild depend on people having an intuitive sense of why they exist" - Lawrence Lessig

If you had a crystal ball, what would information technology say nearly how copyright will evolve in the next x years?

The crystal ball has a question marker in its eye. There are some cardinal choices to be made. Nosotros will either choose to continue to wage a hopeless state of war to preserve the existing architecture for copyright by upping the stakes and using better weapons to make certain that people respect it. If we practice this, public support for copyright will go on to weaken, pushing creativity clandestine and producing a generation that is alienated from the copyright concept.

Alternatively, we can make peace and call back about a more than sensible compages for copyright in the digital age, determining what information technology should await like and how to establish information technology. WIPO has a fundamental role to play here; for instance, in leading the process by establishing a bluish-heaven commission to come up with simple and clear recommendations for a organization that is in tune with the digital historic period; a organisation that ensures that incentives are safeguarded while freedoms are assured.

If nosotros blueprint an architecture that makes sense to developing countries; that ensures artists are paid while protecting freedoms for scientific and amateur creativity, so I remember nosotros could notice that copyright is once again a well-grounded kind of regulation that everybody understands. Laws in a free society depend on people having an intuitive sense of why they exist. The fact is that the current copyright police force compages does non make sense. Information technology is not that copyright is not important – it is disquisitional – just that, in its electric current course, it fails to ensure adequate incentives and fails to protect necessary freedoms in the digital environment. It was built for a different earth so let's simply update it and conform it to this world then that nosotros tin raise a generation that continues to believe in it.

I think if the copyright authorities focuses on the people we are supposed to exist helping, the artists and creators, and builds a system that gives them the freedom to choose and to protect and to be rewarded for their creativity, so we will have the right focus.

What message would you give to a immature artist starting out?

I recall the message today is, nobody knows, and experimenting is what we have to encourage. Artists need to recognize that and need to be part of the process. Every bit a lawyer, and a founder of Artistic Commons, I do non tell artists that they ought to give away their stuff for free. I tell them that they need to use the tools available and to experiment to find out what works for them.

What motivates you lot?

At that place are very few people in our society who are really free to say what they believe. I am in an extremely fortunate position in having this enormous gift of freedom and believe I should endeavour to apply it to do something useful for gild. As long as I experience as if I take something to say, I'll go on to attempt to do that.

__________________________
one  For these ecologies, control of creativity is of import to ensure the creative person receives the compensation that gives him the incentive to continue creating.
2  Where the creator creates for the love of creating and non for money.

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Source: https://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2011/01/article_0002.html

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