Valleywag: lawrence lessig

Indiana Jones and the Fair-Use Ruling of Doom

Owen Thomas — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:00:00 PDT

A guest post from commenter WagCurious: Lawrence Lessig and I have one thing in common: We both hate Yoko Ono. Not because she broke up the Beatles (debatable) but because she is the latest copyright owner to try to limit the application of U.S. copyright law's fair-use doctrine). Yoko sued Premise Media, Rampant Films and Rocky Mountain Pictures for using 15 seconds of her late husband's song "Imagine" in a film about intelligent design. The film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, insists that the universe was created in six days like the Bible says, but that physics were used to do it. You can imagine how litigious Yoko must have felt when she heard that John's song would be used yet again by the religious right, this time to score points against chemistry and physics. She lost her suit against the filmmakers, but it got me wondering just how many video upload sites have restricted the fair use of content due to the threat of lawsuit. I thought a test case was needed. Thus, Indiana Jones and the Big Alligator was created and submitted to YouTube, MSN Video and Current.com. How did the sites handle the "fair use" of George Lucas' baby?

YouTube was a breeze. Though they insist you should "not upload any TV shows, music videos, music concerts, or commercials without permission unless they consist entirely of content you created yourself," they also explain the "fair use" exception to this rule, in detail. They do, however, leave budding filmmakers with this warning, "if the copyright owner disagrees with your interpretation of fair use, the copyright owner may choose to resolve the dispute in court". YouTube knows a thing or two about being dragged into court. But being a sport, they allowed my upload to go live.

Current.com was also a big fan of existing legal doctrine. They let me post both the video itself and a link to the YouTube video. Both show up in the first page of results when you search for "Indiana Jones". I have to remember to send Al Gore a "thank you" note.

MSN Video was not quite as kind. MSN Video would not publish the film (which includes 80 seconds of the "Indiana Jones" theme song). My guess is that they matched the audio track to a library of copyrighted material, since just five days prior someone had no problem adding "Watch Indiana Jones 4 Movie" to the site (a silent film that displays a link to a Myvix rip of the film). And there's the rub.

When automated filtering systems are created in response to the threat of copyright lawsuits the result is that good, honest people get trampled underfoot while the actual pirates simply work around the barrier. You can still find an Indiana Jones rip using MSN Video, but you cannot find my brilliant treatise on tempo as it relates to the work of John Williams. Blame Yoko Ono: Most upload sites do not have the resources to change filtering technology each time a new copyright ruling comes out. Once a draconian filtering system is put in place to please copyright owners, it will take more than imagination to get creators' "fair use" rights back.

Lawrence Lessig now to forever be known as "Uncle Larry"

Jackson West — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:40:00 PDT

While Republicans did what they could to paint Lawrence Lessig — and, by extension, Barack Obama — as an anti-Christian elitist, they couldn't raise the stink enough. So instead think-tanker Tom Sydnor of the Progress and Freedom Foundation has attacked copylefters as "quasi-socialist utopianism" in a review of Lessig's book Free Culture. There's just one small problem.

Lessig is also quite well liked amongst many free-marketeers, and is a former libertarian himself, according to Ars Technica. As my lovingly rendered LOLshevik points out, Lessig isn't strictly against the concept of intellectual property, simply the gerrymandering of IP law by American media conglomerates. Still, he willingly accepts the honorific "comrade." Da? Here at Valleywag we'll be calling him "Uncle Larry."

Lawrence Lessig draws ire of Rush Limbaugh and the Dittoheads

Jackson West — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:20:00 PDT

Lawrence Lessig's choice of examples to illustrate the vibrant video-mashup scene to Google employees in New York — a fabulous Jesus lipsyncing Gloria Gaynor's anthem "I Will Survive" — was picked apart by Redstate and then picked up by Rush Limbaugh. Mincing down Hollywood Boulevard and hip-bumping passers-by isn't how most Americans want to imagine their lord and savior. Lessig, who recorded a 20-minute video explaining why he's "4Barack," now serves to help Republicans paint the Obama campaign as out of touch with the mainstream. The original Redstate post goes so far as to raise the specter of Communism, painting Lessig's nuanced arguments for copyright reform as a call for the abolishment of intellectual property.

Comcast chickens out of FCC hearings at Stanford

Jackson West — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:20:00 PDT

Superlawyer Lawrence Lessig won't have Comcast to kick around at the FCC hearing on network neutrality — the principle that broadband providers can't discriminate against certain kinds of Internet traffic — being held at Stanford tomorrow. The event was only scheduled after Comcast paid chumps to fill chairs at an earlier hearing at Harvard in an obvious effort to squelch debate. With Comcast working with BitTorrent and just today joining with legal file-sharing startup Pando to work on a "bill of rights" for file sharers and ISPs, the company is trying to make voluntary moves in an effort to stave off involuntary regulation. I was planning on attending, if only because it promised to be an entertaining nerdfight — now, I'm not so sure. Since public hearings are supposedly democracy in action, you tell me if I should bother buying a Caltrain ticket.

(Illustration by Victor Agreda, Jr.)

FCC schedules "do-over" Comcast hearing at Stanford

Jordan Golson — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:20:06 PDT

The FCC has announced that it will hold a second hearing on "net neutrality" — the debate over whether broadband providers can favor some kinds of Internet traffic — at Stanford University on April 17 (PDF). We wrote back in February that FCC chairman Kevin Martin was considering a "do-over"; the FCC's first hearing at Harvard was deemed botched after Comcast was caught packing the room with seatwarmers hired off the street. Now, Comcast has to deal with a hostile crowd and Professor Lawrence Lessig, a strong proponent of net neutrality. Lessig v. Comcast at Stanford? Sign me up!

The FCC's Martin had reportedly downplayed our report of a second hearing at Stanford. A spokesperson said, "The chairman never indicated that there would or would not be additional hearings, only indicated that there may be additional hearings. No decision has yet been made." I guess you shouldn't believe everything a politician tells you.

Lessig considers run for Congress

Owen Thomas — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:53:22 PST

We were just tweaking Stanford law professor Larry Lessig, really, when we asked him if he planned to just study the law, or actually make it. But Lessig now says he's seriously considering a run for the late Tom Lantos's House seat. A grassroots "Draft Lessig" movement prompted him to think about it, he says. Will he or won't he? Lessig, an Obama supporter who's also riding a "change" theme, posted a video explaining his thinking:

The oddest thing about his tentative run: He's switched from "Lawrence," the name he prefers, to the more proletarian "Larry." See, Larry, you're already becoming a politician!

So, would you vote for him?

Could Silicon Valley send a nerd to Capitol Hill?

Owen Thomas — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:00:53 PST

"Run, Lawrence, run!" That's the blog comment that Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig received after a brief mention of Congressman Tom Lantos's retirement. Could he? A Daily Kos blogger thinks it's plausible, and a majority of readers polled say they'd vote for him. Lessig is intensely popular in Silicon Valley's geek-thinker circles. But he's a virtual unknown among most voters in the South Bay district Lantos represents. Still, Lessig stands a chance of boosting his profile by tackling the issue of corruption — not the tired political charge, but the larger systemic issues that underlie the rot in our political system. He will deliver a speech on the subject this Thursday. If he has intentions to make the law, not just study it, then that occasion is as good as any to announce a run.

Take this Wikipedia and shove it

Megan McCarthy — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 12:22:31 PST

Elevation Partners — you know, the hedge fund with added Bono — threw a party for Wikipedia at the Third Street Grill. The big news was that Wikipedia has updated its license to be compatible with Larry Lessig's Creative Commons, which should make it even easier for schoolkids to copy entries wholesale into their term papers. Or something. I was on my fourth Cape Codder by the time they started announcing things, so I wasn't really paying attention.

It was an odd venue for a tech party — a greasy diner by day, the Grill sits on a corner near the ballpark, neighborhing Border's, McDonald's, and dozens of men in Giants windbreakers asking passerbys if they need a ticket. They say open source is about software that's free as in "free speech," not "free beer," but the open bar featured plenty of the latter.

Elevation's Marc Bodnick greeted me by saying I wasn't drunk enough, and he was rarely without a can of Coors Light the entire night. The user-contributed entertainment was karaoke, backed by a talented, and very patient, live band. The clip above, captured by Irene McGee's cell phone, is a video of Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales and Creative Commons creator Lawrence Lessig announcing their collaboration and singing the Sonny and Cher classic "I Got You Babe." Seriously.

And apparently, no one's putting in long hours over at Yahoo; there was a large contingent from the troubled portal there. Shouldn't they have been back in the office, saving the company? Yahoo Brickhouse head Salim Ismail, our latest Silicon Valley tool, and Yahoo VP Bradley Horowitz took the mike, breaking out "Don't You Want Me," a fitting anthem. (The answer: No.)

Later on, I succumbed to the call of the spotlight, bleating out the Johnny Paycheck classic "Take This Job and Shove It," which given the events of last week seemed so appropriate. (Video by Irene McGee)

Declaring e-mail bankruptcy

Nick Douglas — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 13:46:36 PDT

NICK DOUGLAS — "If you've sent me an email (and you aren't my wife, partner, or colleague), you might want to send it again." So says Fred Wilson, venture capitalist, declaring e-mail bankruptcy today on his blog. He's not the first high-profile person to take this measure. Here are three other notables who've given up on their e-mail (the most famous of whom reportedly white-lied) and three who found a better way.

Lawrence Lessig: The highest-profile email bankruptcy to date. The copyright attorney (who fought a Supreme Court case against a 20-year extension of all U.S. copyrights) sent a mass e-mail in 2004 asking anyone with important unanswered e-mail to reply, which would flag their mail as important. He carried off the task with aplomb, apologizing for failing to maintain "cyber decency." But rumor has it that Lessig still went through much of his "bankrupt" e-mail.
Andrew Baron: The producer of the Rocketboom show reportedly declared an e-mail reboot in 2006.
Michael Arrington: In October 2006, the publisher of the TechCrunch blog came back from vacation and deleted months of e-mails. He also turned off instant messaging.
The better fix: Sean Bonner: Instead of dropping all his current e-mails, Sean Bonner put a throttle on future mail. The founder of the Metroblogging city-blog network started autoresponding to e-mail this month, saying he only checks e-mail once a day.
Tim Ferriss: Sean's following what Ferriss recommends in his book The 4-Hour Workweek. Ferriss follows his own plan (and apparently truly works four hours a week).
Andy Baio: Upcoming's founder says he built a 10,000-e-mail backlog in 2006. He spent six weeks fixing it.

Before you try this at home, remember that the people above can get hundreds of e-mails a day. Try autoresponders before you try bankruptcy; everyone appreciates some sort of response. Consider hiring an assistant, even part-time, for less than you could make by saving your e-mail time. If these measures seem like too much, you're not that bad off. You just need to get quicker at managing your e-mail.

(Photo: Midnight Beep)