Lessig's passionate new book, ''The Future of Ideas,'' argues that America's concern with protecting intellectual property has become an oppressive obsession. ''The distinctive feature of modern American copyright law,'' he writes, ''is its almost limitless bloating.'' As Lessig sees it, a system originally designed to provide incentives for innovation has increasingly become a weapon for attacking cutting-edge creativity.

Sadly, Lessig's grim assessment is dead on. Earlier this year, for example, lawyers for Margaret Mitchell's estate almost succeeded in banning ''The Wind Done Gone,'' a slave-centered recasting of ''Gone With the Wind,'' on the grounds that it was theft. (Indeed, the case is still tied up in court.) And Baz Luhrmann, the director of ''Moulin Rouge,'' was forced to revise his screenplay when Cat Stevens's lawyers refused to allow him to use the song ''Father and Son.'' Why, Lessig asks, does American law increasingly protect the interests of the old guard over those of the vanguard? After all, new art always borrows from old. Shakespeare's ''Hamlet'' was a remake; Picasso created collages from torn-up newspapers; rappers rhyme over bass lines lifted from funk songs. If that's the way culture works, why does the law so often stand in the way?

[Privacy Digest]

Lessig's conceptual position is troubling and what he is focusing on needs to be on your radar screen. On the other hand, there's a lot of rhetoric and reasoning here, but not as much data/evidence as I might prefer.

12:46:47 PM •  • comment