Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Solum on future of copyright

Lawrence Solum has done an extensive review of Larry Lessig's book Free Culture. From the Abstract:

"Sometimes technological change is so profound that it rocks the foundations of an entire body of law. Peer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing systems - Napster, Gnutella, KaZaA, Grokster, and Freenet3 - are mere symptoms of a set of technological innovations that have set in motion an ongoing process of fundamental changes in the nature of copyright law. The video tape recorder begat the Sony substantial noninfringing use defense. The digital cassette recorder begat the Audio Home Recording Act. The internet begat the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Napster begat Napster. We see the law morph right in front of our eyes, but its ultimate form is still obscure. As a consequence, the future of copyright is up for grabs. We live in a magical, exhilarating, and frightening time: Many alternative copyfutures shimmer on the horizon, sometimes coming into sharper focus and sometimes fading away.

In this heady atmosphere, the idea slingers are at work. Richard Posner and William Landes have proposed indefinitely renewable copyrights. Neil Netanel, William Fisher, and others propose to legalize P2P filesharing...

No copywarrior is more prominent and influential than Larry Lessig...

This essay examines the ideas in Free Culture in the context of current controversies over the future of copyright."

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