Lawrence Lessig

Theres something obvious to anyone close to technology today: Nonproprietary technology helps proprietary enterprise. For example, the global positioning system was set free for commercial development by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. The consequence was an explosion of commercial technologies building upon GPS. The National Weather Service makes a vast amount of this data freely […]

If there were a Nobel Prize awarded for business innovation, Id nominate the person who first thought of giving customers at convenience stores their purchases for free if the cashier didnt offer a receipt. Convenience stores are famously vulnerable to rogue cashiers who dont record sales. By drafting customers to police cashiers, convenience stores get […]

A generation from now, when policy types look back to the first decade of the 21st Century, there is no doubt they will think of a “Powell” as one of the most important policy makers of our time. But Im betting it will be Michael, not Colin, Powell. Im a big fan of the balance […]

Skepticism about whether a “spectrum commons” could work most likely springs from the way weve been trained to think about “spectrum.” A hundred years of careless talk has led many to think spectrum is a thing. Worse, a hundred years of careless talk has led most people to think that when radios suffer “interference” it […]

In 1998, Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended the term of existing and future copyrights by 20 years—from 75 to 95 years for corporate works, and life plus 50 to 70 years for literary works by authors. This was the eleventh time in 40 years that Congress extended copyright terms. […]

According to Merriam-Websters dictionary, a vigilante is “a member of a volunteer committee organized to suppress and punish crime summarily (as when the processes of law appear inadequate).” He or she is “a self-appointed doer of justice.” The Internet has had a long history of digital vigilantism, the most common being spam vigilantes. These well-meaning […]

Theres a civil war brewing in my state of California. It is again a war between the Silicon Valley-based IT industry in the North and Hollywood content and entertainment producers in the South. Silicon Valley has become the target of punitive legislation being pushed by Hollywood in Congress. The Valley, Hollywood charges, has profited from […]