Subscribe
Late this afternoon, I was enjoying my favorite video podcast. It’s created by TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) and features prominent speakers. This talk features Larry Lessig, a professor of Law at Stanford who specializes in copyright law. He is also the chair of Creative Commons, a nonprofit group that helps artists license their creations in a sensible way. (We should chat about this when you have time, chopdeli).
In his talk, Lessig proposes a sensible and market-based solution on how we can protect the business interests of artists while simultaneously allowing fair-use rights for private individual. Like many a TED talk, this one was extraordinarily interesting. Aside from the intended content, it got me quite excited about the potential for creativity, especially for todays kids. Anyway, enjoy the talk!
…..
Wow! First and foremost Mr. Lessig is a fantastic speaker! Excellent presence and clarity while still providing a sense of urgency and compulsion. All you teachers and presenters out there I think would find this talk interesting just for Mr. Lessig’s technique in communication. By the way, he’s no fly by night, flash in the pan either; check out his short bio here: http://lessig.org/info/bio/. Ok, I thought the content of his discussion was very interesting too. He was very good at describing and convincing me that there is current problem with the way our society protects intellectual property. I understood the crux of the issue being that the way the current laws are set up it turns almost everybody into a sort of law breaker. I know that I am, I share mp3s all the time. I don’t do it to be malicious, I just do it cuz I’m excited about a tune and want to share my excitement.
The other main point that really stuck out to me is that Mr. Lessig defined to competeing extremes of the argument. Mainly the government side which wants to over protect all content thus stifling creative development, and then the ‘Napster-phytes’ who want to disregard all copyrights and basically say f-the law. I agree with Mr. Lessig that there needs to be a middle ground. I’m not as convinced that Mr. Lessig was able to provide a good solution but he presented the problem very nicely.
Overall, I would recommend watching this. It’s about 19 minutes but I found it worth it. It’s nice to see an intelligent person present something properly in this age of sound bites and ‘you-know’s. Maybe I’ve been watching too much sports. : )
The TED talks are full of speakers like this. I find 80% or more worth viewing. They really do feature some of the smartest and most creative people in the world.
Dirt cheap airline tickets….
Airline tickets cheap last minute. Cheap last minute airline tickets. Cheap airline tickets….