Wednesday, March 31, 2004

Lawrence Lessig

Lawrence Lessig is a professor of law at Stanford Law School, and founder of Stanford's Center for Internet and Society. He is also one of the Big Names in modern thinking about life, the internet, and everything. Lessig's books include Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, The Future of Ideas, and now Free Culture. The subtitle of the latest book is 'How big media uses technology and the law to lock down culture and control creativity.' I always thought that media was a plural noun, but we will let that pass and try to concentrate on the ideas, shall we?

Lessig's latest wheeze, of which I heartily approve, is to make an ebook version of Free Culture available at no cost on his web site. So, should you be remotely interested in what this learned man has to say, and most of it is certainly interesting to me, then you can get yourself a free copy. Of course the book is also available in hardback from any decent bookseller.

There is a shortcut which provides a quick guide to Lessig's latest. Lawrence Solum is giving a kind of summary and running critique as he reads his way through the book, and you can follow his argument on his legal theory blog.

None of it is easy going but then it's not obscure either.

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