Remix

Lawrence Lessig, Maryam Itatí Portillo, Nikita Bachmakov, Giula Faraguna, Carola Felis, Natalia Gnisci, Lina González, Beatriz Rando, Michael Schmidt, María Sorzano, Laura Vacas, Carmen Vargas, Florencio Cabello, María García Perulero, Maryam Itatí Portillo, Nikita Bachmakov, Giula Faraguna, Carola Felis, Natalia Gnisci, Lina González, Beatriz Rando, María Sorzano, Laura Vacas, Florencio Cabello, María García Perulero

From Publishers Weekly Should anyone besides libertarian hackers or record companies care about copyright in the online world? In this incisive treatise, Stanford law prof and Wired columnist Lessig (Free Culture) argues that we should. He frames the problem as a war between an old read-only culture, in which media megaliths sell copyrighted music and movies to passive consumers, and a dawning digital read-write culture, in which audiovisual products are freely downloaded and manipulated in an explosion of democratized creativity. Both cultures can thrive in a hybrid economy, he contends, pioneered by Web entities like YouTube. Lessig's critique of draconian copyright laws—highlighted by horror stories of entertainment conglomerates threatening tweens for putting up Harry Potter fan sites—is trenchant. (Why, he asks, should sampling music and movies be illegal when quoting texts is...