Lawrence Lessig's Blog, page 12

On "socialism": round II

There's an interesting resistance (see the comments) to my resistance to Kevin Kelly's description of (what others call) Web 2.0 as "socialism." That resistance (to my resistance) convinces me my point hasn't been made.

Confidence about my "ignorance" about political philosophy notwithstanding (and don't tell my political philosophy tutor from Cambridge where I spent three years studying the stuff), my point is not that it is impossible to understand "socialism" as Kelly describes it...

Et tu, KK? (aka, No, Kevin, this is not "socialism")

As I wrote last week, I threw away a week I didn't have penning an "insanely long" review (as I described it), of Mark Helprin's insanely sloppy "Digital Barbarism."

The part of that book that really got me going was the incessant Red-baiting -- the suggestion that the movement of which I am a part is a kind of warmed over Marxism from the 1960s.

That part always gets me going because it betrays a kind of mushiness in thinking that I should have thought a decade of writing by scores of advocates

Et tu, KK? (aka, No, Kevin, this is not "socialism")

As I wrote last week, I threw away a week I didn't have penning an "insanely long" review (as I described it), of Mark Helprin's insanely sloppy "Digital Barbarism."

The part of that book that really got me going was the incessant Red-baiting -- the suggestion that the movement of which I am a part is a kind of warmed over Marxism from the 1960s.

That part always gets me going because it betrays a kind of mushiness in thinking that I should have thought a decade of writing by scores of...

GSC: Senator Ben Nelson is angry (second in a series)

Change Congress launched its second "good souls corruption" attack today, this time against Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson. (Two Dems in a row; we'll be more balanced next time.) The attack has excited an hysterical response from the Senator's office. Read about the charge (here) and the response (below), and then please sign our petition to Senator Nelson.

At the beginning of May, Senator Nelson was reported to have said that including a "public option" (giving Americans a choice to opt into a pub

GSC: Senator Ben Nelson is angry (second in a series)

Change Congress launched its second "good souls corruption" attack today, this time against Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson. (Two Dems in a row; we'll be more balanced next time.) The attack has excited an hysterical response from the Senator's office. Read about the charge (here) and the response (below), and then please sign our petition to Senator Nelson.

At the beginning of May, Senator Nelson was reported to have said that including a "public option" (giving Americans a choice to opt into a ...

RIP! in Minneapolis -- May 28.

From the latest RIP!: A Remix Manifesto screening:

Sound Unseen in Minneapolis screens RIP!
Date May 28, 2009
Time 8:00 PM
Venue The TRYLON screening room
Location 2820 E 33rd St, Minneapolis, MN, 55406

Event Type Open to the Public
Ticket Price $5
Venue Capacity 60 (Small venue, buying tix in advance recommended!)
Event Website http://soundunseen.com
In RiP: A Remix Manifesto, web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor explores issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape o

The Solipsist and the Internet (a review of Helprin's Digital Barbarism)

Exactly two years ago today, the New York Times published an op-ed about copyright by a novelist. The piece caused something of a digital riot. As we learn now from his book, Digital Barbarism (HarperCollins 2009) (note: if you buy from that link, Creative Commons gets the referral fee), Mark Helprin was at the time completely ignorant about the hornet's nest he was about to kick. For him, the op-ed was a professional rapprochement with the New York Times, a chance to make things right once agai

The Kindle experience: this must be a nightmare

So I buy a Kindle book for my Kindle 2. It downloads to my machine. I open up the book -- it has no relation (except the relation of "not") to the book I ordered. Three emails, 4 days later, Amazon has still not responded to the problem. I wonder how they begin to discover/fix such a problem.

Remix Culture: (They say) Fair Use is Your Friend

The great folks at American University have a great video about "fair use" and remix.

GreenWorldApps: Easier ways to Clear Up Your Carbon

I still think lots about how to make obvious the obvious responsibility we all have to clean up your carbon. GreenWorldApps is developing a suite of web apps to make that easier.