Lawrence "Larry" Lessig (born June 3, 1961) is an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
academicAcademia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...
and political activist. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on
copyrightCopyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
,
trademarkA trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
, and
radio frequency spectrumRadio frequency is a rate of oscillation in the range of about 3 kHz to 300 GHz, which corresponds to the frequency of radio waves, and the alternating currents which carry radio signals...
, particularly in technology applications, and he has called for state-based activism to promote substantive reform of government with a
Second Constitutional ConventionA constitutional convention is now a gathering for the purpose of writing a new constitution or revising an existing constitution. A general constitutional convention is called to create the first constitution of a political unit or to entirely replace an existing constitution...
.
He is a director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at
Harvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and a professor of law at
Harvard Law SchoolHarvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
. Prior to rejoining Harvard, he was a professor of law at
Stanford Law SchoolStanford Law School is a graduate school at Stanford University located in the area known as the Silicon Valley, near Palo Alto, California in the United States. The Law School was established in 1893 when former President Benjamin Harrison joined the faculty as the first professor of law...
and founder of its
Center for Internet and SocietyThe Center for Internet and Society is a public interest technology law and policy program founded in 2000 by Lawrence Lessig at Stanford Law School and a part of Law, Science and Technology Program at Stanford Law School...
. Lessig is a founding board member of
Creative CommonsCreative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
, a board member of the
Software Freedom Law CenterThe Software Freedom Law Center is an organization that provides pro bono legal representation and related services to not-for-profit developers of free software/open source software. It was launched in February 2005 with Eben Moglen as Chairman. Initial funding of US$4 million was pledged by...
, an advisory board member of the
Sunlight FoundationThe Sunlight Foundation is a 501 educational organization founded in April 2006 with the goal of increasing transparency and accountability in the United States government....
and a former board member of the
Electronic Frontier FoundationThe Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...
.
Academic career
Born in
Rapid City, South DakotaRapid City is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of South Dakota, and the county seat of Pennington County. Named after Rapid Creek on which the city is established, it is set against the eastern slope of the Black Hills mountain range. The population was 67,956 as of the 2010 Census. Rapid...
, Lessig grew up in
Williamsport, PennsylvaniaWilliamsport is a city in and the county seat of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania in the United States. In 2009, the population was estimated at 29,304...
, and earned a
B.A.A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in Economics and a
B.S.A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
in Management (Wharton School) from the
University of PennsylvaniaThe University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, an M.A. in
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
from the
University of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
(
TrinityTrinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
) in England, and a
Juris DoctorJuris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...
from
Yale Law SchoolYale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
in 1989. After graduating from law school, he
clerkedA law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person who provides assistance to a judge in researching issues before the court and in writing opinions. Law clerks are not court clerks or courtroom deputies, who are administrative staff for the court. Most law clerks are recent law school graduates who...
for a year for Judge
Richard PosnerRichard Allen Posner is an American jurist, legal theorist, and economist who is currently a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School...
, at the
7th Circuit Court of AppealsThe United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the courts in the following districts:* Central District of Illinois* Northern District of Illinois...
in
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
,
IllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
and another year for Justice
Antonin ScaliaAntonin Gregory Scalia is an American jurist who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. As the longest-serving justice on the Court, Scalia is the Senior Associate Justice...
at the
Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
.
Lessig started his academic career at the
University of Chicago Law SchoolThe University of Chicago Law School was founded in 1902 as the graduate school of law at the University of Chicago and is among the most prestigious and selective law schools in the world. The U.S. News & World Report currently ranks it fifth among U.S...
, where he was Professor from 1991 to 1997. From 1997 to 2000, he was at
Harvard Law SchoolHarvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
, holding for a year the chair of Berkman Professor of Law, affiliated with the
Berkman Center for Internet & SocietyThe Berkman Center for Internet & Society is a research center at Harvard University that focuses on the study of cyberspace. Founded at Harvard Law School, the center traditionally focused on internet-related legal issues. On May 15, 2008, the Center was elevated to an interfaculty initiative of...
. He subsequently joined
Stanford Law SchoolStanford Law School is a graduate school at Stanford University located in the area known as the Silicon Valley, near Palo Alto, California in the United States. The Law School was established in 1893 when former President Benjamin Harrison joined the faculty as the first professor of law...
, where he established the school's
Center for Internet and SocietyThe Center for Internet and Society is a public interest technology law and policy program founded in 2000 by Lawrence Lessig at Stanford Law School and a part of Law, Science and Technology Program at Stanford Law School...
.
Lessig returned to Harvard in December 2008 as Professor and Director of the "Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics".
Political activism
Lessig is currently considered a political liberal. As a law clerk, however, he worked for both Judge Richard
PosnerRichard Allen Posner is an American jurist, legal theorist, and economist who is currently a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School...
and Justice Antonin
ScaliaAntonin Gregory Scalia is an American jurist who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. As the longest-serving justice on the Court, Scalia is the Senior Associate Justice...
, two influential
conservativeConservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
judges.
Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at
CambridgeThe city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or
libertarianLibertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active member of
Teenage RepublicansTeen Age Republicans or "TARs" is a political youth organization that is an official auxiliary to the United States Republican Party. There are various TAR clubs throughout the United States, at county and state levels. TAR has a presence in all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia, and...
, serving as the Youth Governor for Pennsylvania through the
YMCA Youth and GovernmentYMCA Youth and Government, or Y&G is a YMCA civic engagement and service-learning program in the United States that offers high school students the opportunity to serve in a model government process at the local, state, national, and international levels...
program in 1978 and almost pursued a
RepublicanThe Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
political career.
What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete a graduate degree in philosophy there and develop his changed political values. During this time, he also traveled in the
Eastern BlocThe term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
, so acquiring a lifelong interest in
Eastern EuropeEastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
an law and politics.
Lessig refuses to embrace conventional
libertarianismLibertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
. While Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention, he favors regulation by calling himself "a constitutionalist". In his
blogA blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
, Lessig came out in favor of then-Democratic primary candidate
Barack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
, citing the transformative nature of Obama's campaign as one of his chief reasons. On one occasion, Lessig also commended the
John McCainJohn Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
campaign for discussing
fair useFair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders...
rights in a letter to
YouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
where it took issue with YouTube for indulging overreaching copyright claims leading to the removal of various campaign videos.
"Code is law"
In computer science, "code" typically refers to the text of a computer program (the
source codeIn computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
). In law, "code" can refer to the texts that constitute
statutory lawStatutory law or statute law is written law set down by a legislature or by a legislator .Statutes may originate with national, state legislatures or local municipalities...
. In his book
Code and Other Laws of CyberspaceCode and Other Laws of Cyberspace is a book by Lawrence Lessig. It has evolved into a partially wiki-written book Code v2 under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.- Main topic :...
, Lessig explores the ways in which code in both senses can be instruments for
social controlSocial control refers generally to societal and political mechanisms or processes that regulate individual and group behavior, leading to conformity and compliance to the rules of a given society, state, or social group. Many mechanisms of social control are cross-cultural, if only in the control...
, leading to his dictum that "Code is law." Lessig later updated his work in order to keep up with the prevailing views of the time and released the book as
Code: Version 2.0Code: Version 2.0 is a book by Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig which proposes that governments have broad regulatory powers over the Internet.- The book :...
in December 2006.
Free Culture
In 2002, Lessig received the Award for the Advancement of Free Software from the
Free Software FoundationThe Free Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software...
(FSF), and on March 28, 2004 he was elected to the FSF's Board of Directors. In 2006, Lessig was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and SciencesThe American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
. Lessig is also a well-known critic of
copyrightCopyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
term extensions.
He proposed the concept of "
Free CultureThe free culture movement is a social movement that promotes the freedom to distribute and modify creative works in the form of free content by using the Internet and other forms of media....
". He also supports
free softwareFree software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
and
open spectrumOpen spectrum is a movement to get the Federal Communications Commission to provide more unlicensed, radio frequency spectrum that is available for use by all...
. At his Free Culture keynote at the
O'Reilly Open Source ConventionThe O'Reilly Open Source Convention is an annual convention for the discussion of free and open source software. It is organized by the publisher O'Reilly Media and is held each summer in the United States.-Notable events:...
2002, half of his speech was about
software patentSoftware patent does not have a universally accepted definition. One definition suggested by the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure is that a software patent is a "patent on any performance of a computer realised by means of a computer program".In 2005, the European Patent Office...
s, which he views as a rising threat to both free/
open sourceThe term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
software and innovation.
In March 2006, Lessig joined the board of advisors of the
Digital UniverseDigital Universe is a free online information service founded in 2006. The project aims to create a "network of portals designed to provide high-quality information and services to the public"...
project. A few months later, Lessig gave a talk on the ethics of the Free Culture Movement at the 2006
WikimaniaWikimania is an annual international conference for users of the wiki projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation...
conference.
Lessig claimed in 2009 that, because 70% of young people obtain digital information from illegal sources, the law should be changed.
Money in politics
At the iCommons iSummit 07, Lessig announced that he will stop focusing his attention on copyright and related matters and will work on
political corruptionPolitical corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...
instead. This new work may be partially facilitated through his
wikiA wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
, "Lessig Wiki", which he has encouraged the public to use to document cases of corruption.
In February 2008, a
FacebookFacebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
group formed by law professor
John PalfreyJohn Palfrey is a faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, vice dean for library and information resources, and the Henry N. Ess III Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He led a reorganization of the Harvard Law School Library in 2009...
encouraged him to run for Congress from
California's 12th congressional districtCalifornia's 12th congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of California that spans from the southwestern portions of San Francisco in the north down to San Mateo in the south, and from Moss Beach in the west to the edge of San Mateo in the east, where it borders...
, the seat vacated by the death of U.S. Representative
Tom LantosThomas Peter "Tom" Lantos was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from 1981 until his death, representing the northern two-thirds of San Mateo County and a portion of southwest San Francisco...
. Later that month, after forming an "exploratory project", the decision was made not to run for the vacant seat.
Despite having decided to forgo running for Congress himself, Lessig remained interested in attempting to change Congress to reduce corruption. To this end, he worked with political consultant Joe Trippi to launch a web based project called "
Change CongressChange Congress is an American organization that aims to end perceived corruption in the United States Congress by reducing what it considers the distorted influence of money in that legislative body...
". In a press conference on March 20, 2008, Lessig explained that he hoped the Change Congress website would help provide technological tools voters could use to hold their representatives accountable and reduce the influence of money on politics. He is a board member of
MAPLight.orgMAPLight.org is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization tracking money and politics in U.S. Congress and several cities and states. The organization publishes a free public database linking together money and politics data sources, including campaign contributions to politicians, how...
, a nonprofit research group illuminating the connection between money and politics.
Lessig has known president
Barack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
since their days of both teaching law at the University of Chicago, and had been mentioned as a candidate to head the
Federal Communications CommissionThe Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
, which regulates the telecommunications industry. However, this position is now held by
Julius GenachowskiJulius Genachowski is an American lawyer and businessman. He became Federal Communications Commission Chairman on June 29, 2009.-Education:Genachowski grew up in Great Neck, New York. He attended yeshiva and studied in Israel...
.
At his talk at the 2009 Aspen Ideas Festival, Professor Lessig talked about Forbin Problems in a talk entitled Will Technology Change Our Lives? and also about his idea that the American public has lost faith in the central institution of our democracy, Congress.
Constitutional convention
In 2010, Lessig began to organize for a national constitutional convention. He co-founded
Fix Congress First! with
Joe TrippiJoe Trippi is a long-time American Democratic campaign worker and consultant. A mainstay in presidential politics, Trippi has worked on the presidential campaigns of Edward Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, Dick Gephardt, Jerry Brown and most recently John Edwards...
.
Lessig called for a convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution in a September 24-25, 2011 conference co-chaired by the
Tea Party PatriotsTea Party Patriots is an American political organization that promotes "fiscally responsible" activism as part of the Tea Party movement. It claims to have over 1,000 local chapters...
' national coordinator, in Lessig's October 5 book,
Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress – and a Plan to Stop ItRepublic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It is the sixth book by Harvard law professor and free culture activist Lawrence Lessig...
, and at the Occupy protest in Washington, DC. Reporter
Dan FroomkinDan Froomkin is the Senior Washington Correspondent for the Huffington Post. His work is now collected . He previously wrote a column for the online version of The Washington Post called White House Watch....
said the book offers a
manifestoA manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. Manifestos relating to religious belief are generally referred to as creeds. Manifestos may also be life stance-related.-Etymology:...
for the
Occupy Wall StreetOccupy Wall Street is an ongoing series of demonstrations initiated by the Canadian activist group Adbusters which began September 17, 2011 in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial district...
protestors, focusing on the core problem of corruption in both political parties and their elections. Lessig's initial constitutional amendment would allow legislatures to limit political contributions from non-citizens, including corporations, anonymous organizations, and foreign nationals, and he also supports public campaign financing and
electoral collegeAn electoral college is a set of electors who are selected to elect a candidate to a particular office. Often these represent different organizations or entities, with each organization or entity represented by a particular number of electors or with votes weighted in a particular way...
reform to establish the one person, one vote principle. Lessig's web site
convention.idea.informer.com allows anyone to propose and vote on constitutional amendments. Similar amendments have been proposed by
Dylan RatiganDylan Jason Ratigan is an American television host primarily covering financial markets, the global economy, and politics. He is host of The Dylan Ratigan Show which airs weekday afternoons on MSNBC. He is also a frequent contributor on The Huffington Post.- Early life :Ratigan was born in the...
,
Karl AuerbachKarl Auerbach is a California attorney and internet protocol engineer who in 2002 sued the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers —of which he was an elected board member—for refusing to share corporate records...
,
Cenk UygurCenk Kadir Uygur , is the main host and co-founder of the liberal Internet and talk radio show, The Young Turks . A naturalized U.S. citizen, Uygur was born in Turkey and raised from age eight in the United States. He worked as an attorney in Washington D.C. and New York before beginning his career...
, and others. On October 15, the Occupy Wall Street Demands Working Group, published the
99 Percent DeclarationThe 99 Percent Declaration or 99% Declaration is a document associated with Occupy Wall Street. It calls for a "National General Assembly" to convene on July 4, 2012 in Philadelphia. The attendees will be 876 delegates elected by direct vote. There will be a man and a woman from each of the 435...
of demands, goals, and solutions. Some protesters have joined the call for a constitutional amendment. On November 1, 2011, Senator
Tom UdallThomas Stewart "Tom" Udall is the junior United States Senator from New Mexico and a member of the Democratic Party. He had represented as a member of the United States House of Representatives since 1999. Udall was elected as the junior United States senator from New Mexico on November 4, 2008,...
introduced a constitutional amendment to reform campaign finance.
Rootstrikers
Change CongressChange Congress is an American organization that aims to end perceived corruption in the United States Congress by reducing what it considers the distorted influence of money in that legislative body...
, founded by Lessig and
Joe TrippiJoe Trippi is a long-time American Democratic campaign worker and consultant. A mainstay in presidential politics, Trippi has worked on the presidential campaigns of Edward Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, Dick Gephardt, Jerry Brown and most recently John Edwards...
, later became Fix Congress First which started a project called Rootstrikers, now a project of the Democracy Fund, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation.
Combating sexual abuse
In May 2005, it was revealed that Lessig had experienced
sexual abuseSexual abuse, also referred to as molestation, is the forcing of undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another. When that force is immediate, of short duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual assault. The offender is referred to as a sexual abuser or molester...
by the director at the
American Boychoir SchoolThe American Boychoir School is a music boarding school located in Princeton, New Jersey. It is one of only two boychoir boarding schools in the United States, the other being Saint Thomas Choir School in New York City...
which he had attended as an adolescent. Lessig reached a settlement with the school in the past, under confidential terms. He revealed his experiences in the course of representing another student victim, John Hardwicke, in court. In August 2006, he succeeded in persuading the
New Jersey Supreme CourtThe New Jersey Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It has existed in three different forms under the three different state constitutions since the independence of the state in 1776...
to restrict the scope of immunity radically, which had protected nonprofits that failed to prevent sexual abuse from legal liability.
Media references
Lessig appears as a character in a 2005 episode of the television political drama
The West WingThe West Wing is an American television serial drama created by Aaron Sorkin that was originally broadcast on NBC from September 22, 1999 to May 14, 2006...
("The Wake Up Call", season 6, episode 14). Lessig’s character, portrayed by
Christopher LloydChristopher Allen Lloyd is an American actor. He is best known for playing Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy, Uncle Fester in The Addams Family and Addams Family Values, and Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He played Reverend Jim Ignatowski in the television series Taxi and more...
, is intended to be a realistic depiction including such details as citing his book
The Future of IdeasThe Future of Ideas: the fate of the commons in a connected world is a book by Lawrence Lessig, at the time of writing a professor of law at Stanford Law School, who is well known as a critic of the extension of the copyright term in US....
and his expertise in Eastern European
constitutional lawConstitutional law is the body of law which defines the relationship of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary....
.
Artist group
Monochrommonochrom is an international art-technology-philosophy group, founded in 1993. Its offices are located at Museumsquartier/Vienna ....
performed a "Love Song for Lessig" on
Boing BoingBoing Boing is a publishing entity, first established as a magazine, later becoming a group blog.-History:...
TV in the November 15, 2007 episode. The German term "lässig" (meaning "cool" or "relaxed") is pronounced the same as Lessig's last name, and "Love Song for Lessig" uses the homonym for humor.
"Prometeus - The Media Revolution", a video produced by Italian internet consulting company Casaleggio Associati that attempts to predict the future of media over the next 40 to 50 years, proposes Lawrence Lessig to become the new US Secretary of Justice and declare copyright to be illegal in 2020.
Notable cases
- Hardwicke v. American Boychoir (representing plaintiff John Hardwicke) Pending
- Golan v. Gonzales (representing multiple plaintiffs)
- Eldred v. Ashcroft
Eldred v. Ashcroft, was a court case in the United States challenging the constitutionality of the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act...
(representing plaintiff Eric EldredEric Eldred, born 1943, is an American literacy advocate and the proprietor of the unincorporated Eldritch Press, a website which republished the works of others which are in the public domain . Eldritch Press for some years ran on a Linux server from Eldred's home and is now hosted by Ibiblio and...
) Lost
- Kahle v. Ashcroft
Kahle v. Gonzales is a First Amendment case that challenges the change in the copyright system of the United States from an opt-in system to an opt-out system....
—(also see Brewster KahleBrewster Kahle is a computer engineer, internet entrepreneur, activist, and digital librarian.- Biography :Kahle graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982 with a Bachelor of Science in computer science and engineering, where he was a member of the Chi Phi Fraternity. The...
) Dismissed
- United States v. Microsoft
United States v. Microsoft was a set of civil actions filed against Microsoft Corporation pursuant to the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 Section 1 and 2 on May 8, 1998 by the United States Department of Justice and 20 U.S. states. Joel I. Klein was the lead prosecutor...
(special master and author of an amicus brief addressing the Sherman Act)
- Lessig was appointed special master
In law, a special master is an authority appointed by a judge to make sure that judicial orders are actually followed.In England, at common law, there were "Masters in Chancery," who acted in aid of the Equity Courts. There were also "Masters in Lunacy," who conducted inquiries of the same nature...
by Judge Thomas Penfield JacksonThomas Penfield Jackson is a former United States District Court Judge for the District of Columbia....
in 1997. The appointment was vacated by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia CircuitThe United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit known informally as the D.C. Circuit, is the federal appellate court for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Appeals from the D.C. Circuit, as with all the U.S. Courts of Appeals, are heard on a...
. The appellate court ruled that the powers granted to Lessig exceeded the scope of the Federal statute providing for special masters. Judge Jackson then solicited Lessig’s amicus brief.
- Lessig himself says about this appointment: "Did Justice Jackson pick me to be his special master because he had determined I was the perfect mix of Holmes
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932...
and Ed Felten? No, I was picked because I was a Harvard Law Professor teaching the law of cyberspace. Remember: So is 'fame' made."
- MPAA v. 2600
DeCSS is a computer program capable of decrypting content on a commercially produced DVD video disc. Before the release of DeCSS, there was no way for computers running a Linux-based operating system to play video DVDs....
(submitted an amicus brief with Yochai BenklerYochai Benkler is an Israeli-American professor of Law and author. Since 2007, he has been the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. He is also a faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.- Biography :In 1984, Benkler...
in support of 2600)
See also
- Copyleft
Copyleft is a play on the word copyright to describe the practice of using copyright law to offer the right to distribute copies and modified versions of a work and requiring that the same rights be preserved in modified versions of the work...
- Free software movement
The free software movement is a social and political movement with the goal of ensuring software users' four basic freedoms: the freedom to run their software, to study and change their software, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. The alternative terms "software libre", "open...
- Free content
Free content, or free information, is any kind of functional work, artwork, or other creative content that meets the definition of a free cultural work...
- FreeCulture.org
Students for Free Culture, formerly known as FreeCulture.org, is an international student organization working to promote free culture ideals, such as cultural participation and access to information...
- Open educational resources
Open educational resources are digital materials that can be re-used for teaching, learning, research and more, made available for free through open licenses, which allow uses of the materials that would not be easily permitted under copyright alone...
- Gratis versus Libre
Gratis versus libre is the distinction between two meanings of the English adjective "free"; namely, "for zero price" and "with little or no restriction"...
- Open content
Open content or OpenContent is a neologism coined by David Wiley in 1998 which describes a creative work that others can copy or modify. The term evokes open source, which is a related concept in software....
- Law of the Horse
Law of the Horse was a term used in the mid-1990s to define the state of cyberlaw during the nascent years of the Internet.The term first gained prominence in a 1996 cyberlaw conference presentation by Judge Frank H. Easterbrook of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit...
External links
Lessig Blog, v2
- Lawrence Lessig at Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
- Rootstrikers
- Lessig Blog (2002-2009)