Lessig 2.0

Lawrence Lessig is changing from legal advocate for copyright reform to Congressional reform. As Cowen said, this is probably futile, but inspiring nonetheless. The Nation discusses what the move is about and offers some interpretations as to why it's happening. Some of it seems due to losing fight after fight on copyright, which according to people more studied on it, is a no-brainer. According to the article, Milton Friedman once said that applying copyrights retroactively was a no-brainer. Posner says, quoted in the article, that Lessig losing at the Supreme Court level on repealing the Sonny Bono Act was devastating for him because, in his mind, it was such a small dunk given the clarity of the Constitution's language about "limited" copyrights. Lessig's view is that the money in Congress has such a corrosive effect that it makes Congress get wrong even the easy cases - the ones that are so obviously right. Now he is intent on attacking the problem at its core, because the problem affects not only copyright and intellectual property issues, but even issues broader than that.

"It's the same dynamic with a host of issues, from the farm bill to the role of contractors in Iraq to an issue Lessig calls "the most profound" we face: global warming. There, the scientific consensus is absolute, the stakes dire and yet action has been routinely thwarted by a coterie of corporations that have a monumental monetary interest in the status quo. "Really, who cares about Mickey Mouse," Lessig told me over dinner the night before his talk. "But if we can't get global warming right? An easy question as fundamental as global warming? Then we're really fucked."

But then the article kind of gets more biographical, which I really enjoyed. I enjoy learning about Lessig - he's an inspiring person because of his passion, commitment and intelligence. Here is a nice little piece about him. I can just imagine Posner walking into this apartment - that itself is kind of funny.

At 46, Lessig has a boyish face, vaguely reminiscent of Harry Potter. He engages each question with a pursed, furrowed look of absolute concentration before unfurling an alarmingly coherent answer, often beginning sentences with the word "so," which makes it feel like you're encountering him mid-thought and need to catch up. "There's something kind of monkish about him, or austere," Posner told me. "When he taught at Chicago he had an apartment that was extraordinarily bare, like a monk's cell." Lessig is kind of an "ice-capped volcano," says Posner--his chilly exterior covers a passionate zeal. "He works harder than anybody I have ever met," says Lessig's good friend Alex Whiting. "It's unbelievable."