Lawrence Lessig: Join Forces with different others who seek to reform government corruption

At Huffpo, Lawrence Lessig has eloquently encouraged all of us to reach out to all others who seek to return control of the government to the People rather than the 1%. We should especially do this regarding people with whom we disagree on many other issues:

[W]hen Ron Paul criticizes the "Wall Street bailouts," and attacks government support for "special businesses" with special access, we should say, "that's right, Congressman Paul." Bailouts for the rich is not the American way. And when Rick Santelli launches a Tea Party movement, by attacking the government's subsidies "to the losers," we should ask in reply, what about the subsidies "to the winners" -- to the banks who engineered the dumbest form of socialism ever invented by man: socialized risk with privatized benefits. What, we should ask Mr. Santelli, about that subsidy? Or when Republican Senator Richard Shelby tells NBC's Meet the Press that the message in bank reform "should be, unambiguously, that nothing's too big to fail," we should say that's right, Senator, and it's about time our Congress recognized it. Or when Sarah Palin calls GE the "poster child of crony capitalism," we should say "Amen, Mamma Grisly": For whether or not we are all believers in "capitalism," we should all be opponents of "crony capitalism," the form of capitalism that is increasingly dominating Washington, and that was partly responsible for the catastrophe on Wall Street in 2008, and hence the catastrophes throughout America since.

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Culture and Copyright in the 21st Century

On 24 March, 2009 Lawrence Lessig delivered the keynote speech, Getting the Network the World Needs, at the OFC Conference in San Diego, CA. This is a revision of a REMIX talk, distinguishing between parts of the 20th Century that were Read-Only and parts that were Read-Write. His brilliantly delivered thesis discusses how culture prior to the 20th century was essentially read-write, everyone consumed and created the culture interactively. During the 20th century centralization and control of media and distribution transformed our culture to a read only - where creation was almost exclusively the province of professionals and professional distribution channels (tv, movies, music). He then suggests that the 21st century brings the promise and the demand for building a read-write culture once more, and for moving far beyond the mash-up of the past decade. He also discusses the necessary legal and infrastructural changes needed to accommodate this changed reality. Warner Music has tried to serve a DCMA takedown, based on his inclusion of some music and media clips - despite the obvious and clear "fair use".

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