MIT Tech Review - The People Own Ideas! - By Lawrence Lessig

Posted by Tracey P. Lauriault-2 on Mar 28, 2006; 2:08pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/MIT-Tech-Review-The-People-Own-Ideas-By-Lawrence-Lessig-tp409.html

June 2005
The People Own Ideas!

Do we want music, software, and books to be free--or not? By Lawrence Lessig
By Lawrence Lessig
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?ch=specialsections&sc=security&id=16351&pg=1

Here is a quote from the article:.

"The Brazilian government is beginning to internalize the tenets of the free-culture movement as well. Brazil's minister of culture, Gilberto Gil, is leading a push for practical reform of the copyright system. His ministry has launched a project called Points of Culture (Pontos de Cultura) that will establish free-software studios, built with free software, in a thousand towns and villages throughout Brazil, enabling people to create culture using tools that support free cultural transmission. If things go as planned, the result will be an archive of Brazilian music, which will be stored in digital form and governed by a license inspired by free software's GPL. The Canto Livre project will "free music" made in Brazil, for Brazilians (and the world) to remix and re-create. And like a free-software project, it achieves that freedom on the back of copyright."

Another great point, was the Brazilian Government's acknowledgement that the only way to avoid infringing on the copyright of proprietary software is to not buy it in the first place and instead embrace open source!  Most of the article are L.L. observations at the the recent Social Forum in Brazil.

So nice.
Enjoy
Tracey

ps - there is also the rebuttal that is worth reading

June 2005
The Creators Own Ideas
Contrary to what Lawrence Lessig says, a truly free society allows for proprietary systems.
By Richard A. Epstein
http://www.technologyreview.com/rea