Lawrence Lessig

> So you have no examples or explanations for what “traditions” I have plenty. Now, I do not wish to be rude Abduhl, but I find your "question" a little disingenuous, and your expectation that I act as your personal tutor on well documented matters a tad entitled. This isn't my full-time job, and I come here mainly to look for interesting and unusual viewpoints. Have you done even the most cursory research into the history of patents as I indicated? Do you need some reference material or links to get started? How about reading some lecture notes and essays (some of the finest on the formation of copyright, patent and trademarks) on the site of Havard law professor Lawrence Lessig [1] [1] https://www.lessig.org/

It's worth noting that the group accusing Lessig's SuperPAC of violating FEC disclosure rules is a well-known opponent of exactly those rules: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/103204564762/on-the-center-for-competiti… I guess you're more trusting, but, personally, when someone is opposed to a rule, I'd take their claims about what the rule actually requires with many grains of salt.

Contrast the MIT statement with the distancing of JSTOR: http://about.jstor.org/statement-swartz They write, "The case is one that we ourselves had regretted being drawn into from the outset..." But in Lawrence Lessig's http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully he writes, "Early on, and to its great credit, JSTOR figured “appropriate” out: They declined to pursue their own action against Aaron, and they asked the government to drop its." According to Lessig, JSTOR was hardly "drawn into" their case against Swartz: they withdrew their own legal action against Swartz.

Same thoughts myself. I am still in Vegas for CES, and I can't even imagine partying- instead I just feel I need to write more articles and I want to donate to EFF and the likes this year more. We need to support those who make us have access to "real information". Such a tragic day for not just information advocacy spaces, but new media... This post pretty much sums up my thoughts of how I feel I should deal with what happened. http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully Justice is thwarted and heroes are painted as evil... the brilliant work hard to give us information and the government makes their life hell.

I agree the OTA needs to be reestablished, but that won't eliminate the corrupting power of money in politics. Unfortunately that is the real problem. Media companies can continue to push through these types of laws year after year, and until their influence is either countered or mitigated, we will continue to see more SOPA-like laws in the future. Lawrence Lessig, the guy behind the Creative Commons, realized this and changed his views away from modernizing copyright to pushing congressional reform. His new blog talks more about this (http://lessig.tumblr.com)

Yeah. Democracy. It sucks. It is worth considering Lessig's approach to changing Congress as a way to mitigate some of these problems: http://change-congress.org/ Lots of worthwhile and related stuff on his blog: http://www.lessig.org/blog/

NB: JSTOR, to its credit, Larry Lessig says "great credit" (<https://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully>), didn't pursue prosecution of Swartz. M.I.T., however certainly did (also noted by Lessig). From Abelson's report, commissioned by MIT: If the Review Panel is forced to highlight just one issue for reflection, we would choose to look to the MIT administration’s maintenance of a “neutral” hands-off attitude that regarded the prosecution as a legal dispute to which it was not a party. This attitude was complemented by the MIT community’s apparent lack of attention to the ruinous collision of hacker ethics, open-source ideals, questionable laws, and aggressive prosecutions that was playing out in its midst. As a case study, this is a textbook example of the very controversies where the world seeks MIT’s insight and leadership. A friend of Aaron Swartz stressed in one of our interviews that MIT will continue to be at the cutting edge in information technology and, in today’s world, challenges like those presented in Aaron Swartz’s case will arise again and again. With that realization, “Neutrality on these cases is an incoherent stance. It’s not the right choice for a tough leader or a moral leader.” <http://swartz-report.mit.edu/docs/report-to-the-president.pdf> pp. 100-101 And the US DoJ and courts have bloody hands. The careers of Ortiz and Heymann (DoJ) have suffered somewhat: Heymann left the DoJ, Ortiz's ambitions for higher office…

As Lessig reported, the plea bargain would have meant pleading guilty to a felony. http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully In that world, the question this government needs to answer is why it was so necessary that Aaron Swartz be labeled a “felon.” For in the 18 months of negotiations, that was what he was not willing to accept, and so that was the reason he was facing a million dollar trial in April — his wealth bled dry, yet unable to appeal openly to us for the financial help he needed to fund his defense, at least without risking the ire of a district court judge. And so as wrong and misguided and fucking sad as this is, I get how the prospect of this fight, defenseless, made it make sense to this brilliant but troubled boy to end it. The prosecutor isn't getting the "benefit of the doubt" because even a cursory look into her history shows that her office and attorneys (like Steve Heymann) have been railroading defendants and pushing spurious cases (google "Ortiz Russ Caswell" or "Ortiz UIGEA"). Carmen M. Ortiz is a bad person who abused her authority and the public trust; with Steve Heymann she pushed for 35 years in federal prison for downloading pdfs even when JSTOR refused to press charges. She cannot be voted out, and she will not listen to reason, so she must be forced to resign in disgrace. This is what prosecutors call "deterrence". Sign the petition if you don't want Aaron's death to be in vain. He…

And the only way to stop future SOPAs is to make the system less corrupt, which means taking money out of politics. This is why Lawrence Lessig left the fight against intellectual property craziness to focus on the underlying problem of corruption. It's been years since I heard Lessig was shifting his focus to fight corruption, and recently SOPA got me curious about what he's been up to and if SOPA had brought him back out of "retirement". That led me to this article, "Why Is Lawrence Lessig MIA In The Great SOPA Piracy Debate?" http://m.paidcontent.org/article/419-why-is-lawrence-lessig-mia-in-the… which led me to Lessig's response: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/13119510676/me-mia-on-the-sopa-soap-oper… which led me to his iniative to fight political corruption through campaign finance reform: http://www.rootstrikers.org/ I'm actually glad to see that Lessig isn't letting SOPA distract him from his fight against corruption which is the root of the problem. Stopping SOPA would be a huge win, but it would only be a battle win, and as long as we're losing the corruption war there are going to be many more SOPAs to fight in the future.

I think you should read https://lessig.org/product/free-culture/, maybe you will change your mind.

You can definitely make a moral argument in favor of piracy as a form of civil disobedience. Aaron Schwartz [1] and the book Free Culture[2] are the two bigger examples that come to mind. [1] https://cccc.ncte.org/cccc/committees/ip/ipreports/swartzcase [2] https://lessig.org/product/free-culture/

What "government officials" are you talking about? Wikileaks leaked, wholesale, the personal information of millions of Turkish citizens. For that matter, in its attempt to sway the US elections, Wikileaks dumped personal emails from random staffers --- not the John Podestas of the world, but the one-step-above-intern people making $40,000 to do public service work. Not just their work-related emails. Their personal emails. What part of taking $40,000 a year in salary from the government entitles Wikileaks to the contents of your personal emails? http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/151983995587/on-the-wikileak-ed-emails-b…

Brett Glass's head just exploded. If you're not familiar with him, Brett is a small ISP operator who dependably interrupts internet policy conversations to accuse pretty much everyone of shilling for Google. Lessig took the time to write a full rebuttal: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/90048838607/on-the-curious-case-of-brett…

His proposed amendment is here: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/14010963493/proposed-28th-amendment-beta… And yeah, section 2: "The First Amendment shall not be construed to limit legislation enacted pursuant to this article, save to assure content and viewpoint neutrality. Neither shall the First Amendment be construed to limit the equivalent power of state or local legislation enacted to regulate elections of state or local officers. Nor shall the First Amendment be construed to vest in any non-natural person any unalienable constitutional rights."

Anyone who downvotes you hasn't tried to use their forums. I hadn't seen yesterday's news though so here's a link for anyone else interested: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/65338904338/wow-or-from-the-when-apple-b…

enter a Brave New World where huge monolithic companies such as yourself When did Lessig ever post that on the Apple forum? Lessig's deleted post is detailed here: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/65338904338/wow-or-from-the-when-apple-b…

"When my obligations to Harvard created a conflict that made it impossible for me to continue as a lawyer, I continued as a friend." (from http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully) i.e. another big East Coast university (primarily MIT, now Harvard) fucking over people actually doing something useful, more in keeping with their purported mission than anything the institution currently does. I hope MOOCs, online collaboration, one on one communication, self-directed projects, etc. destroy these outdated medieval legacies.

> Even if he lost, and spent a year or a few years in jail (potentially out on appeal), he wouldn't have been dead, and could have continued the fight. How optimistic of you. The chargest totaled over 50+ years in prison[0][1]. [0] http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully [1] http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120917/17393320412/us-government-up…

> I mean, if an internet cartoonist can raise over 100K in less than 24 hours, certainly someone of his stature could raise exponentially more? Quoting Larry Lessig at http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully For in the 18 months of negotiations, that was what he was not willing to accept, and so that was the reason he was facing a million dollar trial in April — his wealth bled dry, yet unable to appeal openly to us for the financial help he needed to fund his defense, at least without risking the ire of a district court judge

I've read in a few places that his defense would cost around a million. http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully

the single most constructive thing JSTOR could do in reaction to this tragedy is loudly denounce the District Attorney for drawing them into the persecution of Aaron Swartz, for perpetuating the case after they - the victim of any wrong doing - asked the government to drop its case [0]. from this statement alone it isn't clear to me at all in what sense they "regretted being drawn into" the case. if JSTOR is institutionally incapable of acknowledging that prosecutorial abuse played a significant role in this tragedy, of specifically acknowledging and denouncing abuse under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act [1], it can't be taken seriously as a "member of the internet community". 0. http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully 1. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/feds-go-overboard-in-prosec…

Perhaps a coincidence, but the choice of date—the anniversary of his arrest—feels rather convincing. "Since his arresting the early morning of January 11, 2011 — two years to the day before Aaron Swartz ended his life..." http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully

"Please don’t pathologize this story." -- Aaron's friend, Lawrence Lessig http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully

It was Carmen Ortiz who was responsible for the unjust overzealous prosecution of Aaron Swartz which ultimately contributed to his death. Carmen Ortiz's blind ambition has caused her to run roughshod over people's freedom in the past: http://thephoenix.com/Boston/news/141253-15th-annual-muzzle-awards/?pa… We can only discourage the over-zealousness of prosecutors by making sure that it becomes a career limiting move instead of a career advancing one. Lessig was kind enough in his writeup to not name names: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully but this kindness is both undeserved and unwise. Carmen thinks big convictions will get her a federal judgeship or other appointment. The public needs to make sure this isn't the case.

If bribery has to be covert, it can be investigated by the legal system. In its current form, bribery is essentially legal. Think about Lessig's suggestion. http://rootstrikers.org http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-december-13-2011/exclusive---law… http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-december-13-2011/exclusive---law… http://lessig.org/content/av/

You have an important point here: transparency is not enough. Here's Lawrence Lessig's proposal, in case you haven't seen it yet: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post//the-grant-and-franklin-project

The real issue here is corruption. That's why you keep get these ridiculous bills. Lessig explained the issue in a recent post: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/13119510676/me-mia-on-the-sopa-soap-oper…

Is it perhaps because you aren't allowed to read eBooks to your children ? http://www.lessig.org/content/standard/0,1902,22914,00.html

"... Lawrence Lessig, an Internet law professor at Stanford University and an influential proponent of network neutrality, recently shifted gears by saying at a conference that content providers should be able to pay for faster service ..." wsj also did a job on Lessig who replied with "The made-up dramas of the Wall Street Journal" ~ http://lessig.org/blog/2008/12/the_madeup_dramas_of_the_wall.html

Apparently Lessig is less than happy about their reporting too - http://lessig.org/blog/2008/12/the_madeup_dramas_of_the_wall.html