"As tecnologias digitais criam o ambiente propício para uma nova forma de bricolagem, ou "colagem livre", como Brown chama-a. Muitos podem adicionar ou transformar as criações de outros.
O melhor exemplo de larga escala desse tipo de criação até agora é o software livre ou software de código aberto (free software/open-source software FS/OSS). O FS/OSS é um tipo de software no qual o código fonte3 é compartilhado. Qualquer um pode obter uma cópia da tecnologia que permite que os programas FS/OSS funciona. E qualquer um que tenha interesse em aprender como uma certa tecnologia FS/OSS funciona pode brincar com o código.
Essa oportunidade cria uma "plataforma de aprendizado completamente nova", como descreve Brown. "Assim que você começa a trabalhar nela, você (...) libera uma colagem livre na comunidade, de forma que outras pessoas possam olhar no seu código, brincar com ele, testá-lo, verem o que podem fazer para o melhorar". Cada atividade dessas é uma forma de aprendizado. "O código aberto tornou-se uma plataforma importante de aprendizado"."
American academic, political activist
Lawrence Lessig (born 3 June 1961) is an American academic and political activist. He is most famous as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications. He is a director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University and a professor of law at Harvard Law School. Prior to rejoining Harvard, he was a professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of its Center for Internet and Society. Lessig is a founding board member of Creative Commons, a board member of the Software Freedom Law Center, an advisory board member of the Sunlight Foundation and a former board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Also Known As:
Larry Lessig
Alternative Names:
Lester Lawrence Lessig III
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But it is to say that a basic idea of a representative democracy — one that argues over fundamental choices of policy, through the battle between differently committed representatives — is not the reality of our democracy anymore. We’ve settled into what Francis Fukuyama calls a “vetocracy,” where change of almost any kind, whether from the Right or the Left, is practically always stopped.
By insisting on the Constitution's limits to copyright, obviously Eldred was not endorsing piracy. Indeed, in an obvious sense, he was fighting a kind of piracy — piracy of the public domain. When Robert Frost wrote his work and when Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse, the maximum copyright term was just fifty-six years. Because of interim changes, Frost and Disney had already enjoyed a seventy-five-year monopoly for their work. They had gotten the benefit of the bargain that the Constitution envisions: In exchange for a monopoly protected for fifty-six years, they created new work. But now these entities were using their power — expressed through the power of lobbyists' money — to get another twenty-year dollop of monopoly. That twenty-year dollop would be taken from the public domain. Eric Eldred was fighting a piracy that affects us all.
Mas além da arquitetura, os blogs também resolveram o problema das regras. Não existe (ainda) nenhuma regra no meio dos blogs que diga que não deve-se falar de política. Na verdade, o meio está repleto de discussões políticas, de direita e de esquerda. Alguns dos mais populares blogs são conservadores, outros liberais, mas há blogs de todas as tendências políticas, e mesmo blogs em que não-políticos falam de política quando a situação torna interessante.
The legal system doesn't work. Or more accurately, it doesn't work for anyone except those with the most resources. Not because the system is corrupt. I don't think our legal system (at the federal level, at least) is at all corrupt. I mean simply because the costs of our legal system are so astonishingly high that justice can practically never be done.
We Americans have a long history of fighting "big," wisely or not. That we could be motivated to fight "big" again is not something new. It would be something new, and something very important, if an equal number could be rallied to fight the increasing extremism built within the idea of "intellectual property." Not because balance is alien to our tradition; indeed, as I've argued, balance is our tradition. But because the muscle to think critically about the scope of anything called "property" is not well exercised within this tradition anymore. If we were Achilles, this would be our heel. This would be the place of our tragedy.
When it has become silly to suppose that the role of our government should be to "seek balance," then count me with the silly, for that means that this has become quite serious indeed. If it should be obvious to everyone that the government does not seek balance, that the government is simply the tool of the most powerful lobbyists, that the idea of holding the government to a different standard is absurd, that the idea of demanding of the government that it speak truth and not lies is just naïve, then who have we, the most powerful democracy in the world, become?
On December 17, 1903, on a windy North Carolina beach for just shy of one hundred seconds, the Wright brothers demonstrated that a heavier-than-air, self-propelled vehicle could fly. The moment was electric and its importance widely understood. Almost immediately, there was an explosion of interest in this newfound technology of manned flight, and a gaggle of innovators began to build upon it.
Forget the 18th century, the 19th century, even at the birth of the 20th century. Here's my favorite example, here: 1928, my hero, Walt Disney, created this extraordinary work, the birth of Mickey Mouse in the form of Steamboat Willie. But what you probably don't recognize about Steamboat Willie and his emergence into Mickey Mouse is that in 1928, Walt Disney, to use the language of the Disney Corporation today, "stole" Willie from Buster Keaton's "Steamboat Bill." It was a parody, a take-off; it was built upon Steamboat Bill. Steamboat Bill was produced in 1928 — no 14 years — just take it, rip, mix, and burn, as he did to produce the Disney empire.
While control is needed, and perfectly warranted, our bias should be clear up front: Monopolies are not justified by theory; they should be permitted only when justified by facts. If there is no solid basis for extending a certain monopoly protection, then we should not extend that protection. This does not mean that every copyright must prove its value initially. That would be a far too cumbersome system of control. But it does mean that every system or category of copyright or patent should prove its worth. Before the monopoly should be permitted, there must be reason to believe it will do some good — for society, and not just for monopoly holders.
It might be crazy to expect a high government official to speak the truth. It might be crazy to believe that government policy will be something more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests. It might be crazy to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our tradition for most of our history — free culture. If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon.