OSCON 2002 kicked off with a bang on Wednesday with Lawrence Lessig.
Lessig explained how Copyright law has been explanded to control what have traditionally been unregulated uses (loaning a book to a friend, reading a book allowed - neither which are allowable with E-books under the DMCA).
"Hollywood's insane rules are now being applied to the whole world," he explained. "...they don't get why rearchitecting the network destroys creativity."
The reocurring theme of his speech was that "Ours is less and less a free society." He also asked a question that made the room quiet very quickly: "What have we done?"
"If we don't do something now, this freedom we built that you spend your life coding will be taken away," he explained. "This isn't about left and right, it's about right and wrong."
Using a quote from Congressman JC Watts, Jr. ("If you're explaining, you're losing.") Lessig brought up the importance of helping the public to understand what's going on here, and quickly. "We're still explaining," he said. "We have failed in getting them to see what the issues here are."
Lessig also encouraged donations to the EFF and politicians who actually understand the issues, such as Chris Canon and Rick Boucher.
What do you think we can do to protect our intellectual and technological freedoms?
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Read More Entries by Lisa Rein.
free society
If there is something you have done in the last few weeks, make it open source. Although you may not believe me now, there is no reason to keep knowledge to yourself. Otherwise, in the grandest scheme of things, you are wasting your time.
The List:
All great ideas Tom! We really need to get organized! There are a lot of us and our collective voice can be heard in Washington if we can take a little time to put our heads and hearts together on this stuff!
lisa
The List:
Hi: We all definitely and without question need to send the $2, or $5, or $20, or whatever we can, and join the EFF, today.
We need to do the same for GeekPAC.
And, we need to follow-up and schedule the Washington marches on a regular basis. Winter's not that far away, and legislation is moving forward. It's too far for most, so decentralized participation is the name of the game. Blogging is an excellent coordinator, and guess what? We just happen to have meetup.com all set up to provide that perfect coordination. Shall we be off?
Thanks,
Tom Poe
Reno, NV
http://www.studioforrecording.org/