Lessig in the Morning

Oh man. There are so many Java nerd jokes I can make here. This morning, internet activist and Creative Commons founder Lawerence Lessig addressed the 24-hour Mozilla event attendees regarding ownership of user-generated content. I was blown away and inspired.

It's one thing to be in my crappy basement apartment in Victoria BC watching him speak through a choppy streaming video web-cast and a completely other thing to be in a room at Stanford with a man who is net neutrality royalty - and a key player in the future of the internet. (But I guess we all are aren't we?)

SOUSAPALOOZA
John Philip Sousa, early American marching song composer once said:

These talking machines [phonographs] are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy...in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left. The vocal cord will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape.

Lessig argues that by creating a system of copyrights empowering the large media conglomerates to control content and delivery, we are cutting our collective vocal cords. While Sousa was speaking out against the phonograph, Lessig argues that the composer's words are every bit as relevant today.

THE PEARL JAM EXAMPLE

This past August at the Lollapalooza music festival, Pearl Jam lead singer and my high school crush Eddie Vedder launched into a few lines of protest against President Bush. Nevertheless, those watching the webcast missed it because service provider AT&T muted him. Naturally the kids in the net neutrality camp and all of the folks at the Future of Music Coalition were livid. Eddie Vedder, one of the great figures of the grunge anti-establishment scene, was muted. If this were 1992 we'd have taken to the streets in our plaid shirts and kicked in their doors with our Doc Martens, but alas, this is 2007. Who the hell would've thought that we'd experience such a regression?

NOW WHAT?
Despite his lack of cool hair, if I were in high school I'd replace my Vedder locker poster with a Lessig one.

We're not talking about a bunch of legal jargon pertaining to a bunch of blinking boxes. We are talking about OUR chance to produce a medium that is actually inclusive. In other words, we have a chance to fix what is wrong with television, radio and print. If you can believe it, I want you to write to your legislators.
For Americans: SavetheInternet.com
For Canadians: Neutrality.ca

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Lessig in the Morning

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