Free Culture

This book really got me hopping. As I was reading, I could literally feel my blood pressure rise. Some of Mr. Lessig's accounts of how some of the "little people" have been bullied by big business are horrifying.

Making a college student turn over $12,000 in his life savings or face a $250 million dollar lawsuit, just because he improved upon a university search engine, that happened to make it easier for people to share their music collections? I think this is outrageous. Those companies should be focusing on making better music not trying to save their precious millionaire executives by threatening the world's next generations of creators. And this is only one of hundreds of accounts in Free Culture that left me feeling angry and helpless.

When I got to the conclusion and Mr. Lessig applied his argument to that of Africans suffering from HIV and the US Legislature fighting the sharing of life-saving drugs for the benefit of intellectual property law, and Mr. Lessig asked, "how will we explain to our children how we let this happen?" it brought me to tears.

I feel like recommending this book to everyone I know. But then I ask, what in the world am I going to do about it? Even if everyone reads this book, if the Supreme Court isn't interested in holding up the Constitution's written commands that Copyright should only apply for a "limited term" and the purpose should be to further science and progress, what am I going to do about it?

I suppose before I get so caught up in the writings of one person, I should first investigate the opposite side of the equation, in order to balance the opinion of Mr. Lessig. I just can't imagine ever siding with the wealthy powerhouses over the public good....