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So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in ideas that we don't even notice how monstrous it is to deny ideas to a people who are dying without them.

Lawrence Lessig

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Lawrence Lessig
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: June 3
Computer Scientist
Jurist
Lawyer
Non-Fiction Writer
Political Activist
Politician
Professor
Teacher
Rapid City
South Dakota
Larry Lessig
Lester Lawrence Lessig III
Accept
Dying
Accepting
Idea
Uncritically
Ideas
Monstrous
Without
Notice
Even
Deny
People
Property

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One great feature of modern society is the institutionalized respect we give to processes designed to destroy the past.
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There are very few people in our society who are actually free to say what they believe. I am in an extremely fortunate position in having this enormous gift of freedom and believe I should try to use it to do something useful for society. As long as I feel as if I have something to say, I’ll continue to try to do that.
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Writing is the Latin of our times. The modern language of the people is video and sound.
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If there were two candidates, a Democrat and a Republican, who each committed to the same kind of fundamental reform, then the election would be an election between the vice presidential candidates. It'd be just like the regular election, except it would be one step down.
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I think the archaic idea is actually winner take all, because the principle of one person, one vote is a principle that was introduced as a fundamental principle in American law in 1962, long after states had moved to one person, one vote.
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When government disappears, its not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place.
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If you are explaining, you're losing. It's a bumper sticker culture. People have to get it like that, and if they don't, if it takes three seconds to make them understand, you're off their radar screen. Three seconds to understand, or you lose. This is our problem.
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As I've indicated, most books go out of print within one year. The same is true of music and film. Commercial culture is sharklike. It must keep moving. And when a creative work falls out of favor with the commercial distributors, the commercial life ends.
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But it is as silly to think about peer-to-peer as applying just to music as it would have been to think about the Internet as applying just to pornography. Whatever the initial use of the technology, it has nothing to do with the potential of the architecture to serve many other extremely important functions.
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I am a big supporter of experiments to complement representative gov't with randomly selected representative bodies of citizens, sure. I think most Americans would be surprised to learn just how much better we are at gov't than our gov't.
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While appropriation art is critical to art, it's an ambiguous art form in the world of the Supreme Court.
Lawrence Lessig
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My claim is that we should focus on the values of liberty... If there is not government to insist on those values, then who? ... The single unifying force should be that we govern ourselves.
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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.
Lawrence Lessig
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A time is marked not so much by ideas that are argued about as by ideas that are taken for granted. The character of an era hangs upon what needs no defense.
Lawrence Lessig
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A culture without property, or in which creators can't get paid, is anarchy, not freedom.
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Some may not like the Constitution's requirements, but that doesn't make the Constitution a pirate's charter.
Lawrence Lessig
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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.
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Every generation welcomes the pirates from the last.
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Money corrupts the process of reasoning.
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Creativity is enhanced by less-than-perfect control over what content is on the network.
Lawrence Lessig