The cover art for The Future of Ideas : the fate of commons in a connected world by Lawrence Lessig

The cover art for The Future of Ideas : the fate of commons in a connected world by Lawrence Lessig

Detail map of Stanford, California, United States Overview map of Stanford, California, United States

A: Stanford, California, United States

Lawrence Lessig Proposes What Becomes "Creative Commons"

2001

In 2000 Lawrence Lessig, then a professor at Stanford Law School, published The Future of Ideas: The fate of commons in a connected world, in which he argued that there should be a way to license works, with or without conditions, but not involving copyright.

". . . copyright helps artists get rewarded for their work, . . . a copyright regime that is too strict and grants copyright for too long a period of time (i.e. the current US legal climate) can destroy innovation, as the future movements by corporate interests to promote longer and tighter protection ofintellectual property in three layers: the code layer, the content layer, and the physical layer. . . . In the end, he stresses the importance of existing works entering the public domain in a reasonably short period of time, as the founding fathers intended."

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