Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock down Culture and Control Creativity.

• Author: Taylor, Russ
• Position: Book Review

Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity, Lawrence Lessig, New York: Penguin Press, 2004, 306 pages.

If you are a media and communications law or policy practitioner and you are unfamiliar with Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig's work, you are quite simply missing out on the most important viewpoints and debates on today's most challenging legal and policy problems related to media and communications. It's as simple as that.

To the extent that you need any convincing, Lawrence Lessig authored two previously well-received books on media and communications policy. (1) Lessig is also a frequent commentator and staggeringly prolific writer (2) on media and communications topics. Finally, Lessig's weblog (3) ("blog") remains the most successful media and communications policy forum in existence. (4) It functions as an epicenter of a robust policy debate that is sometimes unfocused, always lively and humorous, and extremely informative. As a former law professor of mine, Andrew Murray of the London School of Economics, recently stated, "[r]eviewers of Lessig's work therefore must overcome a degree of anticipation, even reverence, when analyzing his work." (5)

In addition to reviewing Lessig's latest work, Free Culture, (6) perhaps it is time to take a step back and consider Lessig's many contributions to the field of media and communications policy. We should probably celebrate Lessig's achievements and recognize them as simply an articulate body of legal principles and thought: Lessigian. What do I mean by Lessigian thought?

As an initial matter, Lessigian thought is deeply critical in nature. This is an important point, and one that contrasts Lessig with many of his (legal) professional readers and fans. In our day-to-day practice of communications law, we operate on a narrow, more analytical level, assessing policies that affect our clients and industries. Perhaps it is the luxury of academia, or his nature generally, but Lessig is not afraid to say (loudly) at times: This doesn't work! We need to change. He says it often, and people are listening.

Lessig also forms a richer, more complex view to the world of media and communications policy, bringing in other influences such as the market, social custom, and architecture or design. It is a critical view that includes law (or what Lessig often calls "East Coast Code"), but realistically recognizes the limits and dangers of a solely legally-focused approach. (7)

Lessigian thought is also focused on the here and now and the meaningful effects of policy on the everyday. It is a mode of thought that confines itself to problems that affect people today, usually from a technological or creative perspective. Thus, in Free Culture, Lessig principally addresses the recording industry's attempts to stamp out music piracy from a perspective of what will best work for the millions of Americans downloading music, instead of what approach most faithfully adheres to the traditions of copyright law or best clings to misapplied notions of property or piracy. (8)

Finally, Lessigian thought...