Copyright: A Lifetime Pass?

I’d like to comment on Lawrence Lessig’s keynote speech at the 2002 Open Source Convention. Besides it being a bit long – over thirty minutes – I really enjoyed his comments.

His four main points: “creativity and innovation always builds on the past; the past always tries to control the creativity that builds on it; free societies enable the future by limiting the past; and ours is less and less a free society” really sparked my interest.

I think a lot of the same principles Lessig talks about with regard to the evolution of the copyright laws, especially on the internet, have a huge impact on the political arena as well as the software developer profession.

Lessig raises a great issue: should copyright be forever? And does crippling innovation through regulation protect or harm the industries it’s trying to defend?

I’ve always been an advocate of any policy or process that increases ingenuity in the work place, in the academic field and in professional arenas. But then again I’ve never had anything worthy of a copyright…