Lawrence Lessig: "Getting Our Values around Copyright Right"

Lawrence Lessig has published "Getting Our Values around Copyright Right" in the latest issue of EDUCAUSE Review.

Here's an excerpt:

The existing system of copyright cannot work in the digital age. Either we will force our kids to stop creating, or they will force on us a revolution. Both options, in my view, are not acceptable. There is a growing copyright abolitionist movement—people who believe that copyright was a good idea for a time long gone and that we need to eliminate it and move on in a world where there is no copyright. I am against abolitionism. I believe copyright is an essential part of the cultural industries and will be essential in the digital age—even though I also believe it needs to be radically changed in all sorts of important ways and doesn't apply the same in science and in education. Copyright is essential to a diverse and rich (in all senses of that word) culture.