[NTLK] [ANN] Free Culture

*From:* Kym Della-Torre (/mailinglist_at_hmkdt.id.au)
Subject=Re:[NTLK] [ANN] Free Culture
*Date:* Tue May 11 2004 - 03:21:49 PDT

------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is just a short note to let you know that a Newton Book edition of
Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig is now available. You can find the
Newton version (and many others) from the following link
http://www.free-culture.cc/remixes/
This was my first attempt at a Newton Book, there is still room for
improvement. But, given the recent intellectual property discussions on
this list, I am sure many of you will want to read this book sooner
rather than later.
 

About Free Culture

Lawrence Lessig could be called a cultural environmentalist. One of
America's most original and influential public intellectuals, his focus
is the social dimension of creativity: how creative work builds on the
past and how society encourages or inhibits that building with laws and
technologies. In his two previous books, CODE and THE FUTURE OF IDEAS,
Lessig concentrated on the destruction of much of the original promise
of the Internet. Now, in FREE CULTURE, he widens his focus to consider
the diminishment of the larger public domain of ideas. In this powerful
wake-up call he shows how short-sighted interests blind to the long-term
damage they're inflicting are poisoning the ecosystem that fosters
innovation.

All creative works?books, movies, records, software, and so on?are a
compromise between what can be imagined and what is
possible?technologically and legally. For more than two hundred years,
laws in America have sought a balance between rewarding creativity and
allowing the borrowing from which new creativity springs. The original
term of copyright set by the Constitution in 1787 was seventeen years.
Now it is closer to two hundred. Thomas Jefferson considered protecting
the public against overly long monopolies on creative works an essential
government role. What did he know that we?ve forgotten?

Lawrence Lessig shows us that while new technologies always lead to new
laws, never before have the big cultural monopolists used the fear
created by new technologies, specifically the Internet, to shrink the
public domain of ideas, even as the same corporations use the same
technologies to control more and more what we can and can?t do with
culture. As more and more culture becomes digitized, more and more
becomes controllable, even as laws are being toughened at the behest of
the big media groups. What?s at stake is our freedom?freedom to create,
freedom to build, and ultimately, freedom to imagine.

-- 
This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries
Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/

------------------------------------------------------------------------

      * *Next in thread:* Michael Blazer: "Re: [NTLK] [ANN] Free Culture"
      <1068.html>
    * *Reply:* Michael Blazer: "Re: [NTLK] [ANN] Free Culture" <1068.html>
    * *Reply:* Victor Rehorst: "Re: [NTLK] [ANN] Free Culture" <1076.html>
    * *Reply:* Doug Augustyn: "Re: [NTLK] [ANN] Free Culture" <1088.html>
    * *Maybe reply:* Kym Della-Torre: "Re: [NTLK] [ANN] Free Culture"
      <1282.html>
    * *Maybe reply:* Kym Della-Torre: "Re: [NTLK] [ANN] Free Culture"
      <1398.html>