Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand discussion

[Mark Harris <anarchist AT tracs.co.nz>]

For those who don't read his blog
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003800.shtml#003800


The next 10 years

    During my keynote at the iCommons iSummit 07, I made an 
announcement that surprised some, but which, from reports on the web at 
least, was also not fully understood by some. So here again is the 
announcement, with some reasoning behind it.

    The bottom line: I have decided to shift my academic work, and 
soon, my activism, away from the issues that have consumed me for the 
last 10 years, towards a new set of issues. Why and what are explained 
in the extended entry below.

    Three people I admire greatly are responsible for at least 
inspiring this decision.

    The first is Obama. Six months ago, I was reading Obama's (really 
excellent) latest book. In the beginning of the book, he describes his 
decision to run for the United States Senate. At that point, Obama had 
been in politics for about 10 years. Ten years, he reflected, was 
enough. It was either "up or out" for him. He gambled on the the "up." 
We'll see how far he gets.

    But for me, Obama's reflection triggered a different thought. It's 
been a decade since I have become active in the issues I'm known for. 
Over this decade, I've learned a great deal. There has been important 
progress on the issues -- not yet in Congress, but in the understanding 
of many about what's at stake, and what's important. Literally thousands 
have worked to change that understanding. When we began a decade ago, I 
would have said it was impossible to imagine the progress we've made. It 
is extraordinarily rewarding to recognize that my pessimism 
notwithstanding, we are going to prevail in these debates. Maybe not 
today, but soon.

    That belief (some think, dream), then led me to wonder whether it 
wasn't time to find a new set of problems: I had learned everything I 
was going to learn about the issues I've been working on; there are many 
who would push them as well, or better, than I; perhaps therefore it was 
time to begin again.

    That thought triggered a second, this one tied to Gore.

    In one of the handful of opportunities I had to watch Gore deliver 
his global warming Keynote, I recognized a link in the problem that he 
was describing and the work that I have been doing during this past 
decade. After talking about the basic inability of our political system 
to reckon the truth about global warming, Gore observed that this was 
really just part of a much bigger problem. That the real problem here 
was (what I will call a "corruption" of) the political process. That our 
government can't understand basic facts when strong interests have an 
interest in its misunderstanding.

    This is a thought I've often had in the debates I've been a part 
of, especially with respect to IP. Think, for example, about term 
extension. From a public policy perspective, the question of extending 
existing copyright terms is, as Milton Friedman put it, a "no brainer." 
As the Gowers Commission concluded in Britain, a government should never 
extend an existing copyright term. No public regarding justification 
could justify the extraordinary deadweight loss that such extensions impose.

    Yet governments continue to push ahead with this idiot idea -- both 
Britain and Japan for example are considering extending existing terms. Why?

    The answer is a kind of corruption of the political process. Or 
better, a "corruption" of the political process. I don't mean corruption 
in the simple sense of bribery. I mean "corruption" in the sense that 
the system is so queered by the influence of money that it can't even 
get an issue as simple and clear as term extension right. Politicians 
are starved for the resources concentrated interests can provide. In the 
US, listening to money is the only way to secure reelection. And so an 
economy of influence bends public policy away from sense, always to dollars.

    The point of course is not new. Indeed, the fear of factions is as 
old as the Republic. There are thousands who are doing amazing work to 
make clear just how corrupt this system has become. There have been 
scores of solutions proposed. This is not a field lacking in good work, 
or in people who can do this work well.

    But a third person -- this time anonymous -- made me realize that I 
wanted to be one of these many trying to find a solution to this 
"corruption." This man, a Republican of prominence in Washington, wrote 
me a reply to an email I had written to him about net neutrality. As he 
wrote, "And don't shill for the big guys protecting market share through 
neutrality REGULATION either."

    "Shill."

    If you've been reading these pages recently, you'll know my allergy 
to that word. But this friend's use of the term not to condemn me, but 
rather as play, made me recognize just how general this corruption is. 
Of course he would expect I was in the pay of those whose interests I 
advanced. Why else would I advance them? Both he and I were in a 
business in which such shilling was the norm. It was totally reasonable 
to thus expect that money explained my desire to argue with him about 
public policy.

    I don't want to be a part of that business. And more importantly, I 
don't want this kind of business to be a part of public policy making. 
We've all been whining about the "corruption" of government forever. We 
all should be whining about the corruption of professions too. But 
rather than whining, I want to work on this problem that I've come to 
believe is the most important problem in making government work.

    And so as I said at the top (in my "bottom line"), I have decided 
to shift my academic work, and soon, my activism, away from the issues 
that have consumed me for the last 10 years, towards a new set of 
issues: Namely, these. "Corruption" as I've defined it elsewhere will be 
the focus of my work. For at least the next 10 years, it is the problem 
I will try to help solve.

    I do this with no illusions. I am 99.9% confident that the problem 
I turn to will continue exist when this 10 year term is over. But the 
certainty of failure is sometimes a reason to try. That's true in this case.

    Nor do I believe I have any magic bullet. Indeed, I am beginner. A 
significant chunk of the next ten years will be spent reading and 
studying the work of others. My hope is to build upon their work; I 
don't pretend to come with a revolution pre-baked.

    Instead, what I come with is a desire to devote as much energy to 
these issues of "corruption" as I've devoted to the issues of network 
and IP sanity. This is a shift not to an easier project, but a different 
project. It is a decision to give up my work in a place some consider me 
an expert to begin work in a place where I am nothing more than a beginner.

    So what precisely does this mean for the work I am doing now?

    First, and most importantly, I am not leaving Creative Commons, or 
the iCommons Project. I will remain on both boards, and continue to 
serve as CEO of Creative Commons. I will speak and promote both 
organizations whenever ever I can -- at least until the financial future 
of both organizations is secure. I will also continue to head the 
Stanford Center for Internet and Society.

    But second, and over the next few months, I will remove myself from 
the other organizations on whose boards I now serve. Not immediately, 
but as I can, and as it makes sense.

    Third, in general, I will no longer be lecturing about IP (whether 
as in TCP/IP or IPR) issues. No doubt there will be exceptions. In 
particular, I have a few (though because this decision has been in the 
works for months, very few) obligations through the balance of the year. 
There will be others in the future too. But in general, unless there are 
very strong reasons, I will not be accepting invitations to talk about 
the issues that have defined my work for the past decade.

    Instead, as soon as I can locate some necessary technical help, I 
will be moving every presentation I have made (that I can) to a Mixter 
site (see, e.g., ccMixter) where others can freely download and remix 
what I've done, and use it however they like. I will continue to work to 
get all my books licensed freely. And I am currently finishing one last 
book about these issues that I hope will make at least some new 
contributions.

    Fourth, these pages will change too. My focus here will shift. That 
will make some of you unhappy. I'm sorry for that. The blog is CC-BY 
licensed. You're free to fork and continue the (almost) exclusively 
IP-related conversation. But I will continue that conversation only 
rarely. New issues will appear here instead.

    Fifth, some will think this resolution sounds familiar. In the 
beginning of the Free Culture talk I gave at OSCON 5 years ago, I said 
that talk was going to be my last. In fact, what I intended at the time 
was the last before the argument in the Eldred case. In my nervousness, 
I didn't make that intent clear then. The literally hundred of talks 
since (85 last year alone) should have made that obvious.

    But again, this is not a resolution of silence. It is a decision to 
change channels. This new set of issues is, in my view, critically 
important. Indeed, I'm convinced we will not solve the IP related issues 
until these "corruption" related issues are resolved. So I hope at least 
some of you will follow to this new set of questions. For I expect this 
forum will be central to working out just what I believe, just as it has 
in the past.

    Finally, I am not (as one friend wrote) "leaving the movement." 
"The movement" has my loyalty as much today as ever. But I have come to 
believe that until a more fundamental problem is fixed, "the movement" 
can't succeed either. Compare: Imagine someone devoted to free culture 
coming to believe that until free software supports free culture, free 
culture can't succeed. So he devotes himself to building software. I am 
someone who believes that a free society -- free of the "corruption" 
that defines our current society -- is necessary for free culture, and 
much more. For that reason, I turn my energy elsewhere for now.

    So thank you to everyone who has helped in this work. Thanks 
especially to everyone who will continue it. And thanks the most to 
those who will take positions of leadership in this movement, to help 
guide it to its success. Just one favor I ask in return: when you get to 
the promised land, remember to send a postcard.

Lawrence Lessig Speech at iCommons Summit 2007
http://youtube.com/watch?v=hzFEbm1C0yU