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Lessig at Digital Vision

Lawrence Lessig presented yesterday at the Digital Visions Programme at Stanford. A very catchy presentation from a guy who’s obviously been paying more attention to selling his message. I was there with Mike from Bitsplitter and he blogged it already, so you can read his review for what went on.

It was funny to hear Larry twice reference that he lost the Eldred case - I’ve read (I’ll link back if I can find it) that that seems to be a bit of an obsession with him. It might have been a ‘loss’ in black and white terms, and within the context of that case. However, my view of the legal process is that it’s usually slow growth as momentum builds. These are large, complex, and highly charged issues - tied intrinsically to both the social and the commercial fabric of our world. In my view, it’s not something that could have ever been dealt with neatly in one case. I still am pleased that it the Court took on the case, giving the opportunity to make the case and air the arguments. My legal is limited, so I could well be missing the point.

Big issues, big problems, but now Creative Commons has a solution that is increasingly seeing adoption. I missed the launch party back in December, and had lost track of their progress. But I will check it out and re-license all the content on this site under their license. Stay tuned.

The DV folks are an interesting crew working on important projects. They’re looking for fellows (seems generally like ones who come with funding) - but donation of time seems to be the most important thing. Definitely a good way to get access to the Stanford community.