Lessig on 'Darknet' and the commons

I'm glad I stuck around last night for the TechSummit 2005 dinner organized by the Computer & Communications Industry Association at its annual gathering in Dana Point, Calif.

Lawrence Lessig was the evening's keynote speaker, and he gave another one of his memorable PowerPoint presentations, highlighting the challenges we face in a permission culture with imbalanced copyright laws.

I've seen Larry do his thing two or three times before -- he changes his presentation every few months -- so I was surprised when "Darknet" popped up on screen two or three times. ("This is a little bit embarrassing. I didn't know JD would be in the audience," he said. Someone leaned over to me and said, "Do you feel like a star now?")

He gave four reasons why asking the entertainment companies for permission to use snippets of their works for personal, noncommercial use doesn't work. Mine came in at No. 3: when I asked Warner Bros. for permission to use two 10-second snippets from the 1988 movie "Daffy Duck's Quackbusters" in a home movie project I was making with my 5-year-old son and was told no, and when I asked Universal Studios permission to use 39 seconds from the cartoon feature "Ice Age" and was told "you would be obligated to pay the appropriated license fees which would be $900 for each 15 seconds."

Among other points Lessig raised:

- "If Google Print is infringing, why is Google legal?" Google is based on the same premise of copying and caching hundreds of millions of Web pages without asking for the copyright owners' permission.

- On the imposition of heavyhanded U.S. IP laws on developing nations: "We are destroying wealth in these nations as a form of economic blackmail for access to our marketplace."

He laid out three strategies for combating the closing in of the public commons:

1. We make clear we are against piracy.

2. We press for legislative reform -- not to repeal copyright but to return its length and scope to a reasonable length. Specifically, he endorsed the idea, proposed by some scholars, of taking the copy out of copyright. Instead, we ought to regulate distribution or commercial reproduction.

3. Congress should regulate derivative works to allow for creative expression by amateurs, as in the mash-ups that he and I showed off during the day.

But he acknowledged, "These are reforms that are impossible during the current political climate. We suffer from a sort of IP McCarthyism." Thus, the need for private reform that demonstrates how copyright ought to work.

Creative Commons is at the forefront of those private efforts, of course. And at one point I stood up and asked the reps from the tech companies in the room to support the nonprofit organization, now that it is transitioning from foundation support to being supported by the private sector.

Hollywood won't support Creative Commons. The tech industry must -- on the public's behalf.