Lawrence Lessig Quotes

I think copyright has its right to exist, absolutely, and I think that it's up to copyright creators to come up with new solutions that deal with the reality of the world we're living in today.

Americans have been selling this view around the world: that progress comes from perfect protection of intellectual property. Notwithstanding the fact that the most innovative and progressive space we've seen — the Internet — has been the place where intellectual property has been least respected. You know, facts don't get in the way of this ideology.

The most important thing about intellectual property vs. creative expression is that copyright law was created not to stifle creativity but to encourage creativity.

New technologies will always demand and deserve careful navigation and difficult readjustments. But the weakening or de facto abolition of copyright will not merely roil the seas, it will drain them dry. Those who would pirate what you produce have developed an elaborate sophistry to convince you that they are your victim. They aren't. Fight back.

All over the world copyright holders are trying to limit consumers' rights. We cannot have that.

Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.

If you create something, you don't want someone else to go and profit from it; you have your right to make a living and everything. So I respect copyright. What I don't respect is copyright extremism. And I what I don't respect is a business model that encourages piracy.

We need an unambiguous rule - a law - that nobody will step between the publisher and the consumer, full stop.

The rights of copyright holders need to be protected, but some draconian remedies that have been suggested would create more problems than they would solve.

The problem with copyright enforcement is that when the parameters aren't incredibly well defined, it means big corporations, who have deeper pockets and better lawyers, can bully people.

The current term of protection for software is the life of an author plus 70 years, or, if it's work-for-hire, a total of 95 years. This is a bastardization of the Constitution's requirement that copyright be for "limited times." By the time Apple's Macintosh operating system finally falls into the public domain, there will be no machine that could possibly run it. The term of copyright for software is effectively unlimited.

If the only way a library can offer an Internet exhibit about the New Deal is to hire a lawyer to clear the rights to every image and sound, then the copyright system is burdening creativity in a way that has never been seen before

If the contest for an international copyright is to be managed like the annual pig-iron conflict, or the wool fight, ending in a compromise by which every interest gets a certain amount of protection at the expense of the public, it will certainly be of little service either to England, America, or humanity at large. What is needed is a legal protection for property in ideas; in other words, an authors' copyright.

The Congress shall have power ... To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries

… the pursuit of civil rights by copyright.

The types of ideas protected by intellectual-property law typically don't include a clever catchphrase on a Vine or a film idea in a tweet.

Money spent by Hollywood to fight piracy: hundreds of millions of dollars.

It's hard to see how the Copyright Office can rise to the many challenges of the 21st-century work that you do without dramatically more independence and dramatically more flexibility.

But, like all metaphoric wars, the copyright wars are not actual conflicts of survival. Or at least, they are not conflicts for survival of a people or a society, even if they are wars of survival for certain businesses or, more accurately, business models. Thus we must keep i mind the other values or objectives that might also be affected by this war. We must make sure this war doesn't cost more than it is worth. We must be sure it is winnable, or winnable at a price we're willing to pay.

Millions of people toil in the shadow of the law we make, and much of their livelihood is made possible by the existence of intellectual property rights.

The first-sale doctrine reflects basic common sense - and follows from the logic of treating copyrights and other 'intellectual property' with no more protection than regular property.

No one under international copyright law has the right to depict me or my husband without our consent. I have been surprised by the many people, particularly Americans, who are either writing books or going to produce films about the Mandela family without even bothering to consult us.

If someone has copyright over some piece of your stuff, you can sell it without permission from the copyright holder because the copyright holder can only control the 'first-sale.' The Supreme Court has recognized this doctrine since 1908.

The painter, sculptor, writer, and musician are protected by law. So are inventors. But the chef has absolutely no redress for plagiarism on his work; on the contrary, the more the latter is liked and appreciated, the more will people clamour for his recipes.

'Jeffree Star Approved' is copyrighted in America.