Lawrence Lessig Responds to ASCAP Attack on Creative Commons

If everybody stop pirating but don't want to pay, then they will flock over to copyleft materials. Suddenly, copyleft folks will make lot more money than people like ASCAP since some of them do have business models. As one HN reader puts it, "The enemy of Gimp is pirated Photoshop".

Copyleft businessmen do have a strong incentive in having corporations implementing ways to make pirating copyright materials more expensive/risky, but not use it themselves.

In a way, the RIAA, ASCAP, and other copyright organization are unwitting accomplice in the rise of copyleft and copyfree entrepreneurs, however fews exist.

The Copyleft movement recognizes that some people want to release their works for free, and created multiple channels to do so, all based on a solid legal framework. And these channels provide a spectrum of how much you want to allow.

I think deep down the ASCAP just cannot stomach why anyone would release their work for free.

Dear ASCAP,

About that word "free" that you keep bandying about... I don't think it means what you think it means.

The beauty of Creative Commons is that the more stringently copyright is policed the more the public will have little option but to engage with media under CC licenses.

People naturally want to share things which they find entertaining with their friends, and I see this as a psychological trait which is hard to suppress and isn't going away any time soon because it's a fundamental aspect of human culture. In a theoretical world of perfect copyright policing the only way to stay fully engaged in cultural exchange will be via media with CC type permissions.

Why is there this level of cluelessness in an organization of such far-reaching influence? Don't these people know how to use Google?