I have a Fine Art degree from University of Wisconsin Madison and another in Art Education from ASU. When I tell many people I work in Information Technology as an IT Project Manager, they give me a puzzled look and ask "How did you get into IT when your background is in Art?". What many people don't know is that information technology is a tremendous outlet for creativity. The book, "Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity" was of interest to me because of this background and sounded like it would discuss both of my major interests.
In the Preface of the book, Lessig explains that his book is about the consequences of the internet on our culture and that both people who use the internet and those who don't use it are affected by changes it brings. He emphasizes that his book isn't about the internet, rather it is about the effect the internet has upon the process that culture is made. (7) He also says that if that if we understood the cultural change the internet brings, both the polically right and left would resist that change. (Preface)
Lessig states that we come from a "free culture" in which we are free to make our own decisions within boundaries as opposed to a "permission culture". Free though doesn't mean anarchy. Rather, it's a "balance between anarchy and control" and has rules surrounding property ownership that include benefiting financially from that property. (Preface) Overall, Free Culture is a book about property rules, how intrinsic they are to our culture, and how these rules and our culture surrounding them are influenced by the development of the internet.
The book starts with with two stories that outline just how important property ownership is. The first story he tells is about how the invention of airplanes challenged previous American law that stated an owner owned property of his/her land all the way up through the sky and beyond. The Supreme court determined that a lawsuit filed by two farmers against the government to defend their property had no clout. The farmers charged that low flying military planes frightened their chickens causing them to run into wall and die.
While the last story outlined the power of government, the next outlines the power of big business in influencing rules around ownership. Edwin Howard Armstrong discovered FM radio and held 4 patents for it. He worked for RCA, a leader in AM radio and upon news of Armstrongs discovery, the president of RCA, David Sarnoff, and other big radio interests used their power to influence the FCC and the FCC then influenced rulings that significantly "crippled" FM radio. Sarnoff then used the invention of television to deliver benefits of FM radio and ignored Armstrongs patents and deemed them invalid. Armstrong tried to defend his patents and launched lengthy and expensive litigation on RCA, but in the end only got a very small settlement and committed suicide shortly afterward.
Both these stories illustrate issues of ownership. In both cases the "little guy" lost. Once against the government and the other against big business. Both cases also illustrate that property ownership is very important and that rules surrounding them affect people's lives in drastic ways.
After outlining how important property ownership is Lessig talks about how the lines about property ownership can be blurry. He makes the distinction between "commercial culture" and "non commercial" culture. He says commercial culture is something that can be sold and bought. Non-commercial culture he says is like a person on a park bench telling stories to kids. Those stories are consumed without being purchased. They also weren't regulated by government. "The law was never directly concerned with the creation or spread of this form of culture, and it left this culture 'free.'” (7) Previous to the internet this line was not so blurry, but the internet brings about a change in which the line between commercial and non-commercial culture is "erased". (7) The result of this is us moving from a free culture to more of a permissive culture.
The reason for more permission is to protect commercial creativity. Lessig argues that the permission is not to protect individual creators, rather, it grows from the fight of business to protect their "property". Lessig writes, "Corporations threatened by the potential of the Internet to change the way both commercial and noncommercial culture are made and shared have united to induce lawmakers to use the law to protect them." (8) At first when reading this I thought...even though the internet makes us a more permissive culture, how does it protect the intellectual property of big business more than the documented creative property of the individual that has no connection to big business. For instance, i would think the same law that protects big business creative content on the internet would be the same law that protects my blog post.
Contrasting to my first thought, Lessig indicates that those businesses that are threatened by the internet replacing their pre-internet intellectual property, are seeking to "remake the Internet before the Internet remakes them." (9) So what does this mean?
I'm not 100% clear about what Lessig means by this but this is one way that big business may be remaking the internet. I recently got a message from Google when trying to access my Google+ account alerting me that an update to my account was required. The message read, "You are currently using Google+ with the personal Google Account for kelli.thornton@asu.edu. "Personal" means this account and its data are owned by you. You may not realize it, but you also have an organizational Google Apps account managed by asu.edu with the same address. Two completely different accounts are using the kelli.thornton@asu.edu address." The message went on to help me go through steps to separate information in my accounts. What this message made me realize is my Gmail for ASU account was personal and I owned the data in this account. So did that mean then for the other information that I was to separate into a different account? Did I not own this information? Are my emails in my other Google Account not my own intellectual property? This is one way I see that big business "is remaking the internet before the internet remakes them." (9) Instead of being threatened by the "little guy's" right to his/her intellectual property, big business can say that they own it. Google owns your email, Facebook and Twitter own your posts, News outlets own your comments. The more you "create" online on these platforms - the more big business owns your creations.
The book is broken out into two main sections, "Piracy" and "Property". The first section, "Piracy", outlines how historically borrowing was a normal occurance that didn't require permission. For instance, Walt Disney cartoons borrowed stories from the silent films of the time as well as stories from the Grimm brothers. He also explains that this borrowing occurs today in the Japanese culture with doujinshi. Doujinshi is a popular practice in Japan today. They are copies of Manga and the culture surrounding this practice requires that when Manga are copied at least one thing - minor or major - needs to be changed. This practice of building upon someone else's work is considered a contribution in Japanese culture, much like Disney's creations were considered contributions. Lessig argues that the internet changes the idea that building upon someone else's work is considered a contribution. Now it is considered piracy.
Regarding property, Lessig talks about the patents on AIDS retroviral drugs. He states that the drugs to treat AIDS are expensive due to patents not due to the ingredients that they are made of. The drugs will extend an AIDS patients life by 10-20 years but they are too expensive for countries in Africa to use to treat the AIDS crisis. So South Africa tried a tactic to import the drugs at a lower price from India. However, the US blocked that tactic.
Lessig isn't against drug patents. Rather, he thinks drug patents are necessary for the incentive to exist to make the investment to research a cure. He brings up the story to illustrate that the US prevented the importation of the drugs to protect the "sanctity of an idea". (4218) The property in question is intellectual property and he states "This is not like wheat (if they eat it, we can’t); instead, the flow that the United States intervened to stop was, in effect, a flow of knowledge: information about how to take chemicals that exist within Africa, and turn those chemicals into drugs that would save 15 to 30 million lives." (4218) The result of protecting the "santity of an idea" or in other words, intellectual property, 15 to 30 million lives are lost. The point Lessig is making here is that "we as a culture have lost this sense of balance. We have lost the critical eye that helps us see the difference between truth and extremism" in this protection of the sanctity of an idea. (4241)
In sum, Lessig's book Free Culture poses the question "how do we balance protecting intellectual property against extremism?" Our common law system holds that "the law adjusts to the technologies of the time." (2) Previous to the invention of the airplane, property rights existed through the sky and beyond. But a judgement that said airplanes are not trespassing on personal property changed this law and adjusted to the technology of the time. Now with the use of the internet how will our law adjust to this new technology? We need to find balance between what is considered stealing someones property and thus detrimental to the benefits new ideas bring to society and what is considered building on those ideas which benefits society. How we accomplish that is still up in the air.
Reference
Lessig, Lawrence (2005-02-22). Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity. Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
