Larry Lessig: How creativity is being strangled by the law

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Larry Lessig, the Nets most celebrated lawyer, cites John Philip Sousa, celestial copyrights and the "ASCAP cartel" in his argument for reviving our creative culture.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers are invited to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes -- including speakers such as Jill Bolte Taylor, Sir Ken Robinson, Hans Rosling, Al Gore and Arthur Benjamin. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, politics and the arts. Watch the Top 10 TEDTalks on TED.com, at


Channel: Entertainment
Uploaded: November 15, 2007 at 11:08 am
Author: TEDtalksDirector

Length: 00:19:07
Rating: 4.89
Views: 76850

Tags: Larry Lessig law TED TEDTalks Talks business creativity culture entertainment

Video Comments:
travelsonic (January 8, 2009 at 1:17 pm)
Harder yes, impossible? If creative and smart enough, no.
grimshawr (January 7, 2009 at 3:43 pm)
Take girltalk for example. During the week, he is a biochemist. his coworkers don't even know who he is. on weekends he puts on the proverbial cape and goes on tour making spliced-up pop music into dance tracks. he clearly isn't doing it for the money, otherwise he would quit his job. he is just doing something original and it is working. artists who are in it just for the money only seem to impress 14 year olds anyway.
upbreak (December 29, 2008 at 1:36 pm)
by the way if anyone has seen the cover of this guy's book.. i think it is so appropriate and well done. boy , girls remixing and making something that never existed before... very good use of colours and it is so appropriate.
upbreak (December 29, 2008 at 12:31 pm)
Good progressive thinking
in a very general sense.
part2themovie (December 25, 2008 at 8:37 pm)
you're all wrong - just a heads up
Vermici0usKnid (December 26, 2008 at 5:34 pm)
what do u mean
DimitriLozovoy (December 24, 2008 at 11:34 am)
How are artists supposed to make any money if everything they do is given away for free by these "remixers"? This would only hurt the artists as a whole and make them even poorer than they are today. Please consider this from an artist's perspective.
tickingclocks48 (December 24, 2008 at 11:35 pm)
If the product is worth buying then why wouldn't people want to buy it? Even if it is being "given away for free". Tons of the music I listen to is remixed on youtube. Does that mean I won't go out and buy the c.d.? Besides, remixers aren't doing it to make a profit, they're doing it to be creative. Like the artist should be doing. And as an artist, you should see a remix as free publicity. People that might not listen to your genre of music will want to check the original track out.
DimitriLozovoy (December 24, 2008 at 11:26 am)
They shouldn't be allowed because when they give the art away for free they make it impossible for the artist themselves to make a profit! When it's given away for free, you can't sell it anymore. This is pretty obvious.
pipefx64 (December 31, 2008 at 1:03 am)
You need to look at something like the Radiohead album In Rainbows. The band originally released it on their website with a price tag decided by the consumer; it could be anything from 1p to £1000. The vast majority of people, however, paid around £7, a fair price for an album. tickingclocks48 is right, as people will still buy the work even if it's freely available, and the artist should also be constantly reminded that they're not supposed to be in it for the money.