Lawrence Lessig quotes

Lawrence Lessig is an American academic, attorney, and political activist, widely recognized for his work on copyright law and internet freedom. A founder of the Creative Commons project, he has advocated for open access to knowledge and reform of digital rights. He is also known for his efforts to address political corruption and promote campaign finance reform in the United States. Here are 102 of his quotes:

Remember the refrain: We always build on the past; the past always tries to stop us. Freedom is about stopping the past, but we have lost that ideal.

Lawrence Lessig

Before the monopoly should be permitted, there must be reason to believe it will do some good - for society, and not just for monopoly holders.

Lawrence Lessig

When government disappears, it's not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place.

Lawrence Lessig

While the creative works from the 16th century can still be accessed and used by others, the data in some software programs from the 1990s is already inaccessible.

Lawrence Lessig

A free culture has been our past, but it will only be our future if we change the path we are on right now.

Lawrence Lessig

In these times, the hardest task for social or political activists is to find a way to get people to wonder again about what we all believe is true. The challenge is to sow doubt.

Lawrence Lessig

Now that copyrights can be just about a century long, the inability to know what is protected and what is not protected becomes a huge and obvious burden on the creative process.

Lawrence Lessig

All around us are the consequences of the most significant technological, and hence cultural, revolution in generations.

Lawrence Lessig

It might be crazy to expect a high government official to speak the truth. It might be crazy to believe that government policy will be something more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests. It might be crazy to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our tradition for most of our history - free culture. If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon.

Lawrence Lessig

Law and technology produce, together, a kind of regulation of creativity we've not seen before.

Lawrence Lessig

A time is marked not so much by ideas that are argued about as by ideas that are taken for granted. The character of an era hangs upon what needs no defense.

Lawrence Lessig

We are on the cusp of this time where I can say, "I speak as a citizen of the world" without others saying, "God, what a nut."

Lawrence Lessig

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.

Lawrence Lessig

Monopoly controls have been the exception in free societies; they have been the rule in closed societies.

Lawrence Lessig

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 because there are no formalities.

Lawrence Lessig

The real harm of term extension comes not from these famous works. The real harm is to the works that are not famous, not commercially exploited, and no longer available as a result.

Lawrence Lessig

"Writing" is the Latin of our times. The modern language of the people is video and sound.

Lawrence Lessig

It's a bumper sticker culture. People have to get it like that, and if they don't, if it takes three seconds to make them understand, you're off their radar screen. Three seconds to understand, or you lose. This is our problem.

Lawrence Lessig

I'm a lawyer. I make lawyers for a living. I believe in the law. I believe in the law of copyright. Indeed, I have devoted my life to working in law, not because there are big bucks at the end but because there are ideals at the end that I would love to live. Yet much of this book has been a criticism of lawyers, or the role lawyers have played in this debate. The law speaks to ideals, but it is my view that our profession has become too attuned to the client. And in a world where the rich clients have one strong view, the unwillingness of the profession to question or counter that one strong view queers the law. The evidence of this bending is compelling. I'm attacked as a "radical" by many within the profession, yet the positions that I am advocating are precisely the positions of some of the most moderate and significant figures in the history of this branch of the law.

Lawrence Lessig

I've told a dark story. The truth is more mixed. A technology has given us a new freedom. Slowly, some begin to understand that this freedom need not mean anarchy. We can carry a free culture into the twenty-first century, without artists losing and without the potential of digital technology being destroyed. ... Common sense must revolt. It must act to free culture. Soon, if this potential is ever to be realized.

Lawrence Lessig

Creation always involves building upon something else. There is no art that doesn't reuse. And there will be less art if every reuse is taxed by the appropriator. Monopoly controls have been the exception in free societies; they have been the rule in closed societies.

Lawrence Lessig

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.

Lawrence Lessig