Thought Police

It says a lot about a society when the release of a movie is threatened because a car drives through an area resembling a courtyard whose design has been copyrighted. I'm sure the lawyers love it, but for the rest of us it is an extraordinary hassle that drains creativity, pocket books and erodes the will of citizens to resist.

Prior to reading Lawrence Lessig's exerpt, I had no idea the extent to which our legal system supports such creative straightjackets. Not that I am surprised, considering how cottage industries have sprung up across all forms of commerce whenever legal minds spot an opportunity to ply their trade by throwing up barriers to the trade of others.

The internet, on the other hand, has transformed the way intellectual property is defined, copied, purchased, or transferred, and is the wild west of copyright infringement. Copyright protection has been a major focus of the entertainment industry, as the RIAA and MPAA have sought legal remedies to combat software that enables consumers to steal rather than spend for artists' work. While there have been notable legal victories for industry, the real challenge lies in coping with technologies that make violating copyrights a snap, and create a culture that doesn't see anything particularly wrong with these violations.

So while the movie industry has matured to the point where every aspect of creativity is run through the lawyers, the internet is still relatively unpoliced. You can imagine the dollar signs that must be flashing through the heads of lawyers who see a regulatory gold rush ahead. This includes those who pore through election law and FEC advisory opinions, and impact how political voices are heard.