Last Thursday on the Colbert Report, Stephen’s guest was Lawrence Lessig, who argues in Remix, his current book, that something is wrong with our intellectual property policies in this country.
Totally failed war. For ten years we’ve been waging this war. Artists have gotten no more money, businesses have not gotten more profit, and our kids have been turned into criminals.
Society, Lessig argues, should instead be encouraging and celebrating the remixing of media and all kinds of creative ideas.
In the course of the discussion, they differed about who owns the recording of that particular segment, with Lessig claiming joint ownership.
And, as co-owner, he said that anyone had the right to remix the segment. Which, of course, is just what happened.
The lawyers at Viacom must be going nuts.