Free Culture (O'Reilly)
The full
text of Lawrence Lessig's keynote speech at the 2002 Open Source
Convention, is up at the O'Reilly Network. "
In 1774, free culture was born. In a case called Donaldson v. Beckett in the House of Lords in England, free culture was made because copyright was stopped. In 1710, the statute had said that copyright should be for a limited term of just 14 years. But in the 1740s, when Scottish publishers started reprinting classics (you gotta' love the Scots), the London publishers said "Stop!" They said, "Copyright is forever!" Sonny Bono said "Copyright should be forever minus a day," but the London publishers said "Copyright is forever.""