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Free Culture. The author of a new book that argues against restrictive copyrights is making the medium his message by offering his tome via free download, reports Thomas D. Sullivan in The New York Times. The book, called Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity (but not limit the length of book titles), is written by Dr. Lawrence Lessig and is also available in hardback, for $24.95. Wait -- why would anyone pay $24.95 for a book that can be had for free? Well, that's exactly Dr. Lessig's point. He explains: "What so many examples around the world demonstrate is that free content actually helps push commercial content." Dr. Lessig's hope is that his distribution model will make more content "available online to people around the world, even to people who can't buy it. If we're right," he says, "it also means the sale of more books."
Dr. Lessig's publisher, Penguin Press, apparently was willing to take a chance on his concept, having had success with his earlier books, such as The Future of Ideas. Penguin says that so far the model does seem to be working. Since its March 25th release, more than 180,000 e-copies of Free Culture have been downloaded for free. Penguin won't say how many hardback copies have been sold, although according to Nielsen Bookscan, about 2,600 copies were purchased with real American dollars through April 25. In any case, using free content to promote the sale of commercial content actually is only part of Dr. Lessig's idea. He also believes that "excessively long copyright protections and the aggressive tactics of media conglomerates have upset a traditional balance of intellectual property and creativity."
In other words, Dr. Lessig thinks traditional copyrights stifle creativity. You may remember this fellow as the Stanford law professor who faced down Disney over the Copyright Term Extension Act ("Free The Mouse"). He also is chairman of Creative Commons, which promotes a licence that allows "creators to share their work freely." While a Creative Commons license doesn't eliminate copyrights, it grants permission "to change the work for non-commercial purposes as long as the original is attributed" (see Folk Den). A number of people have, in fact, re-worked Dr. Lessig's book (free-culture.org/remixes). He says he's gratified -- and also slightly mortified: "I confess when it first happened, I had to take a deep breath and re-convince myself of the principles here. Pick your principle: You can buy a copy of Free Culture at Amazon.com, or download a free copy at Free-Culture.org.
Tim Manners, editor
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