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Creative Commons founder defends piracy in <em>Wall Street Journal</em>

10:16 a.m. · October 13, 2008 · by Ethan Stanislawski

Until the last few years or so, any defense of pirating music online would be limited to the underground, usually in the form of an angry teen internet rant. With the music industry and economy crumbling, however, and with the major labels getting increasingly ridiculous in their attempts to fight piracy, it seems that the argument for fair use copyright reform has hit the mainstream. Look no further than the Wall Street Journal, who has published an article by Stanford law professor and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig, boldly titled, "In Defense of Piracy."

Lessig, publishing an excerpt from his upcoming book Remix, points to the ridiculousness of major labels bullying mothers posting videos of their infant children dancing to Prince, as well as all those lawsuits against eight-year-olds and grandmas. Rather than just limit his defense to ranting, however, Lessig proposes hard solutions to the current law. Lessig's proposals include deregulating the amateur remix and the "copy," and, of course, to stop hunting down eight year olds for "sharing."

Lessig's article doesn't make many new points, but what's notable about this article is how authoritative and mainstream the argument against the major labels has gotten. The Wall Street Journal defense means only good things for copyright reform, as music execs are more likely to read that paper than, say, a 15-year-old's Livejournal. [WSJ.com]