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person1990s-present

Lawrence Lessig

Disciplines:
law
internet policy

Summary

American legal scholar at Harvard who founded Creative Commons, developed the theory that code is law, and became a leading voice for copyright reform and campaign finance regulation.

Core Contribution

Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace: code (software) is a form of regulation — its architecture is political and should be scrutinized like law. Creative Commons: a set of copyright licenses that permit legal sharing and remixing. Republic, Lost: campaign finance corruption as a systemic problem. Remix: culture requires the freedom to remix — copyright law suppresses creativity.

Notable Works & Achievements

Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace

The Future of Ideas

Free Culture

Republic, Lost

Historical Influences

Richard Stallman Jonathan Zittrain

Intellectual Lineage

Constitutional Law Cyberlaw

Contemporaries & Peers

Yochai Benkler Jonathan Zittrain

Minds Influenced

Internet PolicyOpen Source Movement

Intellectual Posterity

Creative CommonsOpen Source Law

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Lawrence Lessig

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