Lessig

I've been hiding for the last few weeks trying to finish the reply brief in the Eldred case. (Check out the briefs on the other side. My favorite is the RIAA's, which begins "The RIAA and its members are dedicated defenders of the First Amendment and vigorously oppose government-sponsored censorship in all its forms." That's apparently the mini-me version of the RIAA. Also check out Bumperactive.com which is giving away free (as in beer) "Free the Mouse" bumperstickers. )

But today I started getting a bunch of frantic emails from people telling me that I needed to respond to Dave Winer. Dave's hopping mad. Apparently, when I asked in my OSCON talk, "What have you done?"and then said "We've done nothing," Dave thought I was literally saying he, Dave, has done nothing. He didn't take it well.

Hey, Dave, peace. Of course I don't mean that you've, literally, done nothing. Obviously and of course, you've done great things for the movement. Nor when I criticized the copyright system was I saying anything about you. (Obviously lots of people use copyright to spread knowledge, rather than hide it. Copyleft is still copyright. And I am, as my writing should make clear, pro-copyright.)

When I said at OSCON that "We've done nothing yet," what I meant (and I thought this was obvious) is that we've done nothing politically yet. We have yet to build a political movement to resist those who would use law to kill what you, and others, built when you, and others, built the net. That claim I still stand behind. There is no political movement that has punished, the way democracies punish, the likes of Berman, et al. And there's no political movement yet that adequately rewards the likes of Boucher, Cannon, and Hank Perritt.

You say there "will" be. Great. Here's hoping. But I was talking about what there is -- now, when the worst legislation we've seen so far is being bounced around DC like it's apple pie. Right now we have a culture where the most creative and important builders of freedom in the 21st century have zero political savvy and (so far) zero political effect. Part of the reason for this is good sense: obviously, your talents are for building the technical infrastructure for freedom that we call the Net. But part of the reason is the continuing reign of Declan-like banalities--about how you don't need to waste time getting democracies to protect freedom, that politics can be left to people in dc, that geeks should worry about west coast code not east coast code, etc. (My favorite line from the Declan missive was: "Would you rather see Ian Clarke start a certain-to-be-ignored postcard campaign instead of inventing such a beautifully disruptive technology as Freenet?" Gee, I guess not. And I guess on that reasoning, Ian should also stop going to movies, because if we've got to choose between the next great "beautifully disruptive technology" and movies, well...)

My point is that if this community does not begin to spend at least as much time as it spends watching Hollywood movies fighting Hollywood, or to spend at least as much money as it gives DSL providers on those who fight broad based control, then this extraordinary space that you, Dave, (and I trust you'll agree, some others as well) built will be taken away. Not by superior blogs, and not by witty /. postings. But in the old-fashioned way: through regulators who have been bent by the forces of those who can and do buy Washington.

You say I should stop complaining, and open up a blog. (Man. I knew you were still angry with me that I didn't take you up on your kind offer for free blog space at userland. I'm sorry, Dave.). I say that in addition to blogging, and coding and whatever, we've got to do something that matters to these people who think a blog is a typo. You, or we, or someone has got to get this community to deliver a different kind of message. One that east coast coders can read; one that says: we won't let the freedom we (actually, you, certainly not me) built be regulated away.

How? Here's the simplest thing we could do: identify 2 luddite members of Congress -- one Republican and one Democrat. Organize and defeat them in November. If Congress saw bad ideas cost seats, they'd begin to do something about their bad ideas.

It's one thing to sit at your screen and post rude-ities about how you'll throw them (and me) out (out of where, Dave? userland? Oh no!), and how the revolution will come, and so on. You're right: I'm not old enough to remember the "revolution" of the 60s; just old enough to remember that Nixon was president when the 60s ended. In any case, the revolution will be here only when it leaves your screen, and registers and votes. And about that, I still say "we've done nothing"-- still.

Back to the wisdom of the RIAA ...

Alex Golub's got a scathing review of my OSCON talk. Completely right. This is why I'm moving on from this, quickly. But he also has at the same link a really great song.

So I've never received an "F" before, so don't blame me for appealing c|Net's grade.

The Future of Ideas has been translated into Japanese. As sometimes happens, the translation improves the book. Not only is the title better ("Commons", which the American publisher vetoed), but it also has a great and revealing introduction by the translator, Hiroo Yamagata. As always, the translator reveals as much about the work he translates as the world he translates into.

Donna "Copyfight" Wentworth is blogging Harvard Berkman Center's iLaw program here in Brazil. The Berkman Center does this every six months or so, at least once a year in a very interesting place -- and this will qualify as the most amazing place for many years. Yesterday, John Perry Barlow and Brazil's Minister of Culture, Gilberto Gil, debated the economics of culture. Barlow is in great form, and Gil is an extraordinary speaker. Most extraordinary was to hear him quote Jefferson and Barlow in Portuguese.

So we're trying to focus on Internet Law, but the truth is, it is impossible to be here, as an American, without the war raining down everywhere. Barlow sits next to me browsing war webpages. Student's won't stop asking. And I, ever wanting to believe, remain stumped.

Then there are minor wars: I've been asked not to praise MIT in the way I did. The reality of this world: one can do good, but others can't talk about it.

Two random questions I'd be grateful for a reply on. Reply to this disposable email address:

(1) Has anyone heard from Andrew Orlowski -- via email -- in the past six weeks?

(2) There's an ad running on some network with two guys at a bar talking about drug legalization. It is an anti-legalization ad. I'd be grateful for any help in tracking it down.

My wife is T+7. I'm going radio silent while we see this amazing process through. Argue well.

Sorry about the ambiguity. Willem Dakota Neuefeind Lessig was born yesterday.

I've been guest blogging at GlennReynolds.com, while failing to meet my obligations here (and to my inbox -- which after a week off from teaching, I was able to clear (except for 200 replies to comments on my writing I need to respond to). I apologize for the absence. My guest blogging is now ended.

Seth writes, "did Richard Bennett kill the lessig blog?" No, not really. Totally insane overcommitments knocked it out for a time. But classes ended today, and life returns tomorrow. Starting tomorrow for the balance of the week, Siva Vaidhyanathan will be guest blooging about his new book, The Anarchist in the Library. I'll be caught up by the weekend, and back with good news next week. Sorry for the delay.

I will be on a flight to Phoenix on Wednesday morning. So I will not blog much early. In the evening I will be addressing a great audience, the Off-Campus Library Services Conference. Librarians are the best audiences.

Thank you, everybody, for reading all my posts this week. And thanks most of all to our host, Lawrence Lessig, for letting me reach a bigger and better readership this week. It was fun. I got some great and helpful feedback.

As of Saturday, I will be back on my own site, Sivacracy.net. It will be good to be home again.

Please watch Sivacracy.net next week. I might be guest blogging on another major blog. I will announce my plans there. I am working on the details now. Meanwhile, I have to travel to Vancouver for another gig early next week.

Also next week, please check out my regular column Remote Control on openDemocracy.net.

Oh, and if you are in or near New York City, please come join me and some of my friends at the Barnes and Noble store on 5th Avenue at 18th St. on Wednesday, May 19. The reading/signing of The Anarchist in the Library begins at 6:30 p.m. It should be fun.

Ok. Back to Lessig Blog.

Peace, Out.

Siva

My wife, my kid and I are disappearing in August to a place that has no Internet, and only a satellite phone. In my absence, Professor Tim Wu from Virginia will be running Lessig Blog. Tim and I have worked together on "net neutrality" issues, and if we can steal him from Virginia, much more in the future.

In addition to Tim, August will also feature two special guests. During the week of August 9, Congressman Rick Boucher will guest blog. And then during the week of August 23, Judge Richard Posner will guest blog.

As when John Edwards (1, 2, 3, 4), Howard Dean (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), and Dennis Kucinich (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) were guest bloggers, I've advised Congressman Boucher and Judge Posner that my practice is not to block trolls, but that the practice of bloggers everywhere is not to feed trolls. I'd be grateful if members of this community could help keep the conversation constructive.

Thanks to Congressman Boucher and Judge Posner, and to Tim Wu.

"A lot of people would like to think of whales as philosopher-poets swimming around the oceans thinking deep thoughts, and that is not true," said Dr. Roger Payne. "But for some reason, people are deeply, deeply impressed by these animals. It may be their size, and grace has something to do with it. But there really is an air of mystery about them."

This is the end of my stewardship of the Lessig Blog. It has been a pleasure to meet many of you and I thank you for reading the web-log in Larry's absence.

For the rest of the year you can find me either on the 7th floor of Columbia Law School, where I am a visiting professor, or back in Charlottesville/Washington DC. My email address can easily be found using a google search, which is probably why I get so much junk mail. I also have a lousy web site which stores much of my written work and other information.

Our next guest is Richard Posner. Mr. Posner works for the federal government, and enjoys writing, oral argument, and demolishing fields of study. He is fond of animals of most stripes and once owned a horse named "King." Mr. Posner's favorite film is the critically-maligned comedy Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag. He lives in Chicago.

Please join me in welcoming our guest to what promises to be a very interesting week.

Thanks to Congressman Boucher, Judge Posner and Professor Wu for keeping the blog alive in August. We're putting together a page to make it easy to link to guest blogger threads. I was not surprised to see how great all three as bloggers are -- perhaps this will inspire them into blogspace. I'll follow up in the next weeks with some comments on each.

Fond memories of another life.

Lots of speculation and fantastic praise about the West Wing gig. It was a hoot to watch. But in two seconds (I'm late for a meeting) let me put this in perspective.

The story is based (loosely) upon a true story. I was involved in the drafting of one early version of the Georgian constitution. But the story ended up in the West Wing because I told the story to my students in Constitutional Law at Harvard, and a current writer for the West Wing was in that class.

And so is "fame" made: My story is on the West Wing because I was at Harvard -- not because the brilliance of my intervention had been noted and reviewed, but because I was teaching talented kids who would prove to be important. Indeed, so has the most important of my "fame" been made: Did Justice Jackson pick me to be his special master because he had determined I was the perfect mix of Holmes and Ed Felten? No, I was picked because I was a Harvard Law Professor teaching the law of cyberspace. Remember: So is "fame" made.

Two things about the episode did, however, make me very happy. First, that it showed that at least some law students escape the trap that the top law schools have created -- the path to a tedious and unrewarding practice that few seem capable of avoiding. And second, that it captured beautifully the single most important thing that I learned from my years working on "constitutionalism" in Eastern Europe: That 90% of the challenge is to build a culture that respects the rule of law, and that practices it. A document doesn't build that culture. And no one has a formula -- either for building it, or preserving it.

Certainly not a law professor.

I flew my 1,000,000th mile on United. They didn't even notice.

My son has an imagination. At 20 months, he spent an hour playing a game in which his stuffed boxer (as in the dog) played with his plastic spider. The spider would ride the dog. The dog would sniff the spider. And all the time my son was split with laughter. (more in the extended entry below)

To everyone who has written about my ghosts, thank you. I am always stunned by the warmth of this community (though of course, stunned sometimes by the opposite as well). I had promised myself I would not read the piece, but the comments have forced me to break that promise. John is an amazing writer, and the piece has a rawness that is hard, but perhaps appropriate. (E.g., I rarely swear, though you wouldn't get that impression from the piece.). Three comments below, but first a plea: that we drop the H-word, and B-word from commentary about this. This is an important social issue because of how ordinary it is in fact; and we need it to be understood to be ordinary, so as to respond in ways that can check, and prevent it.

Update: hero, brave

{Update II: Please see this follow-up.

(more below)

The comments to Living With Ghosts have done more for me than anything could. "Thank you" is too weak, but thank you.

Many have written asking, "What can I do?" Here's a map for anyone interested.

As the story recounts, we're waiting for a decision from the New Jersey Supreme Court about whether New Jersey's law, which immunizes charities from "negligence," is subject, as the trial court said, to a "judicial gloss," making the statute "absolute," and therefore excusing the organization:

"from liability for any degree of tortuous conduct, no matter how flagrant that conduct may be. Accordingly, plaintiffs’ contentions that employees and agents of the American Boychoir School acted willfully, wantonly, recklessly, indifferently – even criminally – do not eviscerate the School’s legal protections."

There is -- and there should be -- nothing that can be done about that case while the Court is considering it.

But New Jersey has a legislature as well as a Supreme Court. And the real hero in this case -- John Hardwicke, who has given everything he has not just to his case, but to changing the law in New Jersey -- has, with others, started a movement to get New Jersey to FixTheLaw in a part that is unrelated to the case before the Supreme Court.

Even if we win our case, the law in New Jersey would still immunize a charitable institution from "negligence" in the hiring of a teacher. That means if a school hires a teacher without taking any steps to verify the teacher's past -- for example, asking why the teacher was fired from his last job -- the school is immune from liability.

Assemblymen Cohen, Chiappone, and Bateman have introduced a bill to remove that immunity, so that a school would have the same duty that all of us have -- to take reasonable steps to avoid foreseeable harm, at least if that harm is sex abuse. Yet this bill has been stalled by the very powerful lobbying of some -- actually, primarily, one:

Leaders from the Catholic Church have opposed the change. Some of the same leaders, representing the "Catholic Conference of Bishops," also filed a brief in our case asking the Court to affirm the "absolute" immunity -- even for intentional acts -- that the trial court had found.

It is completely beyond me why the Church spends its resources to make children less safe. No doubt, the Church has its own issues about liability. But is money really a church's only concern? Do its values really say that it is more important to avoid its own liability than to protect children in the future? Or more accurately -- that it is right to protect its assets by making children in the future less safe?

In any case, there are more voices in New Jersey than this one. I've hesitated before about the appropriateness of noncitizens addressing New Jersey's issues, but that may just be prudishness. And anyway, I assume the "Catholic Conference of Bishops" is not located in Trenton.

So: Hardwicke has a comprehensive site with links to contact legislators, and to contribute. If you are looking for something to do, I'd be grateful if you followed those leads. Or if you would lead others to them. Or, if you're a Catholic, I'd be grateful if you would follow your own leads to the conscience of your church.

I am home after just about a month on the road, and about to leave to pick my family up at the airport. Realizing last month that this would be a time when I would spend little time here, I asked two friends who are publishing a new book to guest blog for the first week of June. Starting tomorrow, Ian Ayres and Jennifer Brown will be discussing their book, Straightforward : How to Mobilize Heterosexual Support for Gay Rights. I've not read the book, but I've been talking to both of them about these issues since I was a visiting professor at Yale. These are two extraordinary authors, and the debate is certain to be more interesting than the usual stuff on this blog. (Yet another opportunity to see a surprisingly refreshing facet of the three blind mice).

So excuse my absence. I'll be back on the 8th.

Thanks to Ian and Jennifer for the guest blogging. This was different from the standard Lessig Blog stuff, but I've been a believer in Cass Sunstein's concern about the Daily Me since we spoke about it almost 10 years ago. So I'm happy to mix your reading up a bit. (Don't worry -- just a bit). The issues of this last week are important issues for all of us to talk about. It is the great weakness of liberal politics that too much of the battle is waged in courts. Blogs are to be the space of public discussion of matters important to the democracy (as well as a bunch of other fun things as well). So I am grateful for the conversation (and especially for the break).

So as I've mentioned before, the one promise I keep to my family is a month away, sans Internet, each year since my kid was born. This is year two. The month (or so) begins today. But I've lined up an incredible group to blog in my absence.

This weeks is Cass Sunstein. Cass is certainly the most influential law professor of our time (the only rival is Judge Posner, but he's currently a judge (as you might have guessed)). In 2001, Cass published Republic.com, a brilliant if dark story about the costs of digital culture. Cass is in the first stages of a new book with the other side of the story -- the good in digital community. I thought he could see something of that from the mix of sorts who live here.

Then beginning July 25, the kids from freeculture.org will blog for a week about the Free Culture Movement, and what students can do to advance it. As I've explained again and again, this is a movement begun far from my influence. But I am a strong supporter, and am honored they would spend some time here (during summer vacation, no less!).

Then for two weeks, beginning August 1, the extraordinary Jimbo Wales, founder of Wikipedia will have two weeks on this page. (He's staying in my house with his family while I'm gone. You've heard about the high rents in San Francisco.) Jimbo has a project to figure out what things should be "free." I suggested this might be a great place to explore that.

Finally, for the surprising close, beginning August 15, Hilary Rosen, former Chief Executive of the RIAA will visit this page. She has of course been a visitor in a different sense from the beginning of this page. I'm honored that she would spend sometime understanding and explaining here.

I'm sorry to be gone for such a long period of time. But with this lineup in my stead, you shouldn't be. Thanks to these guests. Please be decent, however direct. And see you on the other side of a month repairing the bonds that distance has created.

So the year resumes. Thanks to the guest bloggers -- Cass Sunstein, the Free Culture Movement, Jimmy Wales, and Hilary Rosen. And thanks to all who've written worried about my silence, or asking for my return. I hadn't realized how long it would take to dig out from my time away. I'm almost there.

I've gotten a bunch of emails recently from people asking whether the NJ Supreme Court has ruled in the Boychoir case. (See Living with Ghosts). The matter has now returned to the blogosphere in an extensive piece by a sympathetic writer.

The answer is no. Though we argued the case almost a year ago (11/29), there's no word from the Court. I am very surprised at the delay -- indeed, a bit worried the delay is in part because of the New York Magazine article. I feel so stupid that I didn't get a commitment from them not to publish the article before the case was decided. When they told me when they expected it would run, it was months beyond the normal time it take the NJ Supreme Court to decide cases. Anyway, bottom line -- no word yet.

So it has been more than a year since the argument in Hardwicke. John Hardwicke continues to work extremely hard to get New Jersey to protect its children. He's asked people to write the New Jersey legislature to get them to consider one important bit of progress, Assembly Bill 2512.

E-mail the General Assembly

I've created a wiki for work critical of my own work. The aim is to build a text that would complement my own work. I'd be grateful for any help people could provide. Think of the entries as essentially "But see" c/sites.

The wiki is here.

Since my kid was born, we've tried to have a month alone off the grid. That starts this year in 6 hours. I have not asked anyone to guest blog while I'm gone, so this space will be quiet. There are a couple times when I might make a surprise return (they're all preprogrammed). But my apologies for the silence otherwise. This year has been an especially burdensome year. We really need this time alone.

So I'm leaving for Berlin for the year Monday. I am on sabbatical, and need to write tons of stuff. I will be changing significantly how I connect (project: privatizing lessig), but one thing I really need to do is to find a web master. I want to do much more in this space, but this space needs some significant reworking. If you're interested and able, please email Lauren Gelman at the Stanford CIS. There's some money to support this, but not much.

So my family and I have arrived at the American Academy in Berlin where I'll be spending the year writing and hiding (mainly). (More on the hiding part later). My 3 year old (as of Thursday!) seems not to have as flexible an internal clock as his dad. This is the first morning he's slept past 2am. I should have polled for tricks for dealing with this in advance.

There's a great line in Gore's movie about how he thinks about the process of making presentations. Each time, he says, he goes through the presentation "removing blocks" -- trying to understand where people aren't understanding what he's saying, and changing it so there is understanding. Sometimes it's not possible, of course -- sometimes there's just disagreement. But sometime disagreement is just misunderstanding.

As I read some of the responses to my post about Web 2.0, I'm beginning to have a Gore moment. I used the word "ethics"; that word is creating a block. Many read that word (reasonably, of course) to suggest I'm trying to impose a moral code on the the Web; distinguish good from bad, right from wrong; a kind of PCism for PCs.

That's a totally reasonably way to read what I wrote. It's not, however, the point of the post. I don't have a moral code to impose on the Web. I was instead describing the elements, as I see them, of a successful Web 2.0 business. My argument is not "do X because it is good"; my post was "do X to keep and spread the success you've had." My claim is not that walled gardens never prosper (see, e.g., AOL). It is that walled gardens wither (see, e.g., AOL), at least in the environment of Web 2.0.

It was clumsy to try to frame that point as a point about ethics. I realize in reading the responses, I hang the normative within "morals"; ethics, in my (private?) language, is about how we (differing depending upon the group) behave. So in that sense, it was how Web 2.0 companies behave, not because god told them to (remember: amoral), but because they believe this is how best to behave.

But there's another set of responses I don't think there's a simple way to answer. There's a certain mindset out there that thinks the way the world was cut up in college is the way the world is. So whatever set of texts you read as a sophomore, somehow they define the nature of world forever. Seared in your brain is the excitement of figuring out the difference between Capitalism and Marxism, or communitarianism vs. libertarianism. And so significant was this moment of education that everything else in life must be ordered according to these sophomore frames.

I don't know the best way to respond to this sort of soul. Obama apparently addresses it in the context of politics, when he comments that the last 3 presidential elections have all been framed in terms of the debates of the 1960s (Vietnam, the sexual revolution, etc.), and the best response to this framing is just to move on.

That's what I wish would happen here. Put your college philosophy books away, and start reading research about what's happening now. Understand it first, then craft the label. Because when you understand what, say, von Hippel is writing about, it has absolutely nothing to do with communism/communalism/communitarianism/commuwhatever-you-want. It's all about how business prosper in a new technological environment. There's a good argument (indeed, great books) skeptical about whether there is a new technological environment. Fair enough. But there are also businesses "democratizing innovation" (free PDF here) not because they're a bunch of communapinkos, and not because they miss the Cultural Revolution.

I'm sorry I lost the blog for about 12 hours.

So Code v2 is officially launched today. Some may remember Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, published in 1999. Code v2 is a revision to that book -- not so much a new book, as a translation of (in Internet time) a very old book. Part of the update was done on a Wiki. The Wiki was governed by a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. So too is Code v2.

Thus, at http://codev2.cc, you can download the book. Soon, you can update it further (we're still moving it into a new wiki). You can also learn a bit more about the history of the book, and aim of the revision. And finally, there are links to buy the book -- more cheaply than you likely can print it yourself.

Most important, however, as we come to the $185,000 mark of the CC fundraiser: All royalties from Code v2 go to Creative Commons, in recognition of the work done by those who helped with the wiki version of Code v1.

Willem got a brother yesterday. Mother is amazing. Father is amazed.

Or so say his parents.
His brother insists his name is "Appletree Alex."

Following the good practice of others, and following suggestions of inconsistency by others, I offer the following disclosure statement.

I am a law professor. I am paid to teach and write in fields that interest me. Never is my academic research directed by anyone other than I. I am not required to teach any particular course; I am never required or even asked by anyone with authority over me to write about a particular subject or question. I am in this important sense a free laborer.

I also get paid for some of my writing. I write books that are sold commercially. Three (and I hope soon all) of my books are also available freely in electronic form. I have been commissioned to write articles for magazines. But in all cases, while I may contract about the subject matter I will address, I never contract about the substance.

I have (though rarely) been paid to consult on matters related to my work. If I have, I conform my behavior to the NC Principle articulated below.

I am sometimes paid to speak. If I am, I will contract as to subject matter (e.g., whether the speech is about innovation, or copyright, or privacy, etc.). I do not contract as to substance. In addition to an honorarium, I also accept payment to cover travel expenses.

I am not compensated for my work with nonprofits.

I am a paying customer of Movable Type. Marc Perkel gives me a great hosting deal. If ever anyone sends me a product to review, I am resolved not to write about it.

I have no regular clients. I am on board of a number of non-profits, including EFF, FSF, PLOS, FreePress, PublicKnowledge, and Creative Commons.

I serve on no commercial boards. I don't take stock-options to serve on boards or advisory boards.

It is a special privilege that I have a job that permits me to say just what I believe, and not what I'm paid to say. That freedom used to be the norm among professionals. It is less and less the norm today. Lawyers at one time had a professional ethic that permitted them to say what they believe. Now the concept of "business conflicts" -- meaning, a conflict with the commercial interests of actual or potential clients -- silences many from saying what they believe. Doctors too are hired into jobs where they are not allowed to discuss certain medical procedures (See, e.g., Rust v. Sullivan). Researchers at "think tanks" learn who the funders are as a first step to deciding what questions will be pursued. And finally, and most obviously, the same is true of politicians: The constant need to raise money just to keep their job drives them to develop a sixth sense about what sorts of statements (whether true or not) will cost them fundraising dollars.

With perhaps one exception (politicians), no one forces professionals into this compromise. (The exception is because I don't see how you survive in politics, as the system is, without this compromise, unless you are insanely rich.) We choose the values we live by ourselves. And as the freedom I have to say what I believe is the most important part of my job to me, I have chosen a set of principles that limit any link between money and the views I express.

I call these principles "non-corruption" principles because I believe that behavior inconsistent with these principles, at least among professionals, is a kind of corruption. Obviously, I don't mean "corruption" in the crudest sense. Everyone would agree that it is wrong for a global warming scientist to say to Exxon, "if you pay me $50,000, I'll write an article criticizing global warming." That is not the sort of "corruption" I am talking about.

I mean instead "corruption" in a more subtle sense. We all understand that subtle sense when we look at politicians. We don't recognize it enough when we think about lawyers, doctors, scientists, and professors.

I want to increase this recognition, even at the risk of indirectly calling some of my friends "corrupt." Norms are uncertain here. I hope they change. But until they change, we should not condemn those with differing views. We should engage them. I intend this to be the beginning of that engagement.

So, the NC principle:

The simple version is just this: I don't shill for anyone.

The more precise version is this: I never recommend as policy a position that I have been paid, either directly or indirectly, to recommend.

The precise version need to be precisely specified, but much can be understood from its motivation: "Corruption" in my view is the subtle pressure to take views or positions because of the financial reward they will bring you. "Subtle" in the sense that one's often not even aware of the influence. (This is true, I think, of most politicians.) The rule is thus designed to avoid even that subtle force.

So: "I never recommend as policy a position": This is meant to distinguish work as a lawyer from work as an advocate. I don't do legal work for money. But everyone understands that when a lawyer speaks for his client, he speaks for his client. The corruption I am targeting is a lawyer or academic speaking not for a client, but presumptively, for the truth. And "recommend" means in any public forum -- so an op-ed, testimony, or a lecture.

"that I have been paid directly": This is the easy part of the principle. "Directly" means that I've received cash or other such compensation, or that I receive research support, or funding that I otherwise wouldn't have been entitled to.

"or indirectly": This is a harder line to draw in general. The boundaries for me, however, seem pretty clear. In my view, I would be "indirectly" benefited if an institution I was responsible for got a significant benefit from an easily identified interest.

So, for example, I do no fundraising for my law school. My position, and the Center I run there, depends in no way upon my raising funds for either. Further, the commitment I have from my dean to support the Center is independent of any fundraising. As Dean Sullivan told me when she recruited me, "fundraising is my problem. Yours is to do the work."

Thus, if you give a substantial amount of money to Stanford, you don't, in my view, indirectly benefit me -- because you have not made my life any different from how it was before you gave that money. (Indeed, given the hassle that usually runs with such gifts, you've likely made my life more difficult.)

Creative Commons presents a different question. A substantial contribution to Creative Commons -- an entity which, as its CEO, I am responsible for -- would, consistent with the NC principle, limit my ability to "recommend as policy a position" that was directly connected to the contributing entity.

So far, beyond the foundation grants CC has received, there have been two such "substantial" contributions to Creative Commons. With neither would I ever "recommend as policy a position" that benefited either -- even if I believed, independently, that the position was correct. This doesn't mean I wouldn't help such people, or advise them. It simply means I would not publicly say something about their position, after such support was received.

I acknowledge one might well quibble with the "substantial" qualification here. Why not "any" rather than "substantial"? That may be the right position, at least ultimately. But as I view the matter now, the gifts beyond these two are so small as a proportion of CC's budget that they don't meaningfully change my work for CC at all.

Some would say this principle is too strict. That a simpler rule -- indeed the rule that governs in most of these contexts -- simply requires disclosure.

I don't agree with the disclosure principle. In my view, it is too weak. The best evidence that it is too weak is the United States Congress. All know, or can know, who gives what to whom. That hasn't chilled in the least the kind of corruption that I am targeting here. More generally: if everyone plays this kind of corruption game, then disclosure has no effect in stopping the corruption I am targeting. Thus, in my view, it is not enough to say that "Exxon funded this research." In my view, Exxon should not be directly funding an academic to do research benefiting Exxon in a policy dispute.

(There is a difficult line here that turns upon practice. When I was at Chicago, professors received summer research grants. Those were awarded by the Dean. To make the funders happy, the professor would write "this research was supported by a grant by XXX." But never was the money given in light of the work, and most of the time, it wasn't till after you had finished something that you discovered who had "funded" the work. I don't mean to be targeting this sort of behavior at all. Again, the funding the professor received was independent of the grant by XXX.)

The NC principle is about money. It is not about any other influence. Thus, if you're nice to me, no doubt, I'll be nice to you. If you're respectful, I'll be respectful back. If you flatter me, I doubt I could resist flattering you in return. If you push causes I believe in, I will likely push your work as well. These forms of influence are not within the scope of the NC principle because none of them involve money. I mean the NC principle only to be about removing the influence of money from the work of a professional. I don't think there's any need to adopt a rule to remove these other influences.

Why is money different from flattery, or being a liberal? Good question. Lots of obvious reasons. (For example, think about how hard these other "corruption principles" would be to implement: "I can't support X because he supports the Democratic party, as I do." "I can't testify in favor of Y because its President said something nice about me." Talk about perverse incentives...)

Someday I hope time will give me the opportunity to say more about why in depth. But for now, I mean only to specify the scope of my principle: It is a principle about isolating one form of influence from the work that I (and I hope my colleagues) do. We (in legal academics, and imho) get paid enough not to have to worry about selling testimony.

Thus, one friend wrote me with disappointment about something I wrote that could be viewed as a favor to someone else. So long as money is not involved, I'm all for this kind of favor. We should be doing favors for people we agree with all the time. Especially people on our side of the debate: we need to become at least as good as the other side in cultivating a community of support.

If you believe I am following my principle, then you can still believe I am biased because I'm a liberal, or wrong because I'm an idiot, or overly attentive because I'm easily flattered, or under-attentive because I punish people who behave badly. All that the NC principle promises is that I am not saying what I am saying because of money.

I have been living these principles for many years. So my purpose here is not to announce any new policy. You can agree or disagree with the principles. You can believe them too strict, or not strict enough. They are significantly stricter than anything within the academy just now. No doubt, many may believe they are way too strict.

But whether you believe them too strict, or not strict enough, I would encourage you to engage them. Consistent with my NC principle, I will reward kindness and insight with at least kindness. I will ignore people whose argument style stopped developing in high school. But because this is an issue I very much want to continue to work on, the only thing for sure is I won't accept money to consult around it. (And of course, there are millions throwing hundreds of millions at me to do this, so this is a REAL sacrifice.)

Finally, and again, I don't offer this as a tool to condemn. I offer it because I believe this is a conversation we all should have.

During my keynote at the iCommons iSummit 07, I made an announcement that surprised some, but which, from reports on the web at least, was also not fully understood by some. So here again is the announcement, with some reasoning behind it.

The bottom line: I have decided to shift my academic work, and soon, my activism, away from the issues that have consumed me for the last 10 years, towards a new set of issues. Why and what are explained in the extended entry below. | technorati |

The response to my channel changing has been overwhelming -- literally, with the emails and well wishes. Thank you (and I'm sorry for the slowness in responding). Some have asked whether this means all IP disappears from here, or elsewhere, as of now. Answer: No. I've still got a bunch of things in the pipes (an op-ed in the Post; a couple more Internet Policy videos, a book, and some committed talks), as well as a cert petition in Kahle that would be much clarified if the 10th Circuit decided Golan.

Meanwhile, thanks again for the kind words, and many great ideas.

Loads of thanks to Ryan Gantz and M. David Peterson for help in the redesign of lessig.org. There are no doubt a bunch of details to finish, but I'm grateful for the amazing work in getting it live. Soon, as promised, the Mixter site will go live with content to use and reuse. So stay tuned to others doing it, better.

Update: ok, a little hiccup. But now we're back, and so too are the thanks.

My entry July 3, 2006:

Since my [first] kid was born, we've tried to have a month alone off the grid every year. That starts this year in 6 hours. I have not asked anyone to guest blog while I'm gone, so this space will be quiet. There are a couple times when I might make a surprise return (they're all preprogrammed). But my apologies for the silence otherwise. This year has been an especially burdensome year. We really need this time alone.

That happens again this year, again, six hours from now. This year has not been especially burdensome. Indeed, the American Academy in Berlin is heaven, and I've gotten lots of good work done. But the promise was for good times and bad, regardless, a month alone with my family.

While I'm away, I've set up a page on the Lessig Wiki to gather research and suggestions about corruption. As I said, I'm a novice in this field. I am eager to read broadly. If you've got some ideas, please help map the subject.

Over the years, I've sometimes come to this place to ask for tech help. I'm here again. I've had some fantastic support from wildly overworked sorts -- M. David most recently and most extensively. But I'm now in some desperate need for someone or some few who could commit some cycles to lessig.org development. I'm keen to clean up the mess that is the content on my site -- making my presentations more easily available, providing free format versions of everything I can, etc. That means the right sort would have experience with codecs and some design, and a taste for building systems that scale easily.

I can put together a small budget to support some of this, but not a ton. If you can help, drop a note here with your experience and a clear indication of the level of support you could offer.

So I'd like to propose a policy change for comments at lessig.org/blog.

So far, my policy has been to delete comment spam only. I have not deleted any other type of comment, including (especially) comments critical of me or others.

I'd like to change that. I'd like to adopt a policy of deleting personal attacks on others. That means any comment that is directed against someone other than me, which is uncivil and attacking something other than the substance of what that person has written as a comment on my blog.

This change has been encouraged by many people, but prompted by one case in particular, where there's apparently a stalker who is faking his/her ID (poorly, as I can see they all come from a common set of IP addresses), and attacking someone who left a couple comments on my blog. That's not the sort of place I want here.

So I'd propose to ask a trusted volunteer to take requests to remove comments by people who believe they're being uncivilly attacked. If that trusted volunteer agrees, the comment would be removed.

Again, and critically important: No comment attacking me or my work would ever be removed. This would only affect comments that were attacking others (1) uncivilly and (2) unrelated to what others have posted as comments on my blog.

Thoughts?

Many of you have written about the REDSTATE blog entry, pointing to an excerpt of a talk I gave at Google in which I showed a video by Javier Prato in which Jesus is singing Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive." The YouTube video makes it seem as if this is all there was in my talk. And so my inbox has been filled with people outraged I would have made such a disrespectful video about Jesus, etc.

This will be obvious to everyone ordinarily here, but for the record:

(1) I did not make the "Jesus Christ: The Musical" video. Javier Prato did.

(2) I used the video in probably 5 or 6 out of 200 talks over the last three years, in the section of my talks in which I show examples of "remix" creativity.

(3) I show these videos not because I endorse the message, or even believe in the message. For example, here's a fantastically clever video about John Kerry I showed dozens of times during the 2004 election. It makes fun of Kerry -- the man I supported for President. The point was not the substance of the message; it was to demonstrate the spread of the technique.

(4) The Jesus video was relevant to the story I was telling because the artist was threatened by the copyright holders because of the video.

(5) I decided to stop using the video when one Christian whom I knew told me he thought unhelpful to the purpose for which I was using it. That seemed right, so I dropped it.

It will be interesting (in a root canal kind of way) to see how far or deep PC-ism runs in this society.

After thinking through the 37 helpful comments posted to my post about comment policy, I've decided to start slowly as proposed. That means:

I have adopted a policy of deleting personal attacks on others. That means any comment that is directed against someone other than me, which is uncivil and attacking something other than the substance of what that person has written as a comment on my blog will be removed if (1) a request is made by anyone to a2lessig@pobox.com, and (2) the volunteer I've selected agrees the policy has been violated.

I like some of the other suggestions, including incorporating the slashdot system. As things develop, I may move to something more.

Thanks to all for the help.

A number of great and interesting comments were made in response to my privacy-compromising (and as some said, ad-placement) confession. I've posted some replies. Thanks for the comments.

The Guardian gave me an editorial today: In Praise of ... Lawrence Lessig.

It is with a complicated mix of excitement and sadness that I make the following announcement.

As some of you remember, just over a year ago I reported that I was shifting my academic (and activist) work from free culture related issues to (what I called) "corruption." At Stanford, a year ago, I outlined what this work would be: To focus on the many institutions in public life that depend upon trust to succeed, but which are jeopardizing that trust through an improper dependence on money. Read the New York Times Editorial of last week. Or think of medical researchers receiving money from drug companies whose drugs they review; legal academics receiving money to provide public policy advice from the very institutions affected by that advice; or Congress filled with Members focused obsessively on how to raise money to secure their (or their party's) tenure. In all these cases, dependency on money in these ways tends to weaken public trust. Or so was my hypothesis when I launched on this project.

But how I would pursue this work has been a constant challenge. I started immediately to devour the books recommended to me by colleagues and on my wiki. I attended conferences and gave talks about the subject. I began a series of interviews with insiders. And with the help of Joe Trippi, I launched Change Congress, which was designed to focus these issues in the context of American politics.

Throughout this process, however, I have felt that the work would require something more. That the project I had described was bigger than a project that I, one academic, could pursue effectively. This wasn't an issue that would be fixed with a book. Or even with five books. It is instead a problem that required a new focus by many people, across disciplines, learning or relearning something important about how trust was built.

About six months ago, I was asked to consider locating this research at a very well established ethics center at Harvard University. Launched more than two decades ago, the Safra Center was first committed to building a program on ethics that would inspire similar programs at universities across the country. But the suggestion was made that after more than two decades of enormous success, it may make sense for the Center to consider focusing at least part of its work on a single problem. No one was certain this made sense, but I was asked to sketch a proposal that wouldn’t necessarily displace the current work of the Center, but which would become a primary focus of the Center, and complement its mission.

I did that, mapping a five year project that would draw together scholars from a wide range of disciplines to focus on this increasingly important problem of improper dependence. Harvard liked the proposal. In November, the Provost of Harvard University invited me to become the director of the Safra Center. Last week, I accepted the offer. In the summer, I will begin an appointment at the Harvard Law School, while directing the Safra Center.

This was a very difficult decision to make. Stanford is an extraordinary law school, and I have loved my time here. The students are brilliant, yet balanced. The faculty is brilliant, yet surprisingly humble. The Dean has an amazing vision of the future of legal education, and is redefining the law school in ways that I completely support. I am endlessly proud of the Center for Internet and Society and the Fair Use Project. I have the very best assistant in the world (and she promised at least 5 more years if I stayed). I have written four of my five books while here. I'm almost finished with my 6th, the book I am sure I will be most proud of. This is a place that has given an enormous amount to me, and from which I have benefited greatly.

On a personal level, too, this was a difficult decision. California has become our home. My wife is strongly attached to everything Californian; we both have very close friends here; I hadn't ever imagined raising my kids in anything but the social and political environment of San Francisco. I still find it hard to imagine that I won't, if not now, sometime. And the enormous beauty of the environment here still takes my breath away. A year into my time at Stanford, I was certain I would never leave. After a blissful weekend with my family last week, it still hasn't registered that I will be leaving.

But in the end, it was impossible for me to be committed to the project while turning down this opportunity. It is not just the institution, nor the (partial) freedom from teaching. It is the chance to frame a large-scale project devoted to a large, important and complex problem. Once we saw it like this, my wife and I decided that returning to this old home was the right thing to do. And so in June, we will pack up the car for a cross country trek, back to Harvard.

Of course, I have no objective cause to complain. Harvard too is an extraordinary law school. As anyone who knows me knows, some of my closest friends in the world are at Harvard, including the Dean (or at least until Obama steals them all away). Harvard has grown and changed in wonderful ways over the past eight years. It will be an enormously exciting place to teach and learn.

But I regret deeply doing anything that is hurtful to those I respect and like. Worse, I hate doing anything that can be misunderstood. When Dean Sullivan recruited me, she said Stanford was paradise. I thought that was just a slogan. It isn't. I consider the 8 years I have had here to be the most important and invigorating in my career. And I will miss everything about this place.

Some things won't change. I will continue to work with Joe Trippi to build Change Congress. And I will continue to explore how best to incorporate this space (the Net) into this research. But I will do all of this, and my work, in the context of Harvard's Safra Center and its Law School, and of old friendships, revived.