Ok I’m kind of late on this but it’s still worth mentioning.
Larry Lessig, crusader for new copyright laws, was invited on the Colbert Report 5 days ago to discuss his new book ‘Remix. Making Art And Commerce Thrive In The Hybrid Economy‘, which deals with new ‘hybrid’ economies (where “commercial entities leverage value from sharing economies”), how they are thriving thanks to user generated content, and how this needs to affect current copyright legislation.
I have already had the chance to read one of his older books, Free Culture, and recommend it to all of you who have the least bit of interest in the copyright issues of the 20th century. You might not agree with all Lessig says, but still, it’s a very good read (download for free and legally on the Free Culture website)
Anyways, so Stephen Colbert invited Lessig not so much to discuss, but rather to fuss about and take the piss out of his new book:
Colbert is a funny guy, no doubt about it, but pretty obnoxious. Of course you must take into account the fact that he plays the role of a right-wing reactionary in his Colbert Report who reflects the reasoning and the understanding of the un-educated.
He does this marvelously with Lessig. When he states “[To camera] Never, ever, ever, ever take anything of mine and remix it. For instance, I’ll be very angry and possibly litigious if anyone out there takes this interview right here and remix it with some great dance beat and then it starts showing up in clubs across America” he’s cryin’ for the online communities to have a go at it. It was a good call ’cause people got to work.
There is currently a session going on on Indaba until the 22th of Jan dedicated to remixing the interview. If you wanna have a go at it, or if you just wanna have a listen, there are some very good mixes in there. On the due date, Indaba plans on inviting both Lessig and Colbert to the session. This promises to be pretty entertaining if they do show up.
The ccMixster community is also hard on the job. Check out their session here.
mruff.
