Larry Lessig on innovation, free trade & intellectual property

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[Excerpts from a recent speech by Larry Lessig reported in Wired.  Well
worth forwarding to policy makers around the world - BSA]

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.05/view.html?pg=5

And finally, let me talk about the economy. There will be no real 
economic recovery that doesn't begin here. Silicon Valley set the pulse 
of the last great economic boom. It is the key to reviving that growth 
again. [Wait for applause.]

Yet we will kill that recovery if we continue our crazy dance with 
protectionism. [Pause.] Protectionism is competition through government 
favor rather than merit. It is power used to defeat change. Over the 
past five years, this valley has suffered protectionism of one sort: 
intellectual property laws out of touch with their animating purpose. If 
trends continue, it will suffer something worse.

Intellectual property law, of course, is essential to growth. Its aim is 
to secure creative incentives. And we must never fail to defend that aim 
if we're to continue to lead the world in technological innovation. 
[Wait for applause.]

But noble purposes do not guarantee noble results. And I fear that the 
ideals that inspired our intellectual property laws - creativity and 
innovation - have been corrupted by a generation of lobbyists. Copyright 
law today is an insanely complex set of regulations, written by lawyers, 
apparently just for lawyers. The same is true for patents. Both make 
sense for technologies that today live only in museums; neither as 
crafted makes sense for the technologies of the Internet.

You have seen this effect throughout the Valley. Venture capitalists 
have been sued by content companies for funding innovative technologies. 
They therefore fund fewer content-related innovations. Law firms have 
been sued for defending new technologies. They are therefore hesitant to 
advise in favor of innovation.

We can do better. Intellectual property is vital to growth. But the law 
must be fit to technologies, rather than 21st-century technologies being 
forced to fit 19th-century laws. Copyright and patent laws could be 
simplified; the rightful and efficient protections they promise could be 
made much easier to navigate. Their aim should be to encourage 
competition and innovation. It should never be to protect the old 
against the new. [Wait for applause.]

And now I fear the same protectionism is infecting the debates 
surrounding trade. The greatest promise of the network that you helped 
build is the extraordinary spread of wealth and prosperity that it 
fuels. Nations that once could not begin to imagine life out of poverty 
can now use this network to bring prosperity and growth to their people. 
India, China, and other nations throughout Asia will benefit first from 
this capacity. African countries could follow soon after.

This prosperity is vital to all of us. It will spur growth here. It will 
weaken fundamentalism elsewhere. It is the product of the laws that Adam 
Smith taught us. It is the consequence of the lessons that America has 
been teaching the world for generations - that free markets free people.

Yet we call this great good bad. We amplify anxiety through code words 
like outsourcing, and our rhetoric invites policies that would return 
this nation to the darkest days of the Depression. [Ignore boos from 
laid-off, pissed-off programmers.]

We politicians know better. We know, as you know, that protectionism is 
wrong. We know, as you know, that politicians can't change the laws of 
Adam Smith. And we know, as you know, that if America is to maintain its 
moral standing in the world - if we are to avoid the grossest hypocrisy 
as we force the world to embrace free trade but exempt ourselves - then 
we must give up protectionism. We must stop using Washington to protect 
against progress. [Step back from podium and smile humbly. Resume in 
softer voice.]

We politicians, like you innovators, believe in ourselves. We believe in 
the good we could do if only given the chance. Too often we believe that 
a supposed good justifies the lies we tell. We know the harm that 
protectionism produces. But it sells, so we sell protectionism.

Only you can stop us.

Those hurt by transition can be helped by the government. But cries for 
protection must not be answered by economic folly. Your silence in the 
face of that folly is understandable. But your silence will only 
guarantee that folly prevails. And the consequence of that folly - 
continued protectionism - will benefit no one. Not the rich, not the 
poor. Not America, not the world. [In absence of applause, smile and 
exit stage left - quickly.]



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