Image:Lessig_forehead.jpg
'''Lawrence Lessig''' (born June_3, 1961) is an American academic. He is currently professor of law at Stanford_Law_School and founder of its Center for Internet and Society.
Prior to joining Stanford he taught at the Harvard_Law_School, where he was a faculty director of the Berkman_Center_for_Internet_&_Society, and the University_of_Chicago_Law_School. Lessig is considered a Liberal, but he clerked for two influential Conservative judges: Richard_Posner and Justice Antonin_Scalia. Lessig was educated in business and economics under the Wharton undergraduate program at the University_of_Pennsylvania, before going on to attain a second undergraduate degree in philosophy from Trinity_College,_Cambridge, and then a J.D. from Yale Law School.
Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Prior to this, he held strong conservative political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active Teen Age Republican, and almost pursued a Republican political career. A year abroad at Cambridge convinced him to undertake a second undergraduate degree in philosophy there, and he was converted to liberal political values. During this time, he also travelled in the Eastern_Bloc, so acquiring a lifelong interest in Eastern European politics.
In 2002, Lessig was awarded the FSF_Award_for_the_Advancement_of_Free_Software from the Free_Software_Foundation (FSF), and on March_28 2004 he was elected to the FSF's Board of Directors http://www.fsf.org/about/leadership.html. Lessig is also a well-known critic of Copyright term extensions.
He proposed the concept of "Free_Culture" http://randomfoo.net/oscon/2002/lessig/. He also supports Free_software and Open_spectrum http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/spectrum/. He is founder and chairman of the Creative_Commons and a board member of the Electronic_Frontier_Foundation.
At his "Free culture" keynote at OSCON 2002, half of his speech was also about Software_patents, which he views as a rising threat to both Open_source and innovation.
Lessig is on the board of directors of Software_Freedom_Law_Center, launched in February_2005.
Lessig appears as a character in a 2005 episode of the television political drama ''The West Wing'' ("The Wake Up Call", season 6, episode 14), played by Christopher_Lloyd. Although portrayed by Lloyd, Lessig's character in the episode is intended to be the same as in real-life; the episode cited his 2002 book ''The_Future_of_Ideas'' and his expertise in Eastern European constitutional law. The episode's screenwriter was Josh_Singer, himself one of Lessig's former students, and his appearance in the show (where the character of Lessig assists the drafters of a Belarusian constitution), is loosely based on Lessig's involvement with work on the Georgian constitution. (Lessig's comments on his blog)
In May 2005, it was revealed that Lessig had been a victim of Sexual_abuse by adult staff members at the American_Boychoir_School which he had attended as a teenager. Lessig reached a settlement with the school in the past, under confidential terms. However, he has represented another student victim, John Hardwicke, in court, and has written about it in his blog.
== Notable cases ==
* Eldred_v._Ashcroft (representing plaintiff Eric_Eldred)
* Kahle_v._Ashcroft - see Brewster_Kahle and http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/about/cases/kahle_v_ashcroft.shtml#002043
* Golan_v._Ashcroft - see http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/about/cases/golan_v_ashcroft.shtml
* United_States_v._Microsoft (special master and author of an amicus brief addressing the Sherman Acthttp://www.lessig.org/content/testimony/ab/ab.pdf)
* MPAA v. 2600 (submitted an amicus brief with Yochai_Benkler in support of 2600 http://www.lessig.org/content/testimony/dvd/dvd.pdf)
== Books authored ==
* ''Code_and_Other_Laws_of_Cyberspace'' (2000)
* ''The_Future_of_Ideas'' (2001)
* ''Free_Culture'' (2004). Lessig released this work under the Creative_Commons_License: Attribution-NonCommercial. See http://free-culture.org/freecontent/
== External links ==
* Lawrence Lessig's web site
* Transcript of his oral argument and the Court's Opinion for ''Eldred v. Ashcroft''
* 2002 FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software
*coverage of Lessig's opposition to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act
* a lot of links to speeches are on his wiki.ael.be page
* Code v. 2, a wiki started by Lessig to allow the internet community to help him revise and update his seminal book, Code.
===Columns===
* How I Lost The Big One - Lessig's account of why the Eldred v. Ashcroft case went to Ashcroft
*''Some Like It Hot'' essay by Lessig in Wired 12.03 excerpted from ''Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity''
===Interviews===
* ''Lawrence Lessig's Supreme Showdown'' - Wired magazine interview from October 2002
* ''Seven Questions: Battling for Control of the Internet'', Foreign_Policy, November 2005
* Slashdot interview
* ''Remixing Culture: An Interview with Lawrence Lessig'', O'Reilly Network, 2005-2-24
===Audio/Video===
* "Free Culture" keynote from OSCON 2002 (including an audio and flash with the presentation as well as the presentation itself)
* Who Owns Culture? - Jeff_Tweedy and Lawrence Lessig in conversation with Steven_Johnson
* Larry's keynote from OSCON 2005 (with comments, audio and presentation)
* Christopher Lydon Interviews... Audio interview.
* Listen to the Lawrence Lessig interview on Radiophiles.org
*IT Conversations - Audio programs featuring Lessig
* Lawrence Lessig interview on This_Week_in_Tech
* Lessig on Digital Village Radio, December 3, 2005
** Part 1 (mp3)
** Part 2 (mp3)
* Lessig on the Triangulation podcast, December 5, 2005. Topic: Google_Books
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