Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy | 
| Author: Lawrence Lessig
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $14.09
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Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 6973
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.7 x 1
ISBN: 1594201722
Dewey Decimal Number: 346.730482
EAN: 9781594201721
ASIN: 1594201722
Publication Date: October 16, 2008
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Product Description
The author of Free Culture shows how we harm our children and almost anyone who creates, enjoys, or sells any art form with a restrictive copyright system driven by corporate interests. Lessig reveals the solutions to this impasse offered by a collaborative yet profitable hybrid economy .
Lawrence Lessig, the reigning authority on intellectual property in the Internet age, spotlights the newest and possibly the most harmful culture war a war waged against our kids and others who create and consume art. America s copyright laws have ceased to perform their original, beneficial role: protecting artists creations while allowing them to build on previous creative works. In fact, our system now criminalizes those very actions.
For many, new technologies have made it irresistible to flout these unreasonable and ultimately untenable laws. Some of today s most talented artists are felons, and so are our kids, who see no reason why they shouldn t do what their computers and the Web let them do, from burning a copyrighted CD for a friend to biting riffs from films, videos, songs, etc and making new art from them.
Criminalizing our children and others is exactly what our society should not do, and Lessig shows how we can and must end this conflict a war as ill conceived and unwinnable as the war on drugs. By embracing read-write culture, which allows its users to create art as readily as they consume it, we can ensure that creators get the support artistic, commercial, and ethical that they deserve and need. Indeed, we can already see glimmers of a new hybrid economy that combines the profit motives of traditional business with the sharing economy evident in such Web sites as Wikipedia and YouTube. The hybrid economy will become ever more prominent in every creative realm from news to music and Lessig shows how we can and should use it to benefit those who make and consume culture.
Remix is an urgent, eloquent plea to end a war that harms our children and other intrepid creative users of new technologies. It also offers an inspiring vision of the post-war world where enormous opportunities await those who view art as a resource to be shared openly rather than a commodity to be hoarded.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Copyright wars, who win? October 26, 2008
Donald Hsu (NYC, United States)
13 out of 46 found this review helpful
Intellectual property right, art, internet, e-commerce, economy driven model, plus legal issues, make this book a very busy read. As the author points out, there can be only one winner - Hollywood or Internet. Everyone knows that Internet always wins.
He is correct to point out the difference between commercial economies and sharing economics. But everyone knows this too. There is nothing new.
Creative Commons, a licensing system that provides an alternative to the copyright system, seems to work better in the digital age. The discussion of the legal ownership will definitely continue for years to come.
Overall the book is good for lawyers.
 The Handbook for a Creative Future! December 3, 2008
Tama Leaver (Perth, Western Australia Australia)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Remix is the culmination of Lawrence Lessig's tireless arguments about the importance of creativity being able to be built on the foundations of culture that already exists, a pathway only open if the extremes of copyright are sobered and a shared, free commons is actively promoted and created. Some of the arguments will be familiar from Lessig's previous book Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity but Remix takes them to a new depth. More to the point, Remix, despite being written by a lawyer, is an extremely accessible work that makes its arguments with humour and is easy to read. The argument is compelling, and Remix has a place in the libraries of schools and universities and the bookshelves of anyone interested in a creativity culture built on the successes of the past with the tools of the future.
(My only criticism would be this book is very US-centric, but that's Lessig's prerogative; others needs to extend these arguments beyond national boundaries.)
Think of the children December 4, 2008
Nathan Otto (Oregon, USA)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
The core of this book is a question about what kind of world we want to create for future generations. Lessig presents an argument that the natural way humans interact with content is to remix it, as we are used to doing with text. Just as we take no offense when somebody quotes our text in their own communication, we should resist the urge to control "quoting" of our digital content.
This is a passionately written book, but it takes some engagement with the issue to really enjoy it. Starting with another of Lessig's books, The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World, might help a reader get into the subject, but once he or she realizes the consequences of culture's legal stance on this issue, Lessig's perspective becomes invaluable to have around. That book more sets out the conditions created by sharing economies, where Remix looks for how art and business can survive under these conditions.
Lessig's lessons on how businesses can thrive or fail as hybrids may help content-producers get a grip as the financial industry melts down.
The main point, as I said, is about the world and culture we create for our children. Do we want a world where they have free "speech" in hundreds of digital "languages", or one where their natural abilities are locked down? Lessig offers advice on how to change law and ourselves to create a culture where our children's expression is cherished (for the sake of their education and their community-building). He wants to start a conversation about how business can thrive among sharing economies as well. This book will be a key perspective in that conversation.
This book is important. December 3, 2008
Brandon Billups (Gainesville, FL)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
And it's important because it focuses on something that seems to be totally ignored by everyone except Lawrence Lessig, and that's the idea that an entire generation of young people are self-identifying as criminals for doing something that, to them, is totally normal.
Lessig also talks about sharing/commercial/hybrid economies, and elucidates the differences in each of them.
The anecdotes throughout the book are all enjoyable, interesting, and serve as profound, thoughtful backup to all of Lessig's main points, making the book easily readable for anyone not an intellectual property scholar.
Overall Lessig presents a compelling, well-reasoned angle on a situation that gets a completely inappropriate treatment nearly everywhere else.
 Big head November 22, 2008
George Kaplan
3 out of 143 found this review helpful
I am right now watching this guy on Charlie Rose. Every single word that emanates from his mouth screams, "I know what's good for you." His vision for society leaves no room for the rich diversity of individual desire and pursuit. His Obama-like "change" mantra betokens a world of the boot on the neck. God help us all.
P.S. If you live in Evanston, please move out.
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