Larry Lessig, Scotland and Creative Commons

I've just been at an Edinburgh Science Festival event, Cyberlaw: who controls access to ideas on the net?. Organised by the Edinburgh School of Law's AHRB Research Centre for Studies in Intellectual Property and Technology Law, the panel was chaired by Lilian Edwards with panel members Andres Guadamuz (also of AHRB), Bill Thompson (the BBC technology journalist) and Professor Larry Lessig of Stanford Law School.

Larry Lessig gave a half hour presentation on why the law isn't up to speed with our increasingly digital lifestyles and how copyright laws inhibit freedoms long taken for granted. And an impressive presentation it was. The panel discussion sadly wasn't up to much, primarily I think because the time (1hr) was short for the whole gig.

They did however launch the Creative Commons Scotland project which aims to port the Creative Commons licenses into Scots Law compliance. There is a draft CC license available and they are inviting comment with the view of launching the license by Summer. Joint project leader Jonathan Mitchell QC, in a post to the mailing list says of the CC licenses,

" We believe that many creators of intellectual work in Scotland, not only in the performing arts but also in the academic and professional and artistic communities, and among other writers, will welcome these licences. Creative Commons licences will help in spreading their work more widely; they are good for those who wish their work and ideas to reach as wide an audience as possible, and they are good for the public by freeing intellectual work from artificial and unwanted copyright limitations. "

Update: qwghlm has posted some notes from the event.

Posted by Paul in Intellectual Property Law at April 2, 2005 08:36 PM | 0 Comments | Browse Related Books