Copyfight! Copyfight!
: Forbes’ Stephen Manes gave Lawrence Lessig’s new book a bad review; Lessig whined back; and now Manes delivers a good slap back to Lessig — all of which is such a great spectator sport. Says Manes, after arguing that Lessig is wrong his tally of public-domain works the devil Disney supposedly exploited:
Apparently 9-for-16 on the facts is good enough in the Emerald City of Palo Alto–hey, it’s a better ratio than the two of nine U.S. Supreme Court justices Lessig managed to win over to his flaccid arguments in the Eldred case. In his bloggy rage after being taken to task by a mere non-lawyer, Lessig demonstrates that he doesn’t really know or care what the public domain really is, apparently blinded by his grand wish that damn near everything be put there. He seems to think that anything that seems old–never mind whether it is or not–must be in the public domain. And if it isn’t, it should be.
Lessig doesn’t care much about protecting intellectual property, but he’s downright monomaniacal about the public domain.
Oh, how I wish Manes would join in the wiki-editing of Lessig’s book.
