When I examine my life today and think about
the useful things I've done with it so far, I'd have to say
very high on that list is making a convert out of Larry Lessig.
is making a convert out of Larry Lessig.
Because when I first ran across him,
he was of a very different set of viewpoints
on this than he is now.
And he's always gonna be,
I think by temperament and nature,
he's always gonna be much more pessimistic than I am.
I'm an almost pathological optimist.
So, you know, we'll always have that division
and one thing about optimism is that
it believes that people are inherently good
and, you know, if freedom is allowed to prosper then
good will will arise from below.
Pessimism always believes that
people are inherently rotten
and must be controlled from above.
That's kind of the difference
but, I mean, I think it's been a really good symbiosis
and as I said when I started to discuss this with him,
I think that our disagreements
have been fruitful.
I mean the dynamic between
his point of view and mine on these matters
has been useful to a lot of other people as well.
So let's come to your view of the debate.
The dialogue before it was a lecture by Larry Lessig
and while he's a very pessimistic person
who thinks we have 20 years no chance
to change law and maybe technology,
you have another view.
What is your view?
My view is, you know, if we just keep
pressing the system where it breaks,
eventually the system is so broken
and so obviously broken
that there's no choice but for people
to start evolving another economic model.
And that's actually what's already happening.
Rather rapidly.
I mean, it was interesting
after that conference
where I was talking to these,
you know, usual suspects.
It was suddenly for the first time
friendly as [???], you know,
where previously I've been the devil
and now they've been regarding me as, you know,
maybe somebody that could show them
the way out of the darkness,
which I thought was a significant shift.
So I think that we need to continue.
I think he's being a little over-reactive when he says,
you know, "acts of terrorism".
I just think we need to continue breaking their system.
You know, what happens is exactly what happened
not half a mile from here eventually.
You know, it breaks and it breaks and it breaks
and then one day the whole damn thing goes down.
And when copyright in the virtual world
- and I'm not against copyright in the physical world,
I'm not against copyright as it pertains
the actual copies of things,
you know, books and CDs and things of that nature -
but when it's become obvious that it's just simply
not going to work in cyberspace,
I think you'll see it collapse.
It will be as sudden and surprising
as the thing that took this wall down over here.
You know, I was in Germany in the summer of '89
as I expect you were, too.
And nobody to my recollection thought
there was the chance that that wall
was gonna be down in 20 years, right?
And, you know, everybody was just completely, you know,
disconsolate about the irretrievable state of things.
Right at the moment when, you know, we were sort of
dropping the last crystal in the super-saturated solution
that would cause things to go "Boom"
and do a state-change
and that's what I think is gonna happen
and I think it'll happen a lot quicker than 20 years.
I think it'll happen sometime in the next five if not less.
What can the people do to crash the system?
Go on and do...
you know, if you wanna share something
share it.
You know, if you wanna use something
use it.
Try to do so ethically in the sense that, you know,
don't take things without attribution
attribute.
Make sure that the people who did create
actually have the opportunity to get some
enhanced reputation and thereby, you know,
greater economic return.
But, you know, pay no attention to these people
when it comes to being creative.
Go ahead and do the stuff that Larry showed
in the beginning of his talk
and do lots of it.
And every time they put a lock on - break it.
And every time they pass a new law - break that.
You know.
Sooner or later
they're dealing with such a massive level
of civil disobedience that they have to address it.
And that's where we're headed
in a, I think, a hell of a hurry.
I mean, you go to California
and you drive down the 280,
which is sort of the main artery of Silicon Valley
and connects to San Francisco,
and all those cars are going 85 mph
where the speed limit is 65.
But it's a good road
and there are good cars generally
and they're good drivers
and there's not a damn thing anybody can do about it.
What are they gonna do? Arrest the entire highway? No.
So the cops are right there cruising
along with you at 85 mph.
And that's still against the law
but nevertheless people have [asserted/???] the freedom
to drive as fast as they think, you know,
which is reliably safe under those circumstances.
And we have to do the same thing.
OK, thank you very much.