A Wireside Chat with Lawrence Lessig

: Lawrence Lessig via last.fm

Lawrence Lessig, is the foundational voice and an advocate of the free culture movement, Creative Commons and Open Source. The Open Video Allience will present a live webcast of a talk by Lawrence Lessig at the end of Feburary. For more background on his ideas view his speech: Free Culture: What We Need From You (Ogg). This was Prof. Lessig’s keynote speech at LinuxWorld in San Francisco. (via Lessig.Content: Audio/Video ) In this video he discusses the emerging remix culture as both the source and outcome of societies embrace of digital technology. Lessig feels a new literacy has emerged due to these changes which should be embraced and taught because it is the key to preparing society for further innovation into the 21st Century. Last year at Educause 2009 he stated:

The ‘ecology of education and science,’ Mr. Lessig said, is inherently collaborative, and it is being strangled by copyright-law principles based on exclusivity…”Scientists and educators are busy creating,” he continued, “so it is up to chief information officers and other information-technology specialists to devise ways to make those creations both legal and widely accessible.”

The Open Video Alliance recently announced a “Wireside Chat” webcast of a talk he will deliver at the end of February 2010:

On February 25th, 2010, the Open Video Allience’s will present their first Wireside Chat. This will be a live webcast of a talk by Lawrence Lessig. Professor Lessig will deliver a talk on fair use and politics in online video from Harvard Law School in Cambridge, MA. Come in person, or tune in to a live webcast at http://openvideoalliance.org/lessig.

In conjunction with the Cambridge event, the Open Video Alliance is hosting live webcast screenings in cities around the world. Many of these screenings will be followed by special presentations. In New York, check out a curation by the ReMixed Media Festival. In Los Angeles, take part in a Critical Commons workshop. If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area, check out a live audiovisual demonstration by Eclectic Method at Stanford Law School. For more details, or to host your own event, visit http://openvideoalliance.org/lessig.

Lessig’s talk will explore copyright in a digital age, and the importance of a doctrine like fair use. Fair use allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, and is essential for commentary, criticism, news reporting, remix, research, teaching and scholarship with video. As a medium, online video will be most powerful when it is fluid, like a conversation. Like the rest of the internet, online video must be designed to encourage creative expression and political participation, not just passive consumption. More info via Open Video Alliance.org