Larry Lessig calls for WIPO to lead radical overhaul of copyright law

On 4 November, Professor Larry Lessig Lessig gave the keynote address at the WIPO Global Meeting on Emerging Copyright Licensing Modalities – Facilitating Access to Culture in the Digital Age, where he called overhaul of the copyright system which will "never work on the internet":

Intellectual Property Watch offered this summary of Lessig's address:

Influential copyright scholar Larry Lessig yesterday issued a call for the World Intellectual Property Organization to lead an overhaul of the copyright system which he says does not and never will make sense in the digital environment.

A functioning copyright system must provide the incentives needed for creative professionals, but must also protect the freedoms necessary for scientific research and amateur creativity flourish.

In the digital environment, copyright has failed at both, said Lessig.

“And its failure is not an accident,” he said. “It’s implicit in the architecture of copyright as we inherited it. It does not make sense in a digital environment.”

The copyright system will “never work on the internet. It’ll either cause people to stop creating or it’ll cause a revolution,” said Lessig, citing a growing system of copyright “abolitionism” online in response to a worrying tendency to criminalise the younger generation.

“If and only if WIPO [the World Intellectual Property Organization] leads in this debate will we have a chance” at fixing the copyright system, he said.

Lessig also spoke on video with Intellectual Property Watch after his speech:

Larry Lessig: WIPO Must Lead Overhaul of Copyright System from Intellectual Property Watch on Vimeo.