The Obama “Hope” Poster & The New Copyright Controversy

≡ Category: Current Affairs, Law |3 Comments

By now, everyone knows the famous Obama “Hope” poster produced by Shepard Fairey. Recently, Fairey has acknowledged that the poster was originally inspired by a photograph belonging to the AP Press, and now the AP is claiming that Fairey has infringed on its copyright and wants “payment for the use of the photo and a [...]

Download New Book From the Free Culture Movement

≡ Category: Books, Law |Leave a Comment

A quick heads up…
James Boyle, a law professor at Duke University, has just put out a new book called The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind, and it basically tells citizens what they need to know about intellectual property law to take meaningful part in our emerging information society. The book clearly complements a [...]

Ninth Circuit Judge on The Dating Game Way Back When

≡ Category: Law, Random |Leave a Comment

The name Alex Kozinski probably won’t mean much to many of you. But if you’re a lawyer, or a Supreme Court watcher, you’ll know that he’s the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (a really prestigious position). Rather recently, he’s been associated with a highly visible pornography scandal [...]

Lawrence Lessig’s Last Speech on Free Culture (Watch it)

≡ Category: Current Affairs, Law, Stanford, Video - Politics/Society |Leave a Comment

Below we have posted the last lecture that Lawrence Lessig will ever present on Free Culture. It’s an area where he has spent the past decade working, and this talk offers an excellent introduction to Lessig’s thought and work on this issue. Given at Stanford on January 31, the presentation is one that Steve Jobs [...]

The Future of Ideas: Download Your Free Copy (and More)

≡ Category: Law |3 Comments

In 2001, Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig published The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World. Here, Lessig launched a campaign against American copyright law, arguing that it has become so restrictive that it stifles cultural innovation and social progress …. which undermines the original point of copyright law. Back [...]

The Second Amendment: Does It Really Let You Bear Arms?

≡ Category: Law, Video - Politics/Society |2 Comments

What does the Second Amendment mean? It’s something that the Supreme Court has never really said. In this hour long video, Cass Sunstein, a very well known law professor from the University of Chicago, takes a crack at interpreting this amendment and seeing whether its original meaning actually confers the right to bear arms. Originalists/conservatives [...]

The Supreme Court Goes Digital

≡ Category: Law |Leave a Comment

The Supreme Court has long taken heat for being in the technological arrière-garde, a criticism that has seemed fair given its unwillingness to even allow cameras into its oral arguments.
Slowly, however, that perception may be about to change. According to the ABA Journal eReport, the Court has stuck a small toe into the technology waters [...]

Podcasts from Top American Law Schools

≡ Category: Law |4 Comments

American University - Washington College of Law iTunes Feed Web Site

An eclectic collection of legal podcasts.

Duke University School of Law iTunes Feed Web Site

Lectures, panels, conferences, etc.

Georgetown University - Georgetown Law iTunes Feed Web Site

One of the richer collections.

George Mason University

The Law and Economics Podcast iTunes Feed Web Site

Produced by the Journal of Law, [...]

Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture: Available in Text or Audio (For Free)

≡ Category: Law |Leave a Comment

Lawrence Lessig, a law professor at Stanford, has made a big name for himself by developing a sustained critique of how Congress, at the behest of corporate America, has progressively stifled cultural and scientific innovation by extending the duration and scope of copyright laws. Out of this critique, Lessig founded Creative Commons, a non-profit which [...]

Google, Copyright and the Courts

≡ Category: Law |Leave a Comment

The Google Book Search project ran into another roadblock last week when a group representing 400 French publishers joined another lawsuit brought earlier this year in French courts. The upshot of the lawsuit is essentially the same as the suit brought by a consortium of American publishers last year: They’re looking to put a quick [...]


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    Open Culture editor Dan Colman scours the web for the best cultural and educational media. He finds the books you want, the classes you need, and plenty of enlightenment in between.

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