Background
In 1998, the United States Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act which President Clinton signed into law. The legislation extended copyright protections for twenty additional years, resulting in a total guaranteed copyright term of seventy years after a creator’s death. The bill was heavily lobbied by corporations like Disney, and dubbed as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act. Lawrence Lessig claims copyright is an obstacle to cultural production, knowledge sharing and technological innovation, and that private interests – as opposed to public good – determine law. He travelled the country in 1998, giving as many as a hundred speeches a year at college campuses, and sparked the movement. It led to the foundation of the first chapter of the Students for Free Culture at Swarthmore College.
In 1999, Lessig challenged the Bono Act, taking the case to the US Supreme Court. Despite his firm belief in victory, citing the Constitution’s plain language about “limited” copyright terms, Lessig only gained two dissenting votes; from Justices Stevens and Breyer.
In 2001, Lessig initiated Creative Commons, an alternative “some rights reserved” licensing system to the default “all rights reserved” copyright system.
Read more about this topic: Free Culture Movement
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