Interview with Professor Lessig

Click here for an interview with Professor Lawrence Lessig, currently a professor at Stanford Law School, where he has earned a reputation as a leading expert on intellectual property. Professor Lessig is moving to Harvard Law School where he will lead the University's Safra Foundation Center for Ethics. At the Center, Professor Lessig will "investigate corruption in government and academia." Of course, corruption has been much in the news lately, thanks to high-profile cases such as those of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. However, corruption is an age-old problem. Professor Lessig has chosen to move away from intellectual-property law because he feels that society is making "fundamental policy errors" because the "process of political dialogue [is] distorted in a way which [is] just not making it possible to get the right answers." This problem goes beyond "esoteric subjects like copyright" to issues like global warming. According to Professor Lessig, the "flaw is that public policy questions are being guided not so much by a focus on what makes good sense from a public policy perspective, but what makes good sense from a campaign finance perspective." The possible cure may be the "kind of activism which the Net has enabled."