Remember these aren't solutions, but a segway to a bigger conversation. Feel free to add a submission. The ones I've gotten are good, but not quite there, I think.

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Winer - to Lessig: "We're fanning the flames" (they're not taking action because no one, including you, has lit a fire under them. We are generating heat. You have a chilling effect.)

Is that about right?

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And you know, sometimes the truth hurts, but someone has to state the obvious. *Most* people weren't, aren't and won't do jack shit. To Lessig, and most people, this is a problem solvable with legislation so it is a numbers games where a mass of people must take action.

So, if a few people get chilled and more get fired up I'm cool with that & that is what I witnessed. "Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong."

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"Showing that you care is something you're not supposed to do. The penalty is death, in a symbolic sense. Better to stay aloof, uninvolved, like a TV character. "I don't really care," I say, when nothing could be further from the truth. This is the American way. (Or at least the California way.)

"But, at some point you have to take a stand. Maybe it's in the last days or hours of life, struggling against cancer, heart disease or diabetes, or whatever's gonna getcha. Maybe at that point it's okay to care, to take a stand, to fight. But I suspect not. Even then people say "What's he getting so riled up for?" The answer of course is fairly obvious.

"It's called living, and it's worth getting agitated over, in theory."

Lessig cares very deeply about this issue. As a result, he's taken a stand about it.

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Anyway, perhaps we can find a way for him to get what he wants, to express his care, without destroying our art.

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Buddy can you spare a work for the public domain?

For the Debate:

For the private software sector to profit in the digital age a basic requirement is registration of the original work, which will require a rollback of the copyright law. Registration in today's world is less of a challenge than it has been any time in history. Yep, you can email the stuff. In exchange for that profit, when do you decide that it can become part of the heritage of the society that has given you the ability to create and profit in the first place? !0 Years is more than enough.

For those who need to protect their software property, current copyright is probably not the best solution. Copyright as a system of protection has been legislated out of any sort of utility as creation of software and it's existance is it's imprimatur of legitimacy. There has not been a requirement for a central repository such as the copyright office for a number of years. Not having a requirement for registration has the government repudiating the deal that was made for the protection of creators as well as the expansion of the public domain.

This along with recent legislation extending the length of copyright as well as the darker spectre of digital imperialism by copyright 'holders' to favor distributors over the creators makes copyright just another issue for litigation rather than a celebration of creativity. And the Entertainment Distribution Industries have been driving large trucks in that hole alone.

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