Lawrence Lessig Quotes

Code plus law is combining to reduce rights consumers used to have.

So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in ideas that we don't even notice how monstrous it is to deny ideas to a people who are dying without them.

Everybody's vote should count equally in the United States.

The popular choice is not elected as president.

"Writing" is the Latin of our times. The modern language of the people is video and sound.

Permission from the government is an expensive commodity. New ideas rarely have this kind of support. Old ideas often have deep legislative connections to defend them against the new.

My claim is that we should focus on the values of liberty... If there is not government to insist on those values, then who? ... The single unifying force should be that we govern ourselves.

Show me why your regulation of culture is needed. Show me how it does good. And until you can show me both, keep your lawyers away.

In a time of polarized politics there's one thing that more than ninety percent of Americans agree on, that our government is broken, and broken because of the money in politics.

I'm a lawyer. I make lawyers for a living.

If the law imposed the death penalty for parking tickets, we'd not only have fewer parking tickets, we'd also have much less driving.

A free culture has been our past, but it will only be our future if we change the path we are on right now.

So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in culture that we don't even question when the control of that property removes our ability, as a people, to develop our culture democratically.

Politics is that rare sport where the amateur contest is actually more interesting than the professional.

Creativity is enhanced by less-than-perfect control over what content is on the network.

All of the great Disney works took works that were in the public domain and remixed them.

When government disappears, it's not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place.

[I]t kind of terrified me to imagine myself spending the rest of my life tinkering on the margins of the small arguments.