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The danger in media concentration comes not from the concentration, but instead from the feudalism that this concentration, tied to the change in copyright, produces. It is not just that there are a few powerful companies that control an ever expanding slice of the media. It is that this concentration can call upon an equally bloated range of rights - property rights of a historically extreme form - that makes their bigness bad.

Lawrence Lessig#44

CopyrightMediaPowerControl

About this quote

What does it mean?
Lessig argues media concentration causes harm not by itself but through feudalistic rights tied to copyright, enabling few companies to control vast media slices.
In plain terms
Media concentration harms us through extreme copyright rights.
What can you take from it?
Extreme property rights empower monopolies over culture.

Where it applies

  • media criticism
  • regulatory debate
  • policy analysis

Putting it to work

  • legal analysis
  • public critique

Questions to consider

  • Who controls our culture?
  • Are property rights too extreme?

Another view

Consolidation may bring efficiency benefits to media distribution.

More from Lawrence Lessig

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  3. When it has become silly to suppose that the role of our government should be to 'seek balance,' then count me with the silly, for that means that this has bec…

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