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I've told a dark story. The truth is more mixed. A technology has given us a new freedom. Slowly, some begin to understand that this freedom need not mean anarchy. We can carry a free culture into the twenty-first century, without artists losing and without the potential of digital technology being destroyed. ... Common sense must revolt. It must act to free culture. Soon, if this potential is ever to be realized.

Lawrence Lessig#46

CultureFreedomTechnologyAction

About this quote

What does it mean?
Digital technology offers new freedom for culture if common sense acts to protect it from destruction.
In plain terms
Tech can help free culture if people act to keep it safe.
What can you take from it?
Protect digital freedom through action.

Where it applies

  • digital policy
  • tech adoption
  • online communities

Putting it to work

  • support open platforms
  • protect rights

Questions to consider

  • What does revolting mean?
  • How do we protect potential?

Another view

Technology can also be used to restrict culture.

More from Lawrence Lessig

  1. We Americans have a long history of fighting 'big,' wisely or not. That we could be motivated to fight 'big' again is not something new. It would be something …

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  2. Common sense is with the copyright warriors because the debate so far has been framed at the extremes - as a grand either/or: either property or anarchy, eithe…

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  3. The danger in media concentration comes not from the concentration, but instead from the feudalism that this concentration, tied to the change in copyright, pr…

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