It was interesting to read about the development of copyright laws from its beginning in the US Constitution and the effect of different events and technologies in society that have subsequently influenced these laws. Netanel presented the best examples in which to illustrate the changes that copyright law has gone through, and as a result he was able to demonstrate that with each advancement in media technology, there was a parallel effect on copyright law, beginning with the brick-and-mortar translation of Mein Kampf to the inclusion of The Simpsons clip in the documentary to the Google Book Search Project. I felt that these examples emphasized the concerns and issues that were brought up in last week's class about whether or not these examples are analogous to one another and whether or not the general copyright law that was applied to the Mein Kampf case is mappable to the Google Book Search Project. In a sense, each of these readings showed how copyright laws intersected with the First Amendment by restricting the actions of citizens and organizations in their expression of speech.

My second point of discussion was a statement that Lessig wrote in chapter ten of Free Culture. Lessig avidly reiterated throughout the chapter that "never in our history have fewer had a legal right to control more of the development of our culture than now." I scoffed at first at Lessig's interpretation of our current world and copyright law but after reviewing Netanel's chapter especially, I have come to see some validity in Lessig's interpretation, though I am concerned that Lessig has taken it to an extreme. For without these copyright restrictions, each of the examples in Netanel's chapter would be able to exist without any objection and, especially in the Google Book Search Project's case, and further the innovation and growth of our culture. My question for this week's discussion is how would Lessig's ideal copyright world play out in our current society, if we were to follow it today? My main instinct would be to say that our copyright laws are in place now because they need to be in order to protect the work of society's creators, but I am willing to be convinced that there could be some loosening or reworking of our copyright laws.