Lessig: IP Reform? Fuggedaboutit

Now that Democrats have won control of Congress, one might have expected intellectual property law reform to take place. Creative Commons backer and noted law professor Lawrence Lessig says it won't happen. Those who expected otherwise probably forgot that Democratic President Bill Clinton signed the despised observed what most people who follow politics have long known: the more things change, the more they stay the same. He described the potential for true IP reform taking place in two words - fat chance: ...the crucial House IP subcommittee will be chaired by Hollywood Howard (Berman) - among the most extreme of the IP warriors. It is this committee that largely determines what reform Congress considers. It is the Chairman who picks what voices get heard. And while Berman is a brilliant man - whose brilliance could really have been used in the problems facing the mid-east - his brilliance has not yet been directed towards working out the problems of IP and the Net with any view beyond the narrowest of special interests. When considering a given politician's likely stance on an issue, it's always instructive to find out who has been a valuable contributor to that politician's election/re-election efforts. In short, follow the money, which we can do thanks to the efforts of Creative Commons t-shirts. And of course the