Creative Congress
Lawrence Lessig is thinking about taking a run at Congress, it seems, hoping to fill the House seat of Tom Lantos (D-CA), who recently passed away. In this piece by Julian Sanchez, Lessig describes some of his goals:
"Silicon Valley needs a representative who can speak for the interests of the Internet, of making it flourish," he says. "As we're leading into this moment when the owners of telecommunications platforms are trying to leverage their ownership into control of the Internet, yammering about the need to turn it into the old Bell System, we need someone in Washington who's going to be able to stare them down."But while Lessig wryly notes that the RIAA and MPAA "won't be excited to have an opponent of extremist copyright legislation in Congress," he also stresses that a congressional run would not be some kind of crusading extension of his work on "free culture." For Lessig, the central policy question will be, "Who ultimately controls innovation on the Internet? That's the net neutrality fight; that's the open spectrum fight.
Lessig will make a decision on whether to run or not by the beginning of March .
