Lawrence Lessig feels so strongly about copyright laws and the restrictions it puts on freedom of creativity he founded a movement called the Free Culture Movement. He also founded a project called the Creative Commons, also knows as CC. Creative Commons is an legal, online platform for people to share and remix art.

This video is a remix created by someone on YouTube, of things that they find important and relevant about Lawrence Lessig. This is an important video to watch as it is a product of what Lessig fights so hard to protect, but it is also a video with straight to the point, information about Lessig, what he does, who he is and what are his aims. The fact that the video has been created based on the core priniciples Lessig fights for makes it that much more interesting and appealing to watch. Without Lessig bringing awarenss and fighting for the rights of people being able to remix things, would this video have been created? Maybe so. But even if it was still created, would it have been on an open source website like YouTube available for people like you and me to see and take in.
A video definitely worth watching if not for the information, then for the creativity.

In this video Lawrence Lessig continues to talk about Remix Culture and its importance. He starts of by giving examples of videos on YouTube that people have remixed and created something through their own interpretation of the original source that they got the music video from. He shows that people from professional dancers imitating dance moves from an artists video, to amateurs dancing out of sync to the same song, can and have remixed music videos. In some cases music videos are remixed using not just the song from the original music video, but also incorporating materials from other sources such as, movies, cartoons, anime etc. Whats important to notice is that all the videos are very different, even though they are based on the same song, they are still different. Some of the remixed videos communicate humour, others communicate emotion and while some other may just be an individual or individuals, wanting to show off their dancing skills to the world.
Lawrence Lessig refers to the remixed videos being created as 'Conversations' between young people. He compares the online conversations through remixed videos, to the conversations older generations had on the street corners or in the back lawn, but on the internet in a platform that involves participation from people from all over the world.

Further on in the video he attacks the law and its constant efforts to enforce the oppression of freedom to create and recreate things, through copyright. He adds affect to his anger about the ridiculous and over exaggerated copyright laws in today's society, by giving a heart touching examples of a family that was wrongly attacked for their remixed video of their child dancing to a song. The only reason why the person who created the video, uploaded the video onto YouTube, was so that her mother could see her grandchild enjoying himself to music and dancing. A few months after the video had been originally uploaded, the mother (who created the video of her son dancing) received a letter from the copyright owners (of the music playing in the background) informing her that the material in the video infringed their copyrights and that they demanded that the video be taken down from YouTube immediately.

"Where are we when serious people, sitting around a serious conference table, can look at this and think that it's important to envoke the laws of our congress to protect the extrodinary abuse of this mother sharing the celebration of her child with her mother"
Lawrence Lessig., Do Copyright Laws Strifle Creativity., (Time: 4:00)

The above quote sums up the entire point Lawrence is trying to make, and it sums up exactly how ridiculous and unfair the copyright law can, has and will continue to be.

Lawrence 'Larry' Lessig is an outspoken, well respected professor at Harvard Law School. He is widely considered as a well informed, authoritative figure on issues involving copyright laws. He told talks all around the world discussing the issues copyright laws cause, why the law is bad for society and what affects the law is having on creativity.
Lawrence Lessig is at the forefront of the battle for fair copyright use, if he wasn't arguing so convincingly about why copyright law is wrong and needs to be changed, would we have the freedom we do online today? I doubt it very much. The big companies and fat cats of the world, have always been trying to enforce stricter copyright laws against so called 'infringements' and 'piracy'.

Lawrence Lessig