Copyright Law

Lessig and Colbert Mix It Up Over Remix Culture

By Sam Bayard

Last Thursday, cyberlaw luminary and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig appeared on the Colbert Report to discuss his new book Remix. There are some great exchanges as Colbert baits Lessig with exaggerated pro-copyright views and Lessig holds his own with varying degrees of success.  Maybe it's just me, but Colbert seemed a bit feistier than usual:

In any event, towards the end of the interview, the following dialogue ensued:

Colbert: Nobody should take my work and do anything with it that is not approved!  Never . . .  ever . . .  ever take anything of mine and remix it! For instance, I will be very angry and possibly litigious if anyone out there takes this interview right here and remixes it with some great dance beat. And it starts showing up in clubs across America.

Lessig: Actually, we're joint copyright owners. I'm ok with that. You can totally remix this. I'm fine with that. 

Lessig reports on his blog (here, here) that viewers have already created lots of remixes of the interview.  The indabamusic site is hosting a Colbert Report Remix Session, which already has 20 or so submissions.

Forgive me for a nerdy question:  Is Lessig really a joint owner of the copyright in this Colbert Report segment? I've never thought that appearing on a talk show could make you a joint author for that portion of the show, unless maybe you collaborated on the script or something.  Maybe Comedy Central and Lessig arranged a licensing deal to make the remix gag possible.  Anybody have any ideas?

Full post as published by Citizen Media Law Project on January 12, 2009 (boomark / email).