Backwards and Forwards

If there's one thing that we can do to make the effects of our past mistakes worse than they already are, it is to dwell upon them.

While reading Lessig's book and the chapter on the Eldred Case, I was struck by how hard the author has personally taken the loss of that case. He has given a significant section of that chapter over to mentally flogging himself for his "stupidity" and "stubbornness," and the story of the Eldred case is the only one in the whole book to fail to clearly represent a real example of a concrete truth about the framing of the copyright debate. If one were to seek out a moral to his sad story, one would only come away with the fact that the legal and political system of the country does not quite function as it should, something that is usually understood even by those without any direct experience with the court system. It seems that Lessig has been hoping to get this off his chest for quite some time, and one wonders if this were not the original impetus for writing this book.

Far better than beating one's self up over mistakes is to learn from them and refuse to repeat them. Fortunately, Lawrence Lessig eventually proves to have finally overcome his own bitterness about these errors, and the remainder of the book provides not only an optimistic account of the next steps to be taken (and currently being taken), but also a glimpse of future possibilities for solutions to the present copyright issue. The Creative Commons, open-source licensing, and proposed Eldred tax all seem designed to prove that progress is still being made at individual, corporate, and governmental levels, despite all the setbacks. It is still too early for anyone to tell for sure how all this will end, but I personally tend to think that we will manage to work out something in the end.