Who owns culture? A chat with Lessig and Jeff Tweedy. (kottke.org)

Who owns culture? A chat with Lessig and Jeff Tweedy. (kottke.org)

Lessig: Fair use doesn't apply to music or movies like it does for text. I can excerpt a book and critique it, but if I wanted to play a clip of a new Fischerspooner song on a podcast and then review the album, I'd need to secure the rights ahead of time.

Johnson: Why isn't there a company that has come along and basically done what the record companies do for artists (distribute and promote records) but do it without all the overhead and let the artists keep the rights to their material? This is probably being done on a small scale (Factory Records comes to mind), but at first blush, this seems like a fantastic business opportunity. All the economies of scale without the monopoly.