The love affair between performance rights organization ASCAP and controversial copyright thinker Lawrence Lessig continues, and onlookers are now sharing the mudslinging with Digital Music News.
Just recently, ASCAP hosted a luncheon to discuss ways to challenge “copyleft / free culture,” a not-so-subtle jab against Lessig.
Now, the jabs appear to be getting more overt. In a letter emailed to members, longtime ASCAP board member (and distinguished songwriter) Dean Kay stamped on the Lessig ideology. But instead of directly countering core Lessig points, Kay offered a collection of articles, reviews, and even a video interview with Stephen Colbert to undermine the less-restrictive copyright thinking that Lessig espouses.
The commentary was predictably ASCAP-friendly. “Lessig … too often blurs remix culture with ‘ripoff culture’,” Adam Thierer comments in a review of the Lessig book, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy. Others approach Lessig with similar levels of doubt, including a tongue-in-cheek Colbert, reviewer Lawrence B. Solum, and Mark Fischer.