Professor Lessig is the newly appointed director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard, which recently launched a 5-year research project to study "institutional corruption." In this lecture, Lessig maps the progress of that research, and describe its trajectory.
Prior to arriving at Harvard, Lessig was a Professor of Law at Stanford, where he founded the school's Center for Internet and Society. He has taught at Harvard Law School and at the University of Chicago. In addition, Lessig clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and for Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.
For much of his career, Professor Lessig focused on law and technology, especially as it affects copyright. He represented web site operator Eric Eldred in the ground-breaking case Eldred v. Ashcroft, a challenge to the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. His current academic work addresses a kind of "corruption."
He has won numerous awards, including the Free Software Foundation's Freedom Award, and was named one of Scientific American's Top 50 Visionaries, for arguing "against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online."
Professor Lessig is the author of "Remix" (2008), "Code v2" (2007), "Free Culture" (2004), "The Future of Ideas" (2001) and "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace" (1999).
Discussion Seminar will be held on Wed., January 20 from 4:15-6:00pm, Meyer Forum. Commentator will be Barry Weingast (Political Science, Stanford).