Query:   In the section of the book entitled “Puzzles,” Lessig evaluates the “extreme claims of control in the name of property” over copyrighted material available on the Internet, and argues that such a “zero-tolerance” approach would result in substantial harms to content creators, to innovative industries, and to the very rule of law.  What are those arguments?  Are you persuaded by them?  

Query:   Lessig gives an account of his involvement in the constitutional challenge to the Copyright Term Extension Act in the Eldred case.  What do you understand to have been the competing copyright and free speech claims in this case?  In Lessig’s perspective, what explained the ultimate decision of the U.S. Supreme Court?  What lessons did you learn – jurisprudential, political, etc. – from Lessig’s narrative?

Query:   After the Supreme Court’s decision in Eldred, Lessig proposed a legislative solution, which he named the “Eldred Act,” to the copyright and free speech problems identified in the case.  What is the essence of this legislative proposal?  What are its justifications?  What is Lessig’s explanation for the failure of its adoption?  What do you think of the proposal itself and of Lessig’s description of the political realities that doomed it?

Query:   In the “Afterword” to the book, Lessig provides recommendations for rebuilding the “free culture” in “balanced” ways.   Why are Lessig’s objectives billed as “balanced?”  What does he mean by the “some rights reserved” culture?

Query:   What is the function of the Creative Commons license?  How does it work?  Is this idea likely to be successful in rebuilding a free culture?  Why or why not?  If not, what other ideas would likely work better?

Query:   What law reforms does Lessig propose for reclaiming a free culture?  Which among them seems the more realistic to you, if any?  Which seem less realistic, if any?  Are there other legal reforms Lessig did not consider that you believe are essential to restoring the free culture?