Lawrence Lessig's Educause 2009 keynote

If you are an educator, new media activitist, or copyright law hobbyist and you plan to watch only one video this month, I've found the video for you. This is video from Lawrence Lessig's keynote presentation at the Educause conference this month.

Lessig, a Harvard law professor and a founder of the Creative Commons Project, wonders why citizens treat the law with such reverence when even lawyers approach the law with deep skepticism. He argues that it's time for citizens--especially citizens working in education and science--to approach copyright law with skepticism. He does acknowledge that for much of our cultural history copyright law was a "necessary evil," but that:

The thing to remember about necessary evils? They're still evil.

Here's Lessig's talk. You're going to love it. (If you want to watch a version that lines up, across multiple panels, footage of Lessig giving the talk alongside the slides he's showing the audience, you can click here [requires Silverlight download].