"Copyright and Politics Don't Mix." New York Times [0362-4331] (2008). 29-.

In this Op-Ed in the New York Times, Lessig discusses fair use and political speech. He argues that copyright law should be limited to it's intended purpose, "encouraging innovation and ensuring that artists get paid for their work," and should not interract with politics. Lessig praises the McCain campaign for criticizing YouTube's decision to remove a video that is ''clearly privileged under the fair use doctrine'' because he feels that claiming copyright infringement on political speech constitutes censorship and violates the First Amendment's protection of free speech. Political campaigns do not seek "first to the market advantages" and their use of copyrighted materials does not harm the rights' owner. Rather, calling such political speech copyright infringement hurts the effectiveness of a political campaign. Lessig believes that while copyright laws are necessary in Hollywood to encourage continued innovation and progress, their presence in political campaigns, where they are unnecessary, will ultimatelty harm the legitimate claims of musicians and film studios.

Lessig's article is clearly relevant to the question of copyright's role in serving the public interest, as politics is an integral part of government affairs. It directly answers the question "does copyright hinder free speech?" with a clear yes, which indirectly also answers yes to "does copyright harm the public interest?" There must be a delicate balance of copyright laws with the First Amendment in order to not infringe upon constitutional rights, and Lessig loudly argues that in political campaigns, copyright laws cross this line and censor political speech, thus encroaching upon the First Amendment. When these rights are infringed upon and the public is restricted from hearing such speech which delivers information pertinent to an election campaign, the public interest is no longer protected. Lessig argues that although fair use will usually protect political speech, if it does not, copyright laws should not apply because they do more harm than good. In the larger context, harming the distribution of important information during a campaign certainly hurts the public interest.