Lawrence Lessig speaks on Microsoft, antitrust, telecomms

I COULDN'T lose the opportunity to interview Lawrence Lessig last week when he gave a presentation about Creative Commons here in Buenos Aires. Mr. Lessig is one fascinating person, Law Professor, a connoisseur of technology, he played a key role in the DOJ-Microsoft antitrust trial, and he's now pushing his "Free Culture" ideas around the world. I wish I had asked one hundred questions, but for now, here are my ten short questions he agreed to answer.

Q: Is this your first time in Buenos Aires?
Lessig: yes
[note to self: sheesh! next time, make the subject elaborate!! ;-)]

Q: What are you going to tell the audience today, in a nutshell, if you could compress your "message" to a couple lines?.
Lessig: That they should resist the extremist policies of the US, because that extremism will harm the potential of the network to support creativity and innovation.

Q: It feels like yesterday for me, but over seven years ago, you were assigned "special master" by U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in the DOJ-vs-Microsoft antitrust suit. Looking back, what do you think went wrong with the process? Despite lots of "smoking guns" and internal e-mails, the company only got (imho) a slap on the wrist?. Are democratic governments weak in a fight against mega-corporations and their hordes of expensive lawyers?
Lessig: The Microsoft case was lost because George Bush decided to end it. Had he not become the president, there would have been a real remedy.

Q: Do you see Microsoft's top management with a different attitude since the antitrust suit?
Lessig: It is hard to be sure.

Lawrence Lessig and Castro, local journalist who also presented the speakers at the event

Q: Any thoughts on the European antitrust action?. I mean, what use is there for a Windows ´N´ that is not mandatory, and which turns out to be version that apparently nobody wants to buy due to the perceived disadvantage of "same price, lower functionality"?.
Lessig: The question is whether retailers will add alternative functionality. If they do, it might well be useful.

Q: I'm curious if you have tried Linux personally, and if so, what do you think are the chances of desktop linux achieving a considerable market share?.
Lessig: I have, and I think the chance is good, at least if it continues to grow internationally.

Q: This is a personal question: Firefox, Opera, Mozilla, Netscape, or MSIE ?
Lessig: Firefox.

Q: Do you see a danger in the addition of Windows Media Video (WMV) codecs into the next generation DVD specs and also IPTV?. Could this be another "embrace and extend" trojan horse ending up in antitrust court a few years down the line?
Lessig: So long as it is just functionality, not a problem.

Mr. Lessig uses Firefox. They used FF on the presentation as well

Q: I have a short horror story to tell you: We have a wonderful telco down here (I'm being ironic) which holds a virtual monopoly on the local loop -that is, the phone wire going from every home to the nearest switch-, and the government failed to implement the promised LLU (local loop unbundling) regulations. While customers can choose an ISP, they often cannot choose another phone line provider. So, this telco decided to end the "flat rate" ADSL and start billing its customers per traffic (megabytes and gigabytes) above a given threshold. Since this will be billed by the phone line provider, regardless of the ISP used, customers will have no escape (unless they're on a region also served by cable TV ISPs). In short: Your thoughts about metered broadband internet?
Lessig: If there is competition, then it's just a bad idea. If there is no competition, then a very bad development for the internet. Metered usage will stunt the development of broadband wherever it is happening. It is a wonderful way to harm the network's potential.

Q: MIT's Media Lab has recently recommended Brazil's government to use open-source software instead of proprietary software like MS windows on its low-cost computers offered to low income families. Do you agree with the idea of developing countries promoting their own open source development ecosystem?.
Lessig: Absolutely. Everyone should, but especially developing nations. The opportunity for spreading knowledge about technology through this is extremely important.

The place was packed, about 2,000 people attended according to reports

Q: Okay, thanks for your time and agreeing to this interview. I've said ten questions, but got a last one...
.... If you had the chance to live a different life, what would you like to be?
Lessig: A father with more time with his kid. µ

See Also
Introduction of metered ADSL in Argentina causes Nerd rage