All through the primary season, media and political pundits have enjoyed playing Six Degrees of Indignation with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. But the editor of the conservative Web site RedState may have come up with the most tech-headline-friendly pseudo-scandal yet: Lessig-Google-fabulous-lip-syncing-Jesusgate. The site, which is a conservative stalwart that regularly features guest posts from Republican Senators, is urging its supporters to phone the Senate Commerce Committee, where Google is currently advocating network neutrality legislation, and "tell the committee it is abhorrent to have Larry Lessig parroting Google's call for open networks while Google censors and denigrates Christians."
Open networks? Christians? Google? Censorship? Would you believe, it's because of a mash-up?
This new scandal started with a lecture that Stanford university legal theorist and "free culture" booster Lawrence Lessig recently gave at Google. As part of a discussion of copyright and "remix culture" he showed a short video titled Jesus Christ: The Musical by self-styled "guerilla filmmaker" Javier Prato. The video, which Lessig identifies as a "mash-up," shows a cloth diaper-clad (or is it a bikini brief?) Jesus strutting and prancing down a city street lip-syncing to Gloria Gaynor's disco classic "I Will Survive" before ultimately being hit by a bus. Universal Music, which owns the rights to Gaynor's song, is suing Prato for copyright infringement, while the author maintains that his use of the tune qualifies as a parody entitled to a "fair use" safe harbor. The tension between creativity and intellectual property, especially when the two intersect with free speech and censorship issues, has long been a central theme of Lessig's work and public advocacy.
But Lessig is also a vocal supporter and former colleague of Barack Obama, and the Obama campaign has proudly touted Lessig's endorsement of the candidate's technology policies. Thus, according to RedState editor Erick Erickson, Lessig's use of the video in his talks provides "another connection to Obama by someone denigrating the Christian religion." Erickson also claims (incorrectly) that Lessig "believes there should be no such thing as intellectual property rights—patents and copyrights should be tossed." Though Lessig is a prominent critic of current American intellectual property laws, he has frequently made clear that he is not an IP abolitionist.
In a post on his personal blog responding to RedState, Lessig says that he used the singing Jesus video "not because I endorse the message, or even believe in the message," but to "demonstrate the spread of the technique" of creating remixes. Lessig notes that in the past, he has also shown videos mocking Democrat John Kerry, whose presidential candidacy Lessig supported. "It will be interesting (in a root canal kind of way)," Lessig concludes, "to see how far or deep PC-ism runs in this society."
In the meantime, it's likely that Lessig, Google, Obama, and especially Jesus will all survive.
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