Lessig announced today that Carl Malamud had accomplished a coup: Building the Legal Commons (Lessig Blog). He purchased a huge collection of federal case reports and is making them completely pd -- not just CC licensed for some but not all purposes, but CC licensed for *all* purposes through a new CC license that commits the licensed work to the public domain. I feel like I'm watching one of those amazing movie final scenes where people who have been stunned into submission over the course of the entire movie, one-by-one stand up and finally refuse to go along with atrocity anymore. They just say no. Or, rather, they just say yes -- yes to the protection and promotion of the public domain, not just for some, but for all.
Tears and cheers (the audience is reacting).
