When Larry Lessig lost his very first case before the U.S. Supreme Court last January, his immediate reaction was to take it personally.
The day after the decision came down in Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (Jan. 15), Lessig was despondent, frustrated and unable to sleep. He noted on his Web site that someone had written, � �Larry lost Eldred, 7-2.� Yes, no matter what is said, that is how I will always view this case. ... To have failed to get the court to see it is my failing.�
The well-respected Stanford University law professor thought he had gone to the court with an easy argument defending a simple principle. But the argument he was making would have upended American copyright law, something the nation�s top judicial body was clearly not ready to do. During oral arguments, Justice Stephen G. Breyer worried aloud that if Lessig prevailed, �The chaos that would ensue would be horrendous.� And he was one of the two justices who sided with Lessig.
But despite his defeat, Larry hasn't given up, as the ABA Journal explains here.