FindLaw reviews Free Culture. here.

Here, in his third book, Lessig expands beyond the Internet his previous warnings about the threat technology poses to "free culture."

Lessig projects that, in an ideal world, new technologies could allow low-cost access to almost all creative content ever made, much of which no longer has any commercial value anyway. He envisions the building of virtual libraries on the web that would be akin to the wonder of the world built in ancient Alexandria. A world of tinkerers, according to Lessig's vision, could create new content by borrowing from all that's come before.

But Lessig charges that this glorious future is threatened by giant media companies who are stifling creativity in the name of fighting piracy. They're going too far, he argues, by rigidly enforcing copyright laws and limiting what flows into the public domain after its commercial value has shrunk. And the issue isn't limited to the Internet -- it affects virtually all copyrightable material, meaning any fixed expression that the law protects.