My task here is to write a response to Larry Lessig's meditation on the free-software movement and its relationship to the general law of copyright (see "The People Own Ideas!"). But as the dry tone of my first sentence suggests, we have very different approaches to our common topic. Lessig is a master at weaving personal vignettes with structural arguments. The vignettes are intended to introduce an intimate personal dimension to the arcane world of intellectual property. His readers receive a gut-level education about the immense impact that legal rules have on ordinary people, whose voices, he tells us, can only be heard above the din if they speak in unison.

I demur. The selective imagery of eager students in Porto Alegre, Brazil, "remixing culture" using free software does nothing to address the central policy issues around intellectual property. The complex trade-offs needed to govern software and copyright aren't illuminated by the artful juxtaposition of real users of free software with the nameless stick figures stuck with proprietary alternatives. One could as easily paint a picture of high-spirited inner-city youths mastering Microsoft Office under the benevolent gaze of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Neither helps.