For Immediate Release:
January 23, 2008
Lawrence Lessig Joins MAPLight.org Board
Part of Lessig's New Focus on Corruption
Berkeley, CA.-- Renowned law professor Lawrence Lessig has joined the Board of Directors of MAPLight.org, a non-partisan, non-profit organization illuminating the connection between money and politics.
Professor Lessig, known for his groundbreaking work in the fields of intellectual property and the law of cyberspace, decided last June to shift his focus of scholarship and activism to the problem of corruption.
"MAPLight.org's correlations between money and votes elegantly illustrate how special interest campaign money pervades and weakens our democracy," said Lessig. "The site's unprecedented findings helped convince me that there was more that could be done to fight corruption, and how this issue is at the root of so many of our country's problems."
"Professor Lessig helped change how people think about copyright in the Internet age," said Dan Newman, Executive Director of MAPLight.org. "We are thrilled that he will be helping MAPLight.org use the power of the Internet to shine a light on our broken system of money-dominated politics."
Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school's Center for Internet and Society. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, he was the Berkman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a Professor at the University of Chicago. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.
Professor Lessig is CEO and founder of Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright and the public domain. Creative Commons licenses help content creators keep copyright while inviting certain uses of the creators' works.
Professor Lessig has won numerous awards, including the Free Software Foundation's Freedom Award, and was named one of Scientific American's Top 50 Visionaries, for arguing against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online. He teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, contracts, and the law of cyberspace.
MAPLight.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Berkeley, California. Its search engine at MAPLight.org illuminates the connection between money and politics (MAP) via an unprecedented database of campaign contributions and legislative outcomes.