Editors --- "Conference Keynote" [2007] SydUPLawBk 33; in Fitzgerald, Brian; Coates, Jessica and Lewis, Suzanne (eds), "Open Content Licensing: Cultivating the Creative Commons" (Sydney University Press, 2007) 27

Conference Keynote

The Vision for the Creative Commons: What are we and where are we headed? Free Culture

THE HON JUSTICE RONALD SACKVILLE, PROFESSOR LAWRENCE LESSIG

Welcome [as delivered at the conference] The Hon Justice Ron Sackville, Professor Lawrence Lessig, ladies and gentlemen; on behalf of the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Creative Industries, it is my very great pleasure to welcome you here today. In a lot of ways it is said that the working year does not really start until Australia Day. I do thank you for coming to join us in January and it is obviously the first major event which the two faculties – Law and Creative Industries – are involved in this year. And it is a very important event. We have brought together an exciting range of speakers and we will be hearing today from representatives from the judiciary, government, industry and of course, from academia, to expand our understanding and debate about the concept about Creative Commons. And it is an important debate. It is really very much at the cutting edge of what the 21st century is about: the capacity to take information, content, material which may be copyrighted, and get that material disseminated through a means which has minimum transaction impediments, which benefits not only the copyright owner, but the broader community and particularly the creative process. Over the next two days you are in for quite a treat. Our first speaker this morning is The Hon Justice Ron Sackville from the Federal Court. Ron Sackville’s career is in three parts. He started as an academic at the University of NSW, a Professor of Law and for a period of time Dean of the Law Faculty. In 1985 Ron went to the private Bar in NSW, where he remained until appointed to the Federal Court in 1994. Probably Ron is best known for those periods prior to his appointment to the Federal Court: for his work in a number major Australian Enquiries and Commissions. Between 1973 and 1975 he was Commissioner for Law & Poverty in the Australian Government’s Commission of Enquiry into Poverty. In the late 1970s he assisted the South Australian Government in a Royal Commission into the non-medical use of drugs. It was my good fortune in 1994 to work closely with Ron when he undertook a major enquiry for the Commonwealth Government into the issue of access to justice. It is from that particular work, which lead to a blue-print for the reform of the Australian Civil Justice System and various elements of it, that much of the on-going reform that we see even now, a decade later, can be traced. During his period as a Federal Court Judge, Ron has maintained an extremely active role, not only as a Judge but also in broader public debate. In particular, in various areas of law reform. Obviously it is in the issue of intellectual property and the underlying issue of Creative Commons which we now invite Ron Sackville to address you. Please join with me in welcoming The Hon Justice Ronald Sackville. Professor The Hon Michael Lavarch (Dean, QUT Faculty of Law)

The Vision for the Creative Commons: What are we and where are we headed? Free Culture This was the second visit by Professor Lawrence Lessig that I hosted. In 1999 he came to Australia to teach in the Byron Bay Summer School at a time when I was Head of the School of Law and Justice Studies at Southern Cross University. In those days he was less of a superstar; he was on his way up. Today he is very well-known internationally, very much at the leading edge of Creative Commons, law and technology, and law and the digital environment. Professor Lessig has taken his degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, Yale Law School, and also Cambridge University in the UK. He has been for many people, including myself, an inspiration. Larry is very much a poet for the generation that has had to come to grips with the whole idea of the digital environment. His books, Code and Other Laws of Cyber Space, The Future of Ideas and Free Culture have certainly stimulated discussion throughout the world. In this presentation Professor Lessig outlines his vision for a remix culture and his thoughts on the future of the Creative Commons Movement. Professor Brian Fitzgerald (Head, QUT Law School)