I’ve been working on an internet video series called The Post, Post Modern Comedy Hour. It’s kind of a kids’ show for adults. And part of it involves a group of people watching TV commercials. It is one of the best parts of the shows. And thus, it has been bugging me because I don’t know if we can get away with doing this without getting the rights to the commercials. On the one side, I would think the companies who made the commercials would like the extra viewings. After all, people don’t pay to watch commercials; watching commercials is how people pay for otherwise free content. But on the other side, these companies are evil.

Last night, despite myself, I read another Lawrence Lessig book. This time it was Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy. It opens with the story of Stephanie Lenz, who posted a 29 second video of her son dancing to Price’s Let’s Go Crazy playing on the radio in the background. This was unacceptable to Universal Music Group, which had the video removed from YouTube and threatened a $150,000 fine.

So much for my thinking that I could show short pieces of commercials on a TV in a room. Never mind that the TV screen would likely never take up more than a quarter of the screen. Never mind that both the picture and sound quality would be awful. As Lessig documents over and over in his book, they will do it because they can. They will do it (unconvincingly claiming that it is) for the sake of principal. It is an outrage. As I’ve written many times before, copyright is out of control.

Lessig proposes a plan forward—a way to fix the current system. Unfortunately, I am far more cynical than he is. We are already at a point where artists are worse off than they were in the time of Cervantes and Mozart. I may have to find a patron just to produce a silly, fun, totally inoffensive romp that I want to give away to the world.