Subplot: The Wright Brothers learn to fly a heavier-than-air craft.
Plot: Thomas Lee and Tinie Causby fly the coop when military aircraft fly low and kill their poultry. Their revolt calls into question common law as it concerns property rights. Do these people own the air over their land?
quoting Justice Douglas in regards to the common law:
The doctrine has no place in the modern world. The air is a public highway, as Congress has declared. Were that not true, every transcontinental flight would subject the operator to countless trespass suits. Common sense revolts at the idea. To recognize such private claims to the airspace would clog these highways, seriously interfere with their control and development in the public interest, and transfer into private ownership that to which only the public has a just claim.2
Lessig repeats the phrase "Common sense revolts at the idea," several times. It's only part of the story, but by repetition he emphasizes the underlying implications. It becomes the framework for the argument he will make later on. Here it seems that common sense acknowledges that one party's best interest should not supercede the best interest of the populus. Lessig begins with a well known story of technological advancement that most people would agree was in society's best interest - the Wright Bros. first flight. The listener is already poised to be biased against the Causby's cause because it apparently represents the Causby's (who we only know as angry farmers) versus the Wright Brothers (American heroes). By juxtaposing the Causby story beside the Wright brothers story (which happend far earlier and relates less than would a story about the military aircraft) Lessig baits his argument. Once the reader "revolts at the idea" of controlling this advancement of technology and culture Lessig cuts quickly to today. The "Man" is trying to do the same thing. How dare he keep us from downloading music for free. How dare he try to capitalize on his investment. Lessig acknowledges the counter-argument that artists will lose their incentive to create if their right to it is not protected. He does not, however, at least in the first chapter or so rebut that counter-argument.
Delicious fodder for debate
i nvading Emery's Lessig remix
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