It was sooo good to have the Stewart and Colbert shows back for the new year this week. On Thursday copyfighter, and close ally and former board member of EFF, Larry Lessig was a guest on Colbert:

Colbert: You say our copyright laws are turning our kids into criminals, because they’re keeping kids from doing all the remixing they want of pre-existing art and copywritten material, right?

Isn’t that like saying that arson laws are turning our kids into pyromaniacs?? They’re breaking the law! You can’t just throw the law out the window!

Lessig: “Totally failed war.” Is that familiar to you?

Colbert: No. No. You’re saying we need a surge?

Lessig: We tried the surge. For ten years we’ve been waging this war. Artists have not gotten any more money, businesses have not gotten any more profit, and our kids have been turned into criminals.

Colbert goes on to warn his audience, as only he can, that they should NOT! remix this work:

Colbert: Nobody should take my work and do anything with it that is not approved! That’s what I’m saying. Ever ever never ever take anything of mine and remix it! For instance, I will be very angry and possibly litigious if anyone out there takes this interview right here and remixes it with some great dance beat. And it starts showing up in clubs across America.

Lessig: Actually, we’re joint copyright owners. I’m ok with that. You can totally remix this. I’m fine with that.

Lessig points to this one [mp3] from Sam. A YouTube search turned this one up from Alexxx… If we’re lucky maybe one will be good enough that we’ll get to see Stephen dance again!