Copyright primer: What you write doesn't belong to you. Knowledge and creativity doesn't belong to any one person, it belongs to everybody. However, the Founders believed that authors could use a little monetary incentive to produce new works so that such production could benefit everyone, so they put the Copyright Clause in the Constitution.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.Basically, give the author a limited monopoly on the work in order to be able to make a buck on it in hopes that'll be incentive to make more. The original term was IIRC 14 years with registration, extendable for another 14. That's 28 years, a decent percentage of an adult's expected life, a good enough period in which to recoup the investment of time in the work plus some profit.
Nowdays the terms and protections have gotten rediculous. As Lessig said, the term is no longer limited, but "Forever on the installment plan." The purpose has been turned on its head, from enriching science and culture to enriching corporations and kowtowing to foreign interests.
You are not supposed to be able to run copies with a registered copyright of last year. But by the Constitution you should be able to run copies of a book an author who died 20 years ago wrote 50 years before his death. You should be able to find a 90 year-old classic movie where nobody knows who owns the rights and be able to reproduce and show it.
Lessig has been pushing to stop unconstitutional atrocities such as these. Unfortunately, he seems to have switched to politics. Sad.
I'm sorry, I'm simply never going to agree with that. If I do not own the product of my labor then I am a slave.