 No. 22 Lawrence Lessig, professor of law, Stanford Law School
Last year's position: Not placed
Perhaps the preeminent thinker on cyberlaw, Lawrence Lessig is an advocate for free speech online and off who holds forth on issues from spam to antitrust law to nanotechnology. But it's his work on copyright that earns him a spot on this year's list.
Through the Creative Commons non-profit, of which he his chairman, he's worked to create new copyright licenses that find a balance between pure public domain and the reservation of all rights.
With the BBC set to launch its Creative Archive, which releases BBC content for non-commercial use and aims to spearhead a new approach to content access rights, the time is ripe for change.
One panellist said: "[The Creative Archive] is going to revolutionise intellectual property law. It tears open all sorts of questions." And it's Lessig - academic, book author and columnist for Wired magazine - who will be among the leaders in answering them.
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