An exciting examination of the core values of cyberspace - intellectual property, free speech, and privacy - from one of Americas most brilliant young legal theorists. . How should we regulate cyberspace? Can we? Its a cherished belief of techies and net denizens everywhere that cyberspace is fundamentally, unalterably impossible to regulate. Thus the legendary freedom of the Net. Lawrence Lessig warns that, if were not careful, well wake up one day to discover that the character of cyberspace has changed out from under us. Commercial forces will dictate the change, and architecture - the very structure of cyberspace itself - will dictate the form our interactions can and cannot take. The author of the classic paper Reading the Constitution in Cyberspace, Lessig shows how code can make a domain, site, or network free or restrictive; how architectures influence peoples behavior and the values they adopt; and how changes in code affect the pressing issues of free speech, intellectual property, and privacy in cyberspace. Theres a common belief that cyberspace cannot be regulatedthat it is, in its very essence, immune from the governments (or anyone elses) control. Code argues that this belief is wrong. It is not in the nature of cyberspace to be unregulable; cyberspace has no nature. It only has codethe software and hardware that make cyberspace what it is. That code can create a place of freedomas the original architecture of the Net didor a place of exquisitely oppressive control. If we miss this point, then we will miss how cyberspace is changing. Under the influence of commerce, cyberpsace is becoming a highly regulable space, where our behavior is much more tightly controlled than in real space. But thats not inevitable either. We canwe mustchoose what kind of cyberspace we want and what freedoms we will guarantee. These choices are all about architecture: about what kind of code will govern cyberspace, and who will control it. In this realm, code is the most significant form of law, and it is up to lawyers, policymakers, and especially citizens to decide what values that code embodies.
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Everyone knows that cyberspace is a wild frontier that can't be regulated, right? Everyone is wrong and that's why we should all read Harvard Law professor (and famous Microsoft trial expert) Lawrence Lessig's eye-opening, jaw-dropping book Code, the best guide yet to the future that's heading our way like a frictionless freight train. For such an analytical book, it's also anecdote-studded and utterly fun to read.
Lessig leads us through the new controversies in intellectual property, privacy, free speech and national sovereignty. What about a computer worm that can search every American's PC for top-secret NSA documents? It sounds obviously unconstitutional but the worm code can't read your letters, bust down your door, scare you or arrest anyone innocent. If you're not guilty, you won't even know you were searched. The coded architecture of the Net also enforces certain freedoms: Via the Net, we have now globally exported a more extreme form of free speech than the First Amendment encodes in old-fashioned law. The once-important Pentagon Papers case would be meaningless today; instead of fighting to publish secret government documents, the New York Times could simply leak them to a USENET newsgroup. The Constitution is rife with ambiguities the framers couldn't have imagined and virtual communities such as AOL and LamdaMOO are organising themselves in ways governed largely by code--strikingly different ones.
We've got tough choices ahead. Do we want to protect intellectual property or privacy? How do we keep cyberporn from kids--by brain-dead decency laws, censoring filters or a code that identifies kid users? (Lessig advocates code.) Lessig demonstrates that legal structures are too slow and politics-averse to regulate cyberspace. "Courts are disabled, legislatures pathetic and code untouchable." Code writers are the unacknowledged legislators of the new world, backed by the law and commerce. Lessig thinks citizens must recognise the need to be the architects of their own fate or they'll find themselves coded into a world they never made. --Tim Appelo, Amazon.com --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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"The most important book of its generation about the relationship between law, cyberspace, and social organization. An astonishing achievement."
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A DECADE AGO, IN THE SPRING OF 1989, COMMUNISM IN EUROPE DIED-COLLAPSED, AS a tent would fall if its main post were removed. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
A DECADE AGO, IN THE SPRING OF 1989, COMMUNISM IN EUROPE DIED-COLLAPSED, AS a tent would fall if its main post were removed. Read the first page
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
Laurence Lessig has written a book that ought to make both lawyers and cyberspace specialists think. Contrary to expectations (from a lawyer), Lessig demonstrates excellent skills in the technicalities of cyberspace, and his analysis has interesting bearings on political philosophy and legal philosophy. To the traditional question, 'what is law?', Lessig adds a new (and admittedly controversial) dimention: architecture is part of law. Creating a specific architecture amounts to legislating. The controversial aspect here is whether law can include norms which cannot be disobeyed. Lessig applies this idea to the foundation and continuing transformation of cyberspace. Created by the academic world, the architecture of cyberspace has reflected liberal values. However, it is being conquered by commerce, and this reflects far less liberal regulation. State intervention is usually viewed as restrictive, but Lessig's description raises the question: should, and can, the state intervene to maintain the values of the founding fathers of cyberspace? The law of cyberspace is thus skillfuly analysed in the broader contexts of constitutional law and legal philosophy. If you are on the lookout for fresh vantage points on these fields of inquiry, read Lessig's book.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Lessig appears to be one of the only people to actually look at the internet in structural (as he puts it 'architectural') terms. This actually feels substantial in its analysis, and marks a welcome shift away from the 'doom & gloom' or 'brave new world' extremes. As for it being overly legalistic - well, the law courts do generally decide these issues now. "Code" is an essential, if a little spooky, read.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By S. Yogendra
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
I have to agree partly with another reviewer who says that this is what you would expect from a lawyer. But that is where our agreement ends. Lessig takes a structured approach to what should now be a philosophical, policy oriented discussion. But that is one of the key features of cyberspace. It has created a sense of urgency that encroaches upon the time needed to think what is important. If you understand the technology and policy issues associated with cyberspace, you will find it repetitive. If you wish to take a 'quick read' approach, you will find reading it like a drag through molasses. But if you wish to read it slowly with time to think about issues Lessig raises, I recommend it. As it happens, it is suggested reading in my Tech Policy course at Cambridge, so I am pleased to have 'done' it already!
4 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
Im afraid that its what you'd expect from a lawyer - he makes one point involving the fact that the Internet can be regulated if the code which runs it is correct, and then goes on to repeat this over and over again with the occasional explanation of how this might be achieved. If you're interested in constitutional law and how it might affect the Internet's software development then might be worth a toke but otherwise its very turgid and dull.
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