- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Basic Books; New edition edition (23 Jun 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0465039138
- ISBN-13: 978-0465039135
- Product Dimensions: 20.5 x 13.6 x 2.1 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 665,275 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Amazon.co.uk Review
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.
Review
"The most important book of its generation about the relationship between law, cyberspace, and social organization. An astonishing achievement."
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First Sentence
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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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
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
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!
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