Slashdot Mirror
The Future of Ideas
Ideas has been reviewed in Salon and in the Washington Monthly; the book has a promotional website as well.
Lessig starts off by looking at the idea of a "commons," a community resource of some sort. The traditional commons is a public park or piece of land, but Lessig is more interested in looking at less-traditional commons on the 'Net and other communications systems. He moves on to examining some of the innovations that have been spurred by the recent growth of the Net -- typically startup companies that have taken advantage of the commons represented by TCP/IP and HTTP to provide a new service or product. If you follow Slashdot religiously, you probably read about most of these companies at least twice -- once when they started offering their innovative new whizbang, and again when they were sued by Megacorp, Inc., and shut down. The final part of Ideas covers the lawsuits, or more precisely the efforts by entrenched players to keep anyone else from playing. The distinction is important, because lawsuits are not the only way to keep upstarts from being able to participate: control of the code is also an important tool. For every control through lawsuits story that Slashdot runs, there's an equivalent story about control through code.
Just as in Code, Lessig is not optimistic about the future. Why should he be? So far, despite every warning, every attempt to sound the alarm, the forces trying to shut down innovation are winning in an utterly convincing fashion. A blurb compares the book to Silent Spring, the famous book about the environmental effects of DDT. Silent Spring was more or less successful -- DDT is now banned for most uses in the U.S., and the book had great effect in raising environmental awareness, but overall, environmental quality has continued to suffer. Lessig's book is not likely to be as successful. Attacking DDT was relatively easy compared to attacking the unlimited expansion of intellectual property, which has many multi-billion dollar companies willing to fight to defend their continued erosion of the public commons.This should suffice to summarize Lessig's book. The ideas in it should not be unfamiliar -- Lessig is hardly the only one espousing this point of view today, though he is one of the most articulate. The final chapters have Lessig's suggestions for ways to reverse this trend of quashing innovation -- different ways of managing the electromagnetic spectrum to produce a better wireless commons (it's worth noting that the unlicensed 2.4 Ghz band has been the source of most recent wireless innovation), ways to create an Internet commons on the wired network (some municipalities are already doing this, laying municipal fiber to the home and following an open access policy), changing copyright law and patent law to put more code in the public domain, changing contract law so that end-users can't be forced to sign away their rights. All are good suggestions. Despite the hopeful notes in parentheses just above, most of these suggestions stand little chance of being adopted any time soon. But perhaps Rachel Carson was looking at much the same uphill battle against DDT.
Ideas is most comparable to The Control Revolution by Andrew Shapiro, an earlier effort to explore the changing dynamics of control on the net. Shapiro was much more optimistic, and writing without much of the recent evidence that Lessig uses to make his point that innovation is being squashed thoroughly. If you will, there is an optimism scale -- John Perry Barlow defines one end of the scale, Shapiro is in the middle, and Lessig occupies the pessimistic side. Smart money is on Lessig.
All in all, it's a fine book. I think I prefer Code though, for a variety of reasons -- I find the central premise of Code to be less obvious, more ground-breaking. Or perhaps I've just read so much about "innovation" during the Microsoft trials that I can never again read the word without wincing. As with Code, Lessig has extensive footnotes, making this a scholarly work (for the scholars) but a perfectly readable book even for non-scholars. In any case, it's strongly recommended.
You can purchase this book at Fatbrain. Want to see your own review here? Read the book review guidelines, then submit using Slashdot's web-submission page :)
-- DDT is now banned for most uses in the U.S., and the book had great effect in raising environmental awareness, but overall, environmental quality has continued to suffer. Lessig's book is not likely to be as successful. Attacking DDT was relatively easy compared to attacking the unlimited expansion of intellectual property, which has many multi-billion dollar companies willing to fight to defend their continued erosion of the public commons.
Well, yeah, Silent Spring *did* raise the problem of DDT and it's gone now. But there had to be *something* to fill in those gaps. Now they are spraying for West Nile Virus mosquitoes up here in the Northeast US and doing far more damage with the pesticides than they are helping. After all, WNV has killed what.. three? five? people. Is it really worth destroying generations of birds and their offspring to save five lives? How many millions die of malpractice?
But back to the topic at hand.. until we get judges who know computers are better for something than product placement in televised courtrooms, or understand something about intellectual copyright itself, there wont be a change. If you dont think that large companies are stealing ideas left right and center, well, wake up. 3m bought the idea for post-it notes for like, 1.99 from the guy who came up with it, due to contractual obligations that almost all of us sign. If you develop code, and use your work computer for even one line of said code, it probably falls under your blanket contract that says your company now owns it, and owns j00 as well.
Until laws like that get challenged, and beaten, companies squelching free development, or the furthering of technology outside their-own pockets are going to continue to be the status quo.
What is the solution? I dont pretend to know.. but getting more technologically savvy people into the courts in judge, jury, and lawyer roles could be a start. Face it, M$ is going to send in the best 10 lawyers they can find, and what does a Mitnick get? Whatever the PD's office can spare.
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
Its obvious that without air you cannot breath. It is also obvious that without a car you cannot drive 100mph on a highway. Writing a book to make these points would be ridiculous.
Yet intellectual monopoly marketing by companies has been so successful, it is not ridiculous to write a book that makes the point that the patent system as we have it today is the tool [used] by entrenched players to keep anyone else from playing.
I'm glad to see this book. Maybe it will wake a few more folks up. I hope so.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Arbitration of domain name disputes will be one of the major threads of Intellectual Property law in the 21st century. It's unfortunate that Lessig gave such short shrift to this important area.
With all these dim views of the future of cyberspace, and current trends do point in that direction, perhaps it is time to start implementing a FreeNet. Something outside of the mainstream Internet, away from corporate and government controls. Something entirely for geeks, by geeks.
In all honesty, I don't see any way around it. When non-Microsoft, non-FBI-bugged operating systems are outlawed, only outlaws will run Linux/BSD/etc.
If you would like to read more on the subject of the book you can go here and look at some conference papers about the "public domain," one of them is even by Lawrence Lessig. I just bought his new book off of bn.com and I'm looking forward to reading it. Unlike the reviewer, I for one am looking forward to this book more than Code. I am thinking it will be more accessable to non computer people like myself.
-Grant
|grant.henninger.name|
The distinction between supression through code and supression through lawsuit is important, though. For example, Michael is supressing the parent comment through the use of code, by abusing his power and moderating it so that no one can see it. I believe supression through code is the more dangerous of the two. With supression through lawsuit, the courts at least have to okay it. Sure, you can argue that the courts are corrupt, but that's not the point. We can always clean up the courts. With supression through code, corporations and individuals like Michael can play Judge, Jury, and Executioner to maintain their positions and technologically shout down people who bring up inconvenient facts or provide competition.
Slashdot: Open Source, Closed Minds.
Always bear in mind the other possibility: that they might actually know the facts but honestly disagree with your conclusions. Whatever you and I may think of the DeCSS decisions recently, there is no denying that Kaplan and the appeal court knew and understood the technology and the law that was relevant to the case.
The idea that artists and inventors should be granted limited monopolies on their works is a very old and respectable idea (e.g. the US constitution). It takes a bit more than arm-waving to cast it all aside.
Also, bear in mind that the judges in the DeCSS case have very properly had to defer to Congress except where Congress exceeds its constitutional powers. The system was designed that way for good reason. Believe me, you really don't want judges making up the law as they go along.
I have a lower opinion of Congress as a venue for getting these things right though. For a variety of reasons they get a clearer view of the arguments to increase IPR than to limit them. Most of these come down to a combination of money and the tendency of focussed interests (e.g. 5 movie studios) to over-ride diffuse interests (e.g. 500e6 movie fans). But thats about par for the course. Congress has made some stunningly bad decisions over the past couple of centuries, and will no doubt make more. If you want to improve it, you know what to do.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Personally, I think that part of the problem is that in our capitalist based society, any change to support a commons must be based on a viable business model. Open source is struggling with this, but seems to be making its way alright. That's code. Knowledge, on the other hand, is still suffering. There is a long history of knowledge being locked up and accessible to only those few with enough power or money. Part of this (recent) history includes copyright and patents. Another more interesting part is the educational system! Particularly universities, but also other levels of education all have barriers to prevent just anyone accessing knowledge. There are tuition fees, entrance exams, location, funding methods etc. All of these act so as to make information unavailable. For example, if I get low grades in high school, I may find it impossible to get into university - even if my reasons for having low grades have nothing to do with my inherent capacity to understand and add value to university-level knowledge. The only reason these barriers to entry exist is because of the guarding of academic credit. So. Many people here are familiar with the slogan information wants to be free. And some can even argue its validity based on economics. But the fact is that barriers to accessing information create wealth. So in order for those barriers to come down, alternative means to create wealth must be created.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
We can see parallels in history by other institutions that embraced false property rights. How many of you have herd that freeing slaves was stealing, or that there was no incentive to grow cotton without them, or that the great wealth of America's plantations was proof of slavery's justification. Some people think it's unfair to make this compairison to slavery, but I think it is - for example look at what almost happened in Africa, there millions and millions of people risked death because American pharmacuticals wanted to sue over intellectual property rights.
However, we should consider ourselvs fortunate - because unlike our predacessors I think we can win this war without one bit of violence. It will first be done with copyrights where enforceing copy controlls will become nearly impossible without stirring up massive unpopularity, and imposing massive intrusions into millions of corporations and peoples private lives. Eventually something will half to give because we do live in a democracy. It will later come with patents where the ability to create and manufacture will come to the home. In non democratic countries, both of these will pose a serious problem because the government will likely not be as restrained before things really get out of hand.
Other approaches like the GPL, and public encyclopedias will also seriously relieve the pressure. (thank you RMS)
Your comparison to "Silent Spring" is a pretty good one. We should note, however, that the chemical companies and the US government rallied *hard* against DDT studies that showed it was unsafe. It took something like 10 years for it to be declared unsafe for human exposure. The same goes for CFCs. Studies in the late 70s showed conclusively that they contributed to the ozone holes, but it wasn't until the late 80s that any real action was taken to require companies to lessen their use of them. Again, you had big companies fighting this tooth-and-nail.
The point is, these battles are always hard. The only thing this particular fight has going for it as that creators of content (coders, musicians, filmmakers) also have a vested interest in keeping their products from obscurity.
The "commons" was originally often found as part of a system in which people were property. At that time, the commons was for the use of those who were bound to the local fiefholder. As more and more autonomy was granted to individuals, this system no longer worked and the commons system morphed into one in which the "owner class" began to seek compensation for the resource in the form of rents or other consideration.
I cannot help but think that Lessig's "intellectual commons" is part of a system in which the ideas that populate them are already bound through other less obvious means to entities such as universities and corporations. The proposition that these ideas be "set free" will lead to exactly the kinds of DCMA shenanigans that Lessig seems to passionately want to avoid??
Is it possible that the concept of an intellectual commons is already becoming an anachronism in the same way that the concept of a common pasture became unusable as the system changed? As our society is driven towards a different notion of property, driven by Disney, RIAA, and other content owners, will fair use of ideas even exist as a tenable mechanism?
Perhaps there will become "free ideas" just as there were "freemen." These ideas would be certified as free, and could be combined with other free ideas... Wait a minute, I've heard this idea before; RMS, where are you when I need an overcharged rant about freedom?
42
Garrett Hardin proposed what is to me the same thesis 33 years ago in his paper The Tragedy of the Commons. Hardin was proposing a class of problems that had no technical solution, no matter how hard we looked for them, as they were moral problems. Specifically he was talking about growing populations taxing resources, but the analogy is fairly easily applied to "the internet as commons" model.
The 400 lb gorillas of IP are trying to maximise their utility gains from the internet while impacting the utility to others negatively. Good old utilitarianism.
Hardin goes on from there, but it has been a few years since I read the paper so I'm going to breeze through it again. I'm looking forward to picking up this book to see what new thinking it might bring to the analysis.
I'd be interested to hear from Mr. Lessig (as he seems to be posting here) how much his thesis was influenced by Hardin.
Laugh while you can, monkey boy!
>>why doesn't he publish his book under the public domain
Probably because he wouldn't be able to find a publisher with the kind of distribution he would want for his book. I talked with Jessica Litman a little bit about "Digital Copyright" and her choices when it came to publishing. She'd be perfectly happy to see the entire work available online, but her publisher wouldn't allow it.
I find it unlikely that Lessig would feel that much differently. He's a lawyer - can't be in too much need of the income. I'd think he would be trying to get the widest distribution possible, to have the greatest number of people exposed to the ideas he's presenting. GNU license for documents (or BSD) would be too limiting for most publishers who deal with mass publications.
Don't just complain - DO something about it!
i am all for the message that lessig is telling us. i have followed the debate some what however, for what it is worth, i feel as though it is ineffective. the message that the holders of ip are stifling the commons is valid however the words are falling on deaf ears. the only people who are really listening to him are his student (they have to, as he is the grader of their papers), academics and some ip lawyers who are not attached to to large companies who have large holding of copyright.
in order for his message concerning the future of ideas to be effective it must be received and adopted by the techies. it is only after the techies take up the cause that they are being threaten will his message will have some true meat to it. the people who are the most influence, i.e. congress and courts, are being inundate with anti-lessigism and are blind to the alternative (will we ever see mickey mouse in the public domain? No). the lobbies and the lawyers are drowning out whatever counter arguments exist against the extenuation of copyright controls.
until some of the 'leaders' of the techies take note and start supporting this platform we all will just end up watching our rome burn like nero. eric raymond thinks the message in code and most likely his new book are false. he feels that no matter what happens the techies will be able to adapt, overcome and conquer anything that washington throws at the techies. wired news on aug 29, 2001 says "linus torvalds... wasn't quite so pessimistic. 'a lot of people are wasting time over disagreements,' he said, referring to legendary sectarian squabbles within the open-source community. 'but i think people will get their act together,' torvalds said. ' within the last six months, there has been a lot more (political) activity.'" However as long as Prof Felton isn't publishing, the DCMA is up held and Dmitry Sklyarov is being prosecuted... then there isn't enough support for open source and more must be done.
once the techies, the geeks, the open sourcers and those who are most affected by copyright controls (DMCA), then perhaps the public will take note. without the techies support then the message lessig is telling us is ineffective and the internet will be lost.
there are hundreds of lawyers and millions of dollars against us, why aren't we doing something about it?
Anyone got any suggestions?
Yeah, I'd like to be able to play the DVDs I've legally purchased on my BSD (or insert your favorite OS) box. Reverse engineering has traditionally been a legitimate method for making things work when the original owner of a technology isn't interested in pursuing some particular market or use of the technology.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Nice argument (and I agree with you), but they're going to come right back and point out that you can play DVDs on DVD players, and that DVD players aren't pirate tools, but Linux and BSD are hacker tools, so you must really want to pirate that DVD. No, that isn't a logical argument if you pick it apart, but you don't get to cross-examine the MPAA lawyers -- just their witnesses.
We call it art because we have names for the things we understand.