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Divining the Future of Internet Law
Mansing writes: "In his last Cyber Law Journal (New York Times, registration required, etc.), Carl Kaplan has captured a collection of insights from the like of Dr. Larry Lessig and Dr. James Boyle. Each one of these correspondents brings a slightly different, and sometimes humorous, view of what legal challenges and legal decisions may face the users of technology in the next year."
http://archives.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http:/
Since Kaplan is leaving, I'm wondering who will take over the job, of anybody? Has there been anything else out there like this?
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"Divining" means to predict, or to tell/guess the future. Since it's a list of assumptions and predictions regarding the future year, "divining" is the correct word. (You might have heard of this from the term "divining rod", a piece of wood used to guess the position of water hidden under the earth via supposedly supernatural power)
I think that he sees them as lesser of several evils. Would you rather see an internet controlled by AOLTW? Remember, Microsoft may control a good amount of the software infrastructure but they control little (if any) of the hardware and even less of the content. Disney has tons of content but no hardware and little software.
AOLTW on the other hand has huge control over hardware, software and content. Add to that the fact that they have significant influences within the US Government (see President's Council of Advisors, Bush's appointment of AOLTW President Richard Parsons as US Trade Representative., and the fact that Colin Powell was on the AOL Board ) and you have a pretty good picture of why Microsoft is not as damaging to the internet when compared to other companies.
I agree with you that Lessig definitely did not mean this to be a joke. Microsoft could be an ally of freedom of the internet, but only if the remedy in the MS vs DOJ case steers them in this direction. Professor Lessig himself makes this point clearly in his testimony on the issue.