Today's exercise: A brief Lit Review of each of Lawrence Lessig's books.

In Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999), Lessig explores cyberspace "as it moves from a world of relative freedom to a world of relatively perfect control" (p. 23). He describes regulation (online or off) as the combination of constraints due to laws, markets, norms, and architecture (p. 87), but that law is able to regulate both directly and, by influencing the other three constraints, indirectly, and argues that the architecture (the code) is the critical factor in determining the level of regulation of the internet. He acknowledges the significance of open source software as "a check on state power" (p. 100) but warns that, contrary to popular belief, we are entering a period of increasingly restrictive copyright regulation (p. 127). In a curious aside (p. 225), he argues that modular code delivers some of the benefits of open source code, even if it is closed source.

For the sake of context, Code was written near the end of the dotcom bubble, when the web was all about ecommerce, and prior to the rise of web 2.0, social networking, and major user-generated content sites. The MP3 filesharing crisis was just unfolding - Napster had stunned the music industry, but had not yet been shutdown, and the digital media marketplace had not yet emerged - and Lessig had not yet founded the Creative Commons project. Lessig published Code v2 in 2006, but I have not studied the differences and am not considering v2 in this post.

In The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World (2001), Lessig repeats the same general theme (that we are moving from a relatively free Internet to a relatively controlled Internet), but focuses more narrowly on the intellectual property / copyright regime. Building on Benkler's theory of layers in communication systems (the "physical layer", the "logical/code layer", and the "content layer"), Lessig argues that the Internet is unique because it has a mixture of freedom and control at the top two layers (p. 25), but the bulk of the book is an overview of innovation commons on the internet, including open source software. (He wisely notes that the incentives question that often arises with respect to open source software is, frankly, a little lame -- open source software is flourishing, so the suggestion that the incentives aren't sufficient must be wrong (p 69).) He points to tightening of control at the code layer (through restrictions of traffic by broadband providers, an issue that has since become known as Net Neutrality), at the content layer (through restrictive licensing schemes, DRM, business method and software patents, and copyright extensions), and at the physical layer (privatization of spectrum that might otherwise be used as a wireless commons). Among many suggestions for how to loosen control and restore/protect the freedoms of the Internet, Lessig calls for a limited copyright for software, which would put source code into the public domain after a limited term of protection (p 253).

In Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity (2004), Lessig turns his attention strictly to the content layer, arguing that the current trajectory of the copyright regime is suppressing cultural innovation and calls for adjustments to copyright laws and norms to restore the balance between property owners and the public - both in the form of the ill-fated Eldred Act and, more successfully, the Creative Commons. Lessig frames his argument around two questions - "whether 'piracy' will be permitted, and whether 'property' will be protected" (p. 10), and explores both through a combination of historical detail and Internet-age case studies. This book is significantly more neurotic than Lessig's other works and includes an oddly out of place, but likely cathartic, retelling of his role in the Eldred v. Ashcroft case, in which the Supreme Court upheld the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Free Culture is also something of a pop-crossover book and, as such, is a bit more fun to read but much less interesting to cite than his earlier works.

I've not yet read Lessig's final installment, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy (2008),, but I can glean the gist of it from his blog and a few reviews. Remix is Lessig's update of Free Culture, taking into account changes to the online landscape: (1) the Read/Write web, as he dubs user-driven content, (2) a rising content remix culture on that web, and (3) the hybrid economies that are emerging alongside them. He also focuses heavily on the generational change that has occurred, in terms of the way young people think about copyright, ownership, and creativity, and argues that the copyright regime is waging an un-winnable war that has criminalized an entire generation, in a manner similar to but more extensive than the war on drugs.