Code

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.