Code: Version 2.0

Lessig's "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace" was published in 1999. The book quickly began to define a certain vocabulary for thinking about the regulation of cyberspace. More than any other social space, cyberspace would be controlled or not depending upon the architecture, or "code," of that space. And that meant regulators, and those seeking to protect cyberspace from at least some forms of regulation, needed to focus not just upon the work of legislators, but also the work of technologists. Code v2 updates the original work. It is not, as Lessig writes in the preface, a "new work." Written in part collectively, through a Wiki hosted by JotSpot, the aim of the update was to recast the argument in the current context, and to clarify the argument where necessary.

Net Dialogue Perspectives on International Net Governance

There is an urgent need for policymakers to prepare for the future and not just focus on problems of the past. To do so, they need to maintain better dialogue with the technology community, and they need to employ procedures that are appropriate for this fast realm.

Free Culture

How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity

In his two previous books, CODE and THE FUTURE OF IDEAS, Lessig concentrated on the destruction of much of the original promise of the Internet. Now, in FREE CULTURE, he widens his focus to consider the diminishment of the larger public domain of ideas. In this powerful wake-up call he shows how short-sighted interests blind to the long-term damage they’re inflicting are poisoning the ecosystem that fosters innovation.

The Future of Ideas

The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World

The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World by, Lawrence Lessig

Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace

Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, by Lawrence Lessig

Zoning Speech on the Internet: A Legal and Technical Model

Speech, it is said, divides into three sorts — (1) speech that everyone has a right to (political speech, speech about public affairs); (2) speech that no one has a right to (obscene speech, child porn); and (3) speech that some have a right to but others do not (in the United States, Ginsberg2 speech, or speech that is “harmful to minors,” to which adults have a right but kids do not). Speech-protective regimes, on this view, are those where category (1) speech predominates; speech-repressive regimes are those where categories (2) and (3) prevail.

The Law of the Horse: What Cyberlaw Might Teach

A few years ago, at a conference on the “Law of Cyberspace” held at the University of Chicago, Judge Frank Easterbrook told the assembled listeners, a room packed with “cyberlaw” devotees (and worse), that there was no more a “law of cyberspace” than there was a “Law of the Horse”;that the effort to speak as if there were such a law would just muddle rather than clarify; and that legal academics (“dilettantes”) should just stand aside as judges and lawyers and technologists worked through the quotidian problems that this souped-up telephone would present. (December, 1999)

Open Code / Open Content / Open Law: Building a Digital Commons

Strategic Planning Session Paper

The Berkman Center proposed the formation of a legally independent nonprofit entity - a consortium of educational centers to foster the development of open software, open research, and open content.

The Censorship of Television

Only an informed public can meaningfully participate in decisions about matters of public import. Television is one aspect of an informal public education. Thus...we should understand the threats to this institution of informal education, and should map the role that the First Amendment might have in protecting against those threats.

What Things Regulate Speech: CDA 2.0 vs. Filtering (Draft 3.01)

In 1995, California passed a statute making it a crime to sell porn in vending machines. More precisely, the statute made it a crime to sell “harmful matter” (meaning harmful to minors) in any vending machine, unless that vending machine is equipped with an adult identification number system. What “harmful matter” is is anyone’s guess. (Draft 3.01, May 12, 1998)