Demystifying Lessig

Wisconsin Law Review

Volumn 2008, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 713-746

  Mayer Schönberger, Viktor ^a,b  

^a NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE   (Singapore)

^b Information + Innovation Policy Research Centre

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 57949099799     PISSN: 0043650X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (367)

1. See DANIEL YERGIN & JOSEPH STANISLAW, THE COMMANDING HEIGHTS: THE BATTLE FOR THE WORLD ECONOMY 24 (2002);
2. see generally ROBERT SKIDELSKY, JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES, 1883-1946: ECONOMIST, PHILOSOPHER, STATESMAN (2003).
3. See generally MICHAEL J. DITTMAN, JACK KEROUAC: A BIOGRAPHY (2004).
4. Steve Jobs cofounded Apple Inc., providing us not just with the first massproduced personal computer, the Apple II, but also with the first personal computer to use a graphical user interface, incorporate a mouse, connect through a simple network, and print with a high-resolution laser printer. STEVEN LEVY, INSANELY GREAT: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MACINTOSH, THE COMPUTER THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING 19-24, 81-82, 134-38, 211-22 (2000). These were not all invented at Apple. Most of them were developed in some form or another at Xerox PARC.
5. Id. at 64-74.
6. Yet, as even the engineers who designed the Macintosh computer concede, Jobs played the decisive role. ANDY HERTZFELD, REVOLUTION IN THE VALLEY 275 (2005). Microsoft's Windows could but hope to catch up. Recently, Jobs has helped reinvent portable music players and reshape the music distribution business.
7. See Thorn Duffy, 2005 Power Players, BILLBOARD, Aug. 27, 2005, at 26 (describing Apple's "digital music dominance" under Jobs).
8. Though Lessig has been subject to relatively scant criticism, there has been no shortage of reviews of his work. For reviews of LAWRENCE LESSIG, CODE AND OTHER LAWS OF CYBERSPACE (1999)
9. [hereinafter LESSIG, CODE],
10. see Charles Fried, Perfect Freedom or Perfect Control?, 114 HARV. L. REV. 606 (2000);
11. Reed Hundt, The Future of the Net-Comments on Lawrence Lessig's Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace and Vos Future of Ideas, 68 BROOK. L. REV. 289 (2002);
12. Mark S. Nadel, Computer Code vs. Legal Code: Setting the Rules in Cyberspace, 52 FED. COMM. L.J. 821 (2000);
13. Henry H. Perritt, Jr., Lawrence Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, 32 CONN. L. REV. 1061 (2000);
14. David G. Post, What Larry Doesn't Get: Code, Law, and Liberty in Cyberspace, 52 STAN. L. REV. 1439 (2000).
15. For reviews of the same book in non-book-review format, see Jay P. Kesan & Rajiv C. Shah, Deconstructing Code, 6 YALE J.L. & TECH. 277 (2004);
16. Andrew Murray & Colin Scott, Controlling the New Media: Hybrid Responses to New Forms of Power, 65 MOD. L. REV. 491 (2002).
17. For reviews of LAWRENCE LESSIG, THE FUTURE OF IDEAS: THE FATE OF THE COMMONS IN A CONNECTED WORLD (2001)
18. [hereinafter LESSIG, THE FUTURE OF IDEAS],
19. see Susanna Frederick Fischer, Crusading Against the Dinosaurs: A Review o/The Future of Ideas, by Lawrence Lessig, 10 COMMLAW CONSPECTUS 251 (2002);
20. Sonia K. Katyal, Ending the Revolution, 80 TEX. L. REV. 1465 (2002);
21. Daphne Keller, A Gaudier Future that Almost Blinds the Eye, 52 DUKE L.J. 273 (2002);
22. James B. Speta, A Vision of Internet Openness by Government Fiat, 96 NW. U. L. REV. 1553 (2002);
23. Andrew Murray, Technological Determinism, Markets and Networked Cultures (unpublished book review, available at http://www.100megsfree4.com/andrewmurray/ lessigreview.pdf). For reviews of LAWRENCE LESSIG, FREE CULTURE: How BIG MEDIA USES TECHNOLOGY AND THE LAW TO LOCK DOWN CULTURE AND CONTROL CREATIVITY (2004)
24. [HEREINAFTER LESSIG, FREE CULTURE],
25. see Julia D. Mahoney, Lawrence Lessig's Dystopian Vision, 90 VA. L. REV 2305 (2004);
26. Russ Taylor, An Introduction toLessigian Thought, 57 FED. COMM. L.J. 161 (2004).
27. See, e.g., Tim Lee, Code, Law, and Spontaneous Order, TECHLIBERATION.COM, Apr. 4, 2008, http://techliberation.com/2008/04/24/ code-law-and-spontaneous-order;
28. Thomas D. Snydor, Tragedy and Farce 6-7 (Progress & Freedom Found., Paper No. 15.5, 2008) (critically reviewing Lessig's books, and arguing Lessig is "channeling Jane Fonda or Walter Duranty" and summarizing that "Code argued that governments are better than markets, but markets better than anarchy"), available at http://papers.ssrn.com/ sol3/papers.cfm?abstract-id=1143485;
29. cf. Lindens Won't Touch the Third Rail, S ECONDTHOUGHTS.COM, Aug. 27, 2008, http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/ second-thoughts/2008/08/if-youre-tired.html (calling Lessig a "digital communist");
30. Posting of Prokofy Neva to http://scobleizer.com/2008/02/01/larry-lessig- talks-about-copyright-concerns (Feb. 1, 2008, 18:31) ("I am so unimpressed with Lessig, each and every time he is brought forward.");
31. Posting of Tom Snydor to http://techliberation.com/2008/05/01/insulting- our-intelligence/#comment-1454091 (May, 2008) ("Lessig's 1999 and 2006 books are horrendous."). For an even more extreme view, see Redstate.com, http://Redstate.com,
32. Obama and Google's Mutual Adviser: Jesus Is Gay, Wears a Diaper, and Gets Run Over, http://archive.redstate.com/stories/elections/2008/obama-and-googles- mutual-adviser-jesus-is-gay-wears-a-diaper-and-gets-run-over (last visited Oct. 4, 2008).
33. In fact, I am guilty of this myself. See Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, Impeach the Internet!, 46 LOY. L. REV. 569, 581-83 (2000).
34. See LESSIG, FREE CULTURE, supra note 4;
35. LESSIG, THE FUTURE OF IDEAS, supra note 4.
36. See LAWRENCE LESSIG, CODE: VERSION 2.0 120-25 (2006)
37. [hereinafter LESSIG, CODE 2.0]; .
38. see also Lawrence Lessig, The New Chicago School, 27 J. LEGAL STUD. 661 (1998).
39. LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 121.
40. Id. at 122, 124.
41. Id. at 124.
42. Id. at 122.
43. Id.
44. Id.
45. Id. at 123.
46. Id.
47. See MARSHALL MCLUHAN, THE GUTENBERG GALAXY 253 (1962). Rohan Samarajiva reconnected McLuhan's statement with cyberspace in his lecture "Electronic Public Space," presented at the University of Salzburg in June 1995.
48. Cf. Rohan Samarajiva, Surveillance by Design: Public Networks and the Control of Consumption, in COMMUNICATION BY DESIGN (Robin Mansell & Roger Silverstone eds., 1996).
49. It is no coincidence therefore that the first to suggest that code is what shapes cyberspace, William Mitchell, is an architect by training. See WILLIAM J. MITCHELL, CITY OF BITS: SPACE, PLACE, AND THE INFOBAHN 112 (1996).
50. See LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 32.
51. Id.
52. WILHELM STEINMÜLLER, RISKANTE NETZE 31 (1990).
53. See LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 32.
54. Id. at 72.
55. See id.
56. See id. at 6-7.
57. See id. at 4.
58. Id. at 4-5 ("Left to itself, cyberspace will become a perfect tool of control.").
59. Id. Lessig describes this possible shift and what might cause it under the heading "Z-Theory."
60. Id. at 74-80
61. (referring to Jonathan Zittrain, The Generative Internet, 119 HARV. L. REV. 1974 (2006)).
62. See LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 61-74.
63. Id. at 73, 80;
64. see also id. at 74-76 (discussing Z-Theory).
65. For more on Zittrain's theory see JONATHAN ZITTRAIN, THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET (2008);
66. Zittrain, supra note 28.
67. See LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 64, 72-73.
68. Id. at 80.
69. Id. at 79-80 (detailing how Google teamed up with the Chinese government to regulate cyberspace).
70. See id. at 23.
71. See id. at 4-7.
72. See id. at 169-99.
73. See id. at 200-32.
74. See id. at 233-75.
75. See id. at 155-56.
76. See id. at 138-53.
77. See id. at 149-53.
78. Lessig advocates for transparent democratic institutions, emphasizing deliberation and understanding. See id. at 325-34.
79. Lessig himself says as much. Id. at ix ("[T]he argument advanced is the same."). To be sure, Lessig's additions to, and modifications of, his basic argument over the years are important, but they do not change Lessig's central narrative that the best way to protect cyberspace values is through a combination of law and code.
80. For example, Lessig's fight for copyright reform, LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 18385;
81. see also Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003) (Lessig was lead counsel for Eric Eldred, an Internet publisher contesting the constitutionality of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act), and his founding of the Creative Commons, LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 110-11, find their way into his revised argument of code is law. Lessig also looks at Google's filtering and the meteoric rise of peer-produced content, especially through blogs.
82. Id. at 236-46.
83. Similarly, he has adjusted his views on how to best protect privacy through code, responding to criticism of his proposal in the original Code.
84. See, e.g., id. at 229 ("But my proposal for a property right was resoundingly rejected by critics whose views I respect."). He now advances a contractsbased protection of privacy.
85. Id. at 228-30. He also offers a proposal to control spam that is based on a mandatory labeling of spam mails.
86. Id. at 264-67.
87. See LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at x.
88. See Ellen Lee, How Google Censors Its Chinese Portal, S.F. CHRON., Feb. 2, 2006, at A1.
89. See Joseph Menn & Chris Gaither, U.S. Obtains Internet Users' Search Records, L.A. TIMES, Jan. 20, 2006, at A1.
90. See generally STEVEN WEBER, THE SUCCESS OF OPEN SOURCE (2004).
91. See YOCHAI BENKLER, THE WEALTH OF NETWORKS 59-90 (2006).
92. LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 5.
93. Id. at 57-60.
94. See Ritsuko Ando, Juniper Seen Regaining Core Router Share in 2008, REUTERS.COM June 13, 2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/ companyNewsAndPRidUSN1333533920070613 (noting that Cisco's market share of core Internet routers is estimated to exceed 60 percent). This implies that the probability of a data packet on the Internet having not been routed through a Cisco router on its way from sender to recipient is less than 1 percent after only five hops.
95. In August 2008, Microsoft's Internet Explorer family of Web browsers commanded a market share of 72 percent of all Web browsers. Marketshare.hits link.com, Browser Market Share, http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx? qprid=0 (last visited Oct. 4, 2008).
96. Google recently accounted for 80 percent of all Web searches. Marketshare.hitslink.com, Search Engine Market Share, http://marketshare. hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=4 (last visited Oct. 4, 2008).
97. See LESSIG, CODE, supra note 4, at 52.
98. See id. at 200.
99. See id. at 8 ("The central lesson of this book is that cyberspace requires choices.").
100. LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 274 (equating lack of market choice with the Soviet Union).
101. CARL SHAPIRO & HAL R. VARIAN, INFORMATION RULES: A STRATEGIC GUIDE TO THE NETWORKED ECONOMY 175-79 (1999);
102. OZ SHY, THE ECONOMICS OF NETWORK INDUSTRIES 5 (2001).
103. See generally Thomas A. Piraino, Jr., A New Approach to the Antitrust Analysis of Mergers, 83 B.U. L. REV. 785 (2003) (discussing a new approach to analyzing mergers in various fields to deal with problems of concentration).
104. See, e.g., LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 113, 328.
105. See LESSIG, CODE, supra note 4, at 103-04.
106. See LESSIG, CODE, supra note 4, at 225.
107. Lessig finds this type of indirect regulation most troubling. See, e.g., LESSIG, CODE, supra note 4, at 99 ("We should worry about a regime that makes invisible regulation easier.").
108. Id. at 106.
109. See id. at 98.
110. Lessig CODE, supra note 4, at 106-07.
111. See LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 138-41, 147-48.
112. Wikipedia.org, Lawrence Lessig, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lessig (last visited Oct. 4, 2008).
113. See Wikipedia.org, Chicago School of Economics, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago-school-(economics) (last visited Oct. 4, 2008);
114. see generally RICHARD POSNER, ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF LAW (2007);
115. See Steven Levy, Lawrence Lessig's Supreme Showdown, WIRED, Oct. 2002, at 140, 154, available at http://www.wired. com/wired/archive/10.10/lessig.html.
116. See LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 338.
117. See id.
118. See id.
119. See LESSIG, CODE, supra note 4, at 224-25.
120. See LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 255-60, 327-29.
121. See LESSIG, CODE, supra note 4, at 225.
122. See id.
123. See id. at 270-74.
124. This is the so-called "Coase Theorem." See R. H. Coase, The Problem of Social Cost, 3 J. L. & ECON. 1 (1960).
125. R. H. Coase, The Federal Communications Commission, 2 J.L. & ECON. 1 (1959).
126. See LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 242.
127. Id.
128. The "marketplace of ideas" metaphor was first expressed by Justice Holmes, see Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919) (Holmes J., dissenting) ("[T]he best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market."), but it is now ubiquitous.
129. See, e.g., Oren Bar-Gill & Gideon Parchomovsky, A Marketplace for Ideas?, 84 TEX. L. REV. 395 (2005);
130. Vincent Blasi, Holmes and die Marketplace of Ideas, 2004 SUP. CT. REV. 1;
131. Stanley Ingber, The Marketplace of Ideas: A Legitimizing Myth, 1984 DUKE L.J. 1 (1984).
132. Lessig cites the term, too. LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 245.
133. LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 242.
134. See id. at 244.
135. See id. at 236.
136. Id. at 241-42.
137. See id. at 80.
138. For example, of 61 billion search queries in August 2007, 45 billion were sent to Google and Yahoo! sites, with Google alone accounting for 37 billion. Press Release, ComScore, Google Ranks as Top Global Search Property (Oct. 10, 2007), available at http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1802.
139. See generally RONALD DEIBERT ET AL., ACCESS DENIED: THE PRACTICE AND POLICY OF GLOBAL INTERNET FILTERING (2008). Google's filtering rules are not public information.
140. For an excellent study on what Google filters see Jonathan Zittrain & Benjamin Edelman, Localized Google Search Result Exclusions, CYBER.LAW.HARVARD.EDU, Oct. 26, 2002, http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/google.
141. Another excellent source is Benjamin Edelman, Empirical Analysis of Google SafeSearch, CYBER.LAW.HARVARD.EDU, Apr. 14, 2003, http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived-content/people/edelman/google- safesearch.
142. LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 80.
143. Id. Though Lessig claims that "[n]o system will inform searchers that the search results they are reading have been filtered,"
144. id., this is actually not true, as Google does tell its users.
145. See Philipp Lenssen, Google Censorship FAQ, BLOGOSCOPED.COM, Mar. 2, 2007, http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-03- 02-n19.html http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-03-02n19.html.
146. LESSIG, CODE, supra note 4, at 160.
147. Id. That technical architecture is called "P3P," and it is a project sponsored by the World Wide Web Consortium.
148. Id.
149. For proposals for a property right in privacy, see Developments in the Law-The Law of Cyberspace, 112 HARV. L. REV. 1574, 1634-49 (1999);
150. Patricia Meli, Seeking Shade in a Land of Perpetual Sunlight: Privacy as Property in the Electronic Wilderness, 11 BERKELEY TECH. L.J. 1, 26-41 (1996);
151. Richard S. Murphy, Property Rights in Personal Information: An Economic Defense of Privacy, 84 GEO. L.J. 2381, 2383 (1996);
152. Kenneth C. Laudon, Markets and Privacy, COMM. OF THE ACM, Sept. 1996, at 92. Laudon also suggested a technical architecture to facilitate transactions over personal information.
153. Id. at 93.
154. LESSIG, CODE, supra note 4, at 163.
155. See, e.g., Julie E. Cohen, DRM and Privacy, 18 BERKELEY TECH. L.J. 575, 577 (2003);
156. Mark A. Lemley, Private Property, 52 STAN. L. REV. 1545, 1547 (2000);
157. Marc Rotenberg, Fair Information Practices and the Architecture of Privacy (What Larry Doesn't Get), 2001 STAN. TECH. L. REV. 1, ¶¶ 80-90 (2001);
158. Pamela Samuelson, Privacy as Intellectual Property?, 52 STAN. L. REV. 1125 (2000);
159. Paul M. Schwartz, Beyond Lessig's Code for Internet Privacy: Cyberspace Filters, Privacy Control, and Fair Information Practices, 2000 WIS. L. REV. 743, 744-45. Rotenberg for example notes approvingly that his critique "grows out of a great regard for the vision of Code and great disappointment in the application."
160. Rotenberg, supra, at ¶ 121.
161. The only difference between his original proposal and the revised version is the mechanism of control: property rights are substituted with contractual obligations. Compare LESSIG, CODE, supra note 4, at 163,
162. with LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 230.
163. While property rights are enforceable against anybody, contractual rights are only enforceable vis-à-vis one's contractual partner. LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, 383 n.51. Using contract law instead of property law reduces the efficiency of the market, as Lessig acknowledges and expands in a footnote.
164. Id.
165. See LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 230.
166. Lessig describes and lauds the institution of a commons. LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 198-99. The commons is the core element of one of his subsequent books.
167. See LESSIG, THE FUTURE OF IDEAS, supra note 4, at 17-100. Lessig is also on the Board of Directors of Creative Commons, aimed at creating a digital commons.
168. LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 110-11. For information on Creative Commons see http://creativecommons.org/about.
169. LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 183-85.
170. For information on patent disclosure see Note, The Disclosure Function of the Patent System (or Lack Thereof), 118 HARV. L. REV. 2007 (2005).
171. See LESSIG, FREE CULTURE, supra note 4, at 161-68.
172. LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 196.
173. See LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 264-65.
174. Id.
175. Id.
176. Id. at 266-67.
177. Id. at 230.
178. See supra Part II.
179. See supra notes 68-70 and accompanying text.
180. See supra notes 74-80 and accompanying text.
181. See LESSIG, CODE, supra note 4, at 160. After a barrage of scholarly criticism, Lessig amended his proposal; instead of advocating for a property right in privacy, he now suggests that markets of personal information be based on contractual licensing and permission.
182. ESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 230. But this does not address criticism that has been focused on the market, the interplay between the individual and society, and the nature of the privacy claim itself.
183. See generally sources cited supra note 97.
184. See, e.g., Rotenberg, supra note 97, ¶¶ 101-02.
185. See Samuelson, supra note 97, at 1138.
186. Schwartz, supra note 97, at 763-76.
187. See Rotenberg, supra note 97, ¶¶ 96-99.
188. See Samuelson, supra note 97, at 1141.
189. This is what the European Union has done in its Privacy Directive, which severely limits the capacity of citizens to consent to the processing of what the Directive terms sensitive personal information that pertains to an individual's health, religion and sexual orientation. See Council Directive 2002/58, 2002 O.J. (L201) 37 (EC) [hereinafter EU Privacy Directive].
190. See, e.g., Samuelson, supra note 97, at 1142-44;
191. see generally Laura L. Mall, The Right to Privacy in Great Britain: Will Renewed Anti-Media Sentiment Compel Great Britain to Create a Right to Be Let Alone?, 4 ILSA J. INT'L & COMP. L. 785 (1998).
192. Samuelson, supra note 97, at 1142-44.
193. See Mall, supra note 120.
194. See Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, Generational Development of Data Protection in Europe, in TECHNOLOGY AND PRIVACY: THE NEW LANDSCAPE 219, 219-20 (Philip E. Agre & Marc Rotenberg eds., 1997).
195. See Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG] [Federal Constitutional Court] Dec. 15, 1983, 65 Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts [BVerfGE] 1 (F.R.G.), translated in 5 HUM. RTS. L.J. 94, 100-01 (1984).
196. Id.; see also
197. Spiros Simitis, Reviewing Privacy in an Information Society, 135 U. PA. L. REV. 707, 734 (1987).
198. Simitis, supra note 125, at 732-37.
199. Cf. supra notes 113-23 and accompanying text.
200. See EU Privacy Directive, supra note 119.
201. See, e.g., Matthew J. Sag, Beyond Abstraction: The Law and Economics of Copyright Scope and Doctrinal Efficiency, 81 TUL. L. REV. 187, 195-96 (2006) ("The nonrivalrous nature of information makes the welfare implications of intellectual property different from those of other forms of property: the incentives attributed to allocating property rights in information must be offset against the resulting underutilization of that information.").
202. See, e.g., RONALD V. BETTIG, COPYRIGHTING CULTURE: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY 107-08 (1996) ("The existence of tendencies toward increased market power and economic concentration is continuously revealed in the final analyses of information economics.");
203. LESSIG, FREE CULTURE, supra note 4, at 161-68.
204. See, e.g., Glynn S. Luuney, Jr., Fair Use and Market Failure: Sony Revisited, 82 B.U. L. REV. 975, 1016-17 (2002).
205. See, e.g., Paul Goldstein, Copyright's Commons, 29 COLUM. J.L. & ARTS 1, 9 (2005).
206. See, e.g., Lawrence Lessig, The Law of the Horse: What Cyberlaw Might Teach, 113 HARV. L. REV. 501, 529 (1999) ("'Fair use' thus balances the rights of an individual author against the rights of a user under any of the justifications for the law of copyright.").
207. The constitutional basis for copyright is Congress's power "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." U.S. CONST, art. I, § 8, cl. 8.
208. See Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, In Search of the Story: Narratives of Intellectual Property, 10 VA. J.L. & TECH. 1, ¶¶ 15-19 (2005), available at http://www.vjolt.net/vol10/issue4/v10i4-all-Mayer-Schonberger.pdf.
209. See Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Beweis der Unrechtmäß igkeit des Büchernachdrucks, in BERLINER MONATSSCHRIFTEN 443 (1793);
210. see also Mayer-Schönberger, supra nott 135, ¶ 15.
211. The metaphor is ubiquitous in Supreme Court jurisprudence. See, e.g., Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 885 (1997);
212. Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U.S. 374, 406 (1967);
213. see also C. Edwin Baker, Scope of the First Amendment Freedom of Speech, 25 UCLA L. REV. 964, 968-74 (1978);
214. Ingber, supra note 83, at 2.
215. See, e.g., Richard Posner, Free Speech in an Economic Perspective, 20 SUFFOLK U. L. REV. 1, 7 (1986).
216. See CASS SUNSTEIN, INFOTOPIA: How MANY MINDS PRODUCE KNOWLEDGE 186-89 (2006).
217. Lessig acknowledges Sunstein's concerns, but does not seem to take them seriously. See LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 244.
218. See SUNSTEIN, supra note 139, at 58.
219. Id. at 42-43.
220. This is implied by Condorcet's Jury Theorem. See Christian List & Robert E. Goodin, Epistemic Democracy: Generalizing the Condorcet Jury Theorem, 9 J. POL. PHIL. 277, 283-84 (2001);
221. Eric A. Posner & Cass R. Sunstein, The Law of Other States, 59 STAN. L. REV. 131, 131 (2006).
222. See SUNSTEIN, supra note 139, at 42-43.
223. The situation is different if opinions put forward by individuals in the public debate are weighted on how convinced an individual is of her views. Prediction markets are an example of such a mechanism. There, people bet on a future event, factoring their unique knowledge and expertise into their decisions. They can adjust the amount they bet based on the extent of their knowledge and their conviction that they are correct. The higher one bets within the predictions market, the more weight we should assign to that person's opinion. This utilizes what Friedrich Hayek has termed the "marvel" of the pricing mechanism to assign different weights to views based on how much each individual is willing to bet. Id. at 14.
224. See Baker, supra note 137, at 977-78, 981-90.
225. Id. at 976-77.
226. Id. at 979
227. (quoting 3 International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 82, 85 (1968)) .
228. Id.
229. For Lessig's discussion of blogs, see LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 242-44.
230. See SUNSTEIN, supra note 139, at 186-89.
231. See GLENN H. REYNOLDS, AN ARMY OF DAVIDS 91-93 (2006).
232. See SUNSTEIN, supra note 139, at 58, 196.
233. See Matthew Hindman, "Open Source Politics" Reconsidered: Emerging Patterns in Online Political Participation, in GOVERNANCE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 183, 198-99 (Viktor Mayer-Schönberger & David Lazer eds., 2007).
234. See Ingber, supra note 83, at 24;
235. Cass R. Sunstein, Pornography and the First Amendment, 1986 DUKE L.J. 589 (1986).
236. Restrictions on Nazi propaganda are well-known in France and Germany. See, e.g., N.C. PÈN [French Penal Code], art. R. 645-1 (2003) (Fr.) (making criminal display of symbols of any groups known to have committed genocide);
237. Strafgesetzbuch [StGB] [German Penal Code] Nov. 13, 1998, BGB1. I at 3322, § 86(1)4 (F.R.G.) (criminalizing the dissemination of Nazi propaganda); ,
238. see also Lyombe Eko, New Medium, Old Free Speech Regimes, 28 LOY. L. A. INT'L & COMP. L. REV. 69 (2006);
239. John F. McGuire, Note, When Speech is Heard Around the World: Internet Content Regulation in the United States and Germany, 74 N. Y. U. L. REV. 750 (1999).
240. See David Kretzmer, Freedom of Speech and Racism, 8 CARDOZO L. REV. 445 (1987).
241. See Baker, supra note 137, at 990.
242. See KARL POPPER, ALLES LEBEN IST PROBLEMLOSEN 22 (1994);
243. see also THOMAS EMERSON, THE SYSTEM OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION 6-7 (1970);
244. Baker, supra note 137, at 990-91.
245. Baker, supra note 137, at 990-92
246. (referencing and expanding on EMERSON, supra note 158, at 6-7).
247. See generally Baker, supra note 137.
248. See generally EMERSON , supra note 158.
249. See generally JÜRGEN HABERMAS, THE THEORY OF COMMUNICATIVE ACTION (Thomas McCarthy trans., 1984 & 1987) (two volumes).
250. For one approach to developing a theory for free speech from Habermas's work, see Lawrence Byard Solum, Freedom of Communicative Action: A Theory of the First Amendment Freedom of Speech, 83 Nw. U. L. REV. 54 (1989).
251. For another alternative to Lessig's market approach, see Ingber, supra note 83.
252. See supra notes 74-77 and accompanying text.
253. See Peter J. Boettke, Information and Knowledge: Austrian Economics in Search of its Uniqueness, 15 REV. AUSTRIAN ECON. 263, 271-72 (2002) ("It is because every individual knows so little and, in particular, because we rarely know which of us knows best that we trust the independent and competitive efforts of many to induce the emergence of what we shall want when we see it.")
254. (quoting F. A. HAYEK, THE CONSTITUTION OF LIBERTY 29 (1960)).
255. Id.
256. See Ejan Mackaay, History of Law and Economics, in 1 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LAW AND ECONOMICS 65, 86-87 (Boudewijn Bouckaert & Gerrit De Geest eds., 1999).
257. See id.
258. Id. at 87.
259. See generally Sandye Gloria-Palermo, Schumpeter and the Old Austrian School: Interpretations and Influences, in THE CONTRIBUTION OF JOSEPH SCHUMPETER TO ECONOMICS 21 (Richard Arena & Cécile Dangel-Hagnauer eds., 2002).
260. See FRIEDRICH A. HAYEK, The Use of Knowledge in Society, in INDIVIDUALISM AND ECONOMIC ORDER 77 (1948);
261. see also RANDY E. BARNETT, THE STRUCTURE OF LIBERTY: JUSTICE AND THE RULE OF LAW (1998);
262. GERALD P. O'DRISCOLL, JR. & MARIO J. RIZZO, THE ECONOMICS OF TIME AND IGNORANCE (1985);
263. Israel M. Kirzner, Prices, the Communication of Knowledge, and the Discovery Process, in THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF FREEDOM: ESSAYS IN HONOR OF F. A. HAYEK 193 (Kurt R. Leube & Albert H. Zlabinger eds., 1985);
264. Mackaay, supra note 167, at 87.
265. Mackaay, supra note 167, at 86-87.
266. Id.
267. Id. at 87.
268. Symposium, Cyberspace and Privacy: A New Legal Paradigm?, 52 STAN. L. REV. 987 (2000).
269. Post is best known for his groundbreaking work in cyberspace governance. See, e.g., David R. Johnson & David Post, Law and Borders - The Rise of Law in Cyberspace, 48 STAN. L. REV. 1367 (1996);
270. David G. Post, Against Against Cyberanarchy, 17 BERKELEY TECH. L.J. 1365 (2002);
271. David G. Post, Governing Cyberspace, 43 WAYNE L. REV. 155 (1996).
272. Post, supra note 4.
273. Id. at 1454.
274. See id. at 1451-54.
275. See id.
276. See id.
277. See generally id.
278. Id.
279. LESSIG, CODE, supra note 4, at 87-89.
280. See, e.g., id. at 89;
281. LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 20, 94, 124-25, 136.
282. That code regulates behavior - technology shapes society - is a central theme of Lessig's books. This is how he titled the first chapter of both Code and Code 2.0. See LESSIG, CODE, supra note 4, at 3;
283. LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 1.
284. LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 125.
285. WILLIAM FIELDING OGBURN, SOCIAL CHANGE WITH RESPECT TO CULTURE AND ORIGINAL NATURE (1922).
286. See generally William F. Ogburn, How Technology Causes Social Change, in TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL CHANGE 12-26 (Francis R. Allen et al. eds., 1957).
287. The ricocheting billiard ball metaphor is taken from CLAUDE S. FISCHER, AMERICA CALLING: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE TELEPHONE TO 1940 at 8 (1992).
288. Cf. LYNN WHITE, JR., MEDIEVAL TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL CHANGE 38 (1962) (arguing that the invention of the stirrup eventually caused the rise of feudalism).
289. FISCHER, supra note 187, at 8.
290. Id.;
291. see also JÜRGEN HABERMAS, TOWARD A RATIONAL SOCIETY: STUDENT PROTEST, SCIENCE, AND POLITICS 58-60 (1970);
292. see generally Bruce Bimber, Three Faces of Technological Determinism, in DOES TECHNOLOGY DRIVE HISTORY?: THE DILEMMA OF TECHNOLOGICAL DETERMINISM 79, 81-83 (Merritt Roe Smith & Leo Marx eds., 1994).
293. Merritt Roe Smith, Technological Determinism in American Culture, in Smith & Marx, supra note 189, at 1-23.
294. Id. at 26-35;
295. see also FISCHER, supra note 187, at 8-10.
296. See, e.g., George H. Daniels, The Big Questions in the History of American Technology, 11 TECH. & CULTURE 1, 3 (1970).
297. Id.
298. Id.
299. Id. at 3-6.
300. Id.
301. LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 77-79.
302. Post, supra note 4, at 1451-54.
303. See, e.g., FISCHER, supra note 187, at 8-12;
304. Trevor Pinch & Wiebe E. Bijker, The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts, in THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL SYSTEMS 17, 21-26 (Wiebe E. Bijker et al. eds., 1987).
305. See WIEBE E. BIJKER, OF BICYCLES, BAKELITES, AND BULBS: TOWARD A THEORY OF SOCIOTECHNICAL CHANGE 101-97 (MIT Press 1997) (1995).
306. See id. at 199-267.
307. See id. at 19-100;
308. see also Pinch & Bijker, supra note 199, at 28-47.
309. See Wiebe E. Bijker, Sociohistorical Technology Studies, in HANDBOOK OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY STUDIES 229-56 (Sheila Jasanoff et al. eds., 1995).
310. See generally THOMAS P. HUGHES, NETWORKS OF POWER: ELECTRIFICATION IN WESTERN SOCIETY 1880-1930 (1983).
311. See generally FISCHER, supra note 187.
312. See generally HUGHES, supra note 204;
313. see also Thomas P. Hughes, The Evolution of Large Technological Systems, in Bijker, supra note 199, at 51-82;
314. Thomas P. Hughes, Technological Momentum, in Smith & Marx, supra note 189, at 101-13.
315. BRUNO LATOUR, THE PASTEURIZATION OF FRANCE (1984);
316. BRUNO LATOUR, REASSEMBLING THE SOCIAL: AN INTRODUCTION TO ACTOR- NETWORK-THEORY (2005);
317. Michel Callon, The Sociology of an Actor-Network, in MAPPING THE DYNAMICS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY: SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENCE IN THE REAL WORLD 19-34 (Michel Callon et al. eds., 1986);
318. John Law, Technology and Heterogeneous Engineering: The Case of Portuguese Expansion, in Bijker, supra note 199, at 111-34;
319. see also ACTOR NETWORK THEORY AND AFTER (John Law & John Hassard eds., 1999);
320. Bijker, supra note 203, at 251.
321. LATOUR, REASSEMBLING THE SOCIAL, supra note 207, at 128-33.
322. See Pinch & Bijker, supra note 199, at 30-34;
323. BUKER, supra note 200, at 122-25.
324. The role of users in the innovation process has also received attention in the innovation and management literature. See ERIC VON HIPPEL, THE SOURCES OF INNOVATION 35-36, 117 (1988) (arguing that the innovation process is distributed and encompasses suppliers as well as users).
325. LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 48.
326. Id.
327. Id. at 48-49, 203.
328. Id. at 203.
329. Id.
330. Id.
331. See Netscape, Persistent Client State HTTP Cookies, Preliminary Specifications, http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/links/pdf/chapter5/5.29b.pdf (last visited Oct. 11, 2008).
332. See Anna Kemp, Persistent Client State HTTP Cookies, ILS.UNC.EDU, Nov. 5, 1998, http://ils.unc.edu/~kempa/cookies/icookie. html;
333. see also Glenn Fleischman, Cookies: Fresh From Your Browser's Oven, WEB DEVELOPER, July/Aug. 1996, at 14.
334. Compare LESSIG, CODE 2.0, supra note 8, at 48,
335. with Netscape, supra note 216.
336. I know this because in 1997 I engaged Lou Montulli, the Netscape engineer in charge of the cookie standard, in an e-mail conversation about privacy.
337. Jeremy Bentham suggested a prison to be constructed so that inmates could be constantly surveilled, but would not know whether they were watched or not, which he called the panopticon. This would constrain their behavior, he suggested, even in the absence of actual enforcement. See JEREMY BENTHAM, Panopticon, in THE PANOPTICON WRITINGS 29-95 (Miran Bozovic ed., 1995).
338. See Kemp, supra note 217.
339. Id.
340. The short life span of cookies is only a default, it can be deliberately changed. See Netscape, supra note 216;
341. see also Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, The Internet and Privacy Legislation: Cookies for a Treat?, 14 COMPUTER LAW & SEC. REP. 166 (1998), available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02673649.
342. See Mayer-Schönberger, supra note 223, at 173 n.53 and accompanying text.
343. See D. Kristol & L. Montulli, HTTP State Management Mechanism 15-16 (Feb. 1997) (unpublished manuscript, available at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/ rfc2109.txt) (expanding the "Privacy" section in this standard).
344. The new standard also detailed how privacy could be maintained in case cookies persisted beyond a short session: "When the user agent terminates execution, it should let the user discard all state information. Alternatively, the user agent may ask the user whether state information should be retained; the default should be 'no'. If the user chooses to retain state information, it would be restored the next time the user agent runs." Id. at 16.
345. See id.
346. See Browser Users to Watch Cookies, CNET.COM, Mar. 13, 1997, http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-277942.html (explaining how Netscape Navigator will include new cookie-management features suggested by the proposed new cookie standard).
347. In 1997, I wrote an article on cookies that became widely quoted. In the article I suggested that the cookie standard may violate the European Union Privacy Directive, but despite my argument, to my knowledge, the European Union did not take any action whatsoever. See Mayer-Schönberger, supra note 223.
348. At that time, Netscape's and Microsoft's browsers dominated the browser market. Both Netscape and Microsoft were offering their browsers to individuals for free, so users unhappy with the cookie implementation by Netscape and Microsoft had almost nowhere to go, and had no discernable impact on the companies' revenues. See Wikipedia.org, Browser Wars, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser-wars (last visited Oct. 4, 2008).
349. See, e.g., Surfer Tracking Limits Applauded, CNET.COM, Apr. 7, 1997, http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-278627.html.
350. For more information see the Electronic Privacy Information Center's cookie page, at http://epic.org/privacy/internet/cookies/, or Cookie Central, at http://www.cookiecentral.com/.
351. See supra Part IV. A.
352. Wikipedia.org, Podcast, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasts (last visited Oct. 4, 2008).
353. STEVEN LEVY, THE PERFECT THING 236-37 (2007).
354. Id. at 1-20.
355. Id. at 241.
356. See id.
357. Wikipedia.org, History of Podcasting, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ History-of-podcasting (last visited Oct. 4, 2008).
358. Kevin Marks, a software engineer for Google and former principal engineer for blogsite Technorati, is the author of Web blog Epeus Epigone. Wikipedia.org, Kevin Marks, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin-Marks (last visited Oct. 4, 2008).
359. See LEVY, supra note 234, at 234-40.
360. Id. at 242-44.
361. See id. at 241-42.
362. See id. at 249.
363. See id. at 242 (providing estimates of volume).
364. In fact it took years for Apple, the designers and manufacturers of the iPod, to acknowledge the importance of podcasts by incorporating them into the iPod/iTunes system. See LEVY, supra note 234, at 241.
365. For a timeline see id. at vii-viii.
366. Id. at 237.
367. This includes the rise of blogging, as Levy details. See id. at 240-42 (detailing how blogging and user-created content fueled the mass acceptance of podcasts).