Rating: 
Summary: Profound and carefully crafted book!
Review: Lawrence Lessing, a Professor of Law at Stanford University authors The Future of Ideas: the fate of the commons in a connected world. Mr. Lessing unfolds his views about a variety of historical and technical occurrences, that in his opinion has and will also impact the Internet. He uses two recurring concepts, one of a commons the other of layers to emphasize his (and others) perceived notion that the relative openness of the Internet is declining and that the resulting effects could hinder or prevent Internet related innovation. At first glance, the term "commons" appears to be an awkward term to use in the same breath when talking about the Internet. In The Future of Ideas, something or someplace is considered in the commons when using it or accessing it is done without the requirement of another's permission. Layers, is Yochai Benkler's communication system model, where a physical layer (network of fiber optic cable), logical or code layer (the thing that grants access or makes access possible), and content layer (the material transported) segments the communications systems into structures that are pragmatic or in real space. The model makes discussion of telecommunications systems easily comprehensible.
Mr. Lessing divided his book into three sections, the first focuses on the Commons, the second describes the relationship of constraints of creativity to the physical, logical, and content layers, the third discusses regulation; balancing control over the range of products/services known as the Internet realm. In this third section, an interweaving of the prior two sections facilitates illustration of the impacts on real space. Overall, the book was enjoyable and the method Mr. Lessing used to develop his themes was effective. One would have to read his masterfully written book to reap the benefits. A summary and review of a few pages long does not closely describe the valuable information provided and insights of Mr. Lessing. In attempting to provide a summary review of the The Future of Ideas I will compress some highlights into a few paragraphs and hopefully give a respectable hint of Mr. Lessing's use of examples to express his views.
First off, to illustrate the commons and its effect on promoting innovation an account of the World Wide Web (WWW) was given. There were several factors that influenced Tim Berners Lee design for the WWW. One of these was that CERN (the European Scientific Organization) computers could not communicate with each other easily. Other factors were that Berners Lee did not want the WWW to have no centralized point of control to be a bottleneck that restricted the growth of the WWW. Luckily, there were two instrumental occurrences for the WWW, one was that there was going to be a charge for use of a competing network protocol called Gopher. The other was that CERN released to right to the Web to the public domain where anyone could build upon it. Today, hypertext markup language (HTML) and hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) is open to the public. The WWW design was made possible by the Internets' architecture. The protocols to send retrieve hypertext were open and were not easy to discriminate upon (however, this openness is proving to be a thing of the past).
The second section of The of Future Ideas starts off by discussing artistic creativity and the effects of control on it. Mr. Lessing describes instances where constraints can limit creativity and he also stresses that there is an underlying necessity for a balance on control. There are incentives that motivate individuals to create but absolute control can stifle future growth. One can still reap some rewards by creating new content while still making it available for others to build their ideas onto. Mr. Lessing emphasized this by summarizing the MP3, HTML Books, Films, and Napster cases.
In the third section, Mr. Lessing incorporates the examples already given about AT&T, the FCC, copyright, media, and music to discuss control of at each layer. The comparison of real world regulation on AT&T to the regulation of the cable industry emphasized some inconsistency in the existing laws. The cable industry is positioned (key leaders to lobby policy makers) to influence regulators and it appears to effectively minimize increased regulation similar to those placed upon the telephone industry (AT&T). Moreover, technology has improved to a point where there are businesses designed to monitor usage of content. When new businesses arises by using existing content the owners of that content rush to stop it. This is understandable considering that businesses are obligated to shareholders to make a profit and a good way to ensure continual profits is to maintain a competitive edge. However, Mr. Lessing points out that the companies although lawfully justified by law to stop the use of their material are selectively choosing when to block usage. As you might guess, it is usually done when there is the potential for birth of new competition, but when it occurs in a promotional capacity the usage is allowed or overlooked.
Rating: 
Summary: Everyone Should Read This Book
Review: Lessig does a very good idea describing how we are radically shifting how ideas are controlled. His previous book, Code, was a little more abstract, but is a good introduction for this book. In Code he explained that although we think the internet is all about freedom it need not always be that way. In this book he specifically shows how technology is being used to provide owners of intellectual property GREATER control over how their work is used. Today we accept that we can go to a library and get a book for free or borrow a copy of book from a friend. However, music companies (one of many examples) are working technology so that every listening of a song (in electronic form) could be tracted (and presumably charge for). With the current debates about internet radio charging, embedding of anti-piracy technology in all PCs, allowing music companies to plant viruses to punish file-sharers this book could not be more timely (well maybe it could have come out a little earlier). I don't agree with all of Lessig's opinions, but I did agree with his overall premise that we are in the middle of vast shift of how intellectual property is controlled and it requires more thought than we are giving it today.
Rating:
Summary: vitally important and well-told!
Review: Lessig explains himself well in this book, and one can sense his presence as he argues a case in the Supreme Court, or explains a subtle point to a classroom, at Harvard previously but now Stanford. He breaks important new ground in this highly readable effort, crucial to anybody who uses their brain and verve to come up with new ideas in business, academia or the arts. Most of us have noticed that the Internet has shifted our paradigm, but few have recognized that the "commons" it has created is subject to threat. Furthermore, the Internet paradigm has not infused other aspects of our connected world, such as content, broadband ( cable especially), radio spectrum or even software. Lessig cites the concentration of corporate powers, working in lockstep with governmental counterparts, as the threat in these arenas, and of course, the Internet itself. Lessig successfully takes on a huge landscape of ideas, and paries his way with drama and flourish to a question of vital importance, while furnishing compelling outlines of answers. We finish the book mulling the full answers and next steps. Lessig's book is essential to artists, scientists, technologists, business people, lawyers and philosophers.
Rating:
Summary: vitally important and well-told!
Review: Lessig explains himself well in this book, and one can sense his presence as he argues a case in the Supreme Court, or explains a subtle point to a classroom, at Harvard previously but now Stanford. He breaks important new ground in this highly readable effort, crucial to anybody who uses their brain and verve to come up with new ideas in business, academia or the arts. Most of us have noticed that the Internet has shifted our paradigm, but few have recognized that the "commons" it has created is subject to threat. Furthermore, the Internet paradigm has not infused other aspects of our connected world, such as content, broadband ( cable especially), radio spectrum or even software. Lessig cites the concentration of corporate powers, working in lockstep with governmental counterparts, as the threat in these arenas, and of course, the Internet itself. Lessig successfully takes on a huge landscape of ideas, and paries his way with drama and flourish to a question of vital importance, while furnishing compelling outlines of answers. We finish the book mulling the full answers and next steps. Lessig's book is essential to artists, scientists, technologists, business people, lawyers and philosophers.
Rating:
Summary: If you value this country's tradition of freedom read this!
Review: Lessig's book is an important account of how the freedom of the internet is being eroded within our country (a country that ironically has always been the protector of freedom, and cherishes that tradition). The book is well written and easily read by non-lawyers, but any lawyer that chooses to not to read this book should be ashamed.
Rating:
Summary: Don't fence us in
Review: Market economies work. Command economies don't. The collapse of the old USSR put the seal of history on that simple truth. The cold war is over, and the good guys won.We are already in the middle of the next war, and Lawrence Lessig is warning us (though he doesn't use exactly these terms) that the good guys are losing badly. We're losing because our entire legislative and judicial apparatus is too busy fighting the last war to notice the new one. The great issue for the 20th century was drawn along classic liberal/conservative lines: should allocation of scarce resources be placed under the control of government or of the market? The great issue for the 21st is: should abundant resources, which have traditionally been allocated to everyone, remain free from control - or should they be placed under the control of "the market"? [The scare quotes are mine, not Lessig's, since he places little emphasis on the fact that the entities gaining control are often not really the market at all, but a handful of corporations with enough monopolistic power to avoid effective market discipline.] The advocates of control against freedom have effectively coopted the *language* of conservatism - "property" and "market" - in order to obscure that the issue is no longer one of government control versus market control, but of control versus freedom. A fair number of conservatives, like Judge Posner and Orrin Hatch, have seen through this ploy, but not enough to form any critical mass. Lessig explores the historical and legal issues brilliantly, always with a view to the question: what mix of corporate controls and personal freedom will maximize creativity and innovation? He examines how the original architecture of the Internet, and the original establishment of copyright and patent law, enforced a level playing field and encouraged innovation. Then, point for point, he exhibits the ways in which lobbies for entrenched industries, fearful of innovation, have gone about dismantling those encouragements. He doesn't see those industries as "evil". They are doing just what they are morally obliged to do - trying to maximize profits for their investors. The problem is the absence of any other voices speaking with equal volume for the public interest. The body of Internet and intellectual property law which has emerged over the last decade or so is almost universally designed to defend the old, and to restrain the new. And it is the interests of "old" vs "new", of "controlled" vs "free", rather than of "government" vs "market", which are now at stake. If this revolutionary expansion of intellectual property rights and equally revolutionary concentration of power over media and communications are allowed to lock in, we stand in danger of losing our dynamism as a society. Lessig offers no shortage of recommendations for future action to preserve our intellectual commons, and open up the field again for innovation. Again and again he thinks well outside the box, seeking balance, crafting proposals that combine the strengths of market and commons. Not all his ideas are going to pan out - but his most important idea is simply that we as a society need to *start thinking* about whether innovation is worth preserving, and how to preserve it. And we need to start thinking fast. There's a lot to absorb in the volume's few pages. To get a broader picture of the tenor of Lessig's ideas, I strongly recommend the earlier reviews by David Rogers and Alex Pang.
Rating:
Summary: Another excellent insight into our digital futur
Review: Nothing short of a best seller, this book will certainly become as popular as "Code and other Laws of Cyberspace". This time, Pr Lessig takes us on a tour of the world of intellectual property law and cyberspace. With great strength, the book induces a profound reflection on what intellectual property should and should not be. One of the major arguments developed throughout the book is that some resources should be free (not as in free beer, but as in free speech) and that such "freedom" is the only way to have innovation. The main example of this theory: the Internet. Build on open code and with open access, the Internet is the perfect example of how the freedom of the resource induces creativity on a large scale. This creativity boom is now threatened by the extension of copyright into the digital world. Attacking strongly what copyright and intellectual property law has become, the author points out that the content industry has, in an effort to protect it's market, defined what we could and what we will be able to do with "our" music. For the copyright lawyers, this book will be an occasion to think about the effects our practice has on everyone's life and liberty. Pr Lessig is right. Several new copyright legislation go to far and procure a level of control over content and use that was never meant to exist. For the non-lawyer, the book is accessible and well written. Pr Lessig makes his case by storytelling and by numerous examples, which should allow a large public to appreciate and understand the nature of the fight between content user and content producer. Get this book ... it's worth every minute of your time !
Rating: 
Summary: The Dangers of Dumbing Down
Review: Prof Lessig's book is provocative and provides a useful trawl through the consequences of commercialising of the dot.commons. That said, the work oversimplifies much of the tensions that emerge from law's patronage of economic interests. It is obvious that economics does not provide an ideal response to the problems of scarcity and incentives. Does or can his solutions (eg limited licenses) resolve attempts to reclaim the commons? To be fair, whilst the work does identify issues which are of importance, it is not adequately supported by a fundamental premise that he adopts. Is it true that in the global commons we do not 'pay' for our roads, parks etc? Tax lawyers will take a different view: even the air we breate is paid for. Another point that is worth noting is that one of the criticisms made of the Internet is that there is information overload. His work does not address this. In the music industry, the employment of copyright and technical measures will mean less music on the Internet. What is wrong with that? Some would say that not having to see the offerings of Disney, Sony etc is progress and frees up the future of ideas!
Rating:
Summary: the digital revolution come and gone
Review: Professor Lessig of the Stanford Law School has written a brilliant and critically important book for all those interested in the future of innovation, not just on the Internet but also in computer software, technology in general, and indeed in the whole of our intellectual environment. Lessig is correctly pessimistic about a recent onslaught of legislation and court decisions designed to unduly protect and enhance the power and control of a handful of dominant players (e.g. Microsoft, AOL, AT&T, Hollywood and other media conglomerates) that have occurred 'under the radar' of general public awareness. Unless the public wakes up soon, we stand to lose a great deal of the promise and innovation of the digital revolution. I won't repeat what has been exceptionally well said by other reviewers of this book below (e.g. David E. Rogers, Robert Steele, Alex Pang, Stephen Laniel, and Ron Dwyer). Read the book and then write your Congressman!
Rating:
Summary: Is there an Information Commons?
Review: Professor Lessig takes a very complex area, how should we value intellectual property in the internet, in publishing and copyright, in bandwidth and in a number of parallel areas, and presents a clear and thoughtful discussion of the consequences of alternative approaches. What will happen to the, as he calls it, information commons, if we continue on the path we have adopted in the last few years on copyright law? What are the benefits and costs of open source and free code movements in the development of software? What are the possible alternatives to distribute bandwidth - from radio frequencies to the internet? Those are some of the issues presented in this book. All of it in an informative and interesting style. This is not a polemic - as some treatments of intellectual property are - but rather a strong case for the efficacy of market based solutions that will offer us both more alternatives and a vibrant set of choices. The only defect I could find in the book was the need to constantly jot down notes - ideas pop out of this book.
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