mdst_110 / 2007_fall / week_7


the dedication to lawrence lessig's code 2.0 reads as follows:
"to wikipedia, the one suprise that teaches more than everything here"



agenda

keywords

biometrics; cookies; creative commons; cyberspace; cybernetics; gnu; free software foundation; icann; meme; mmorpg; rivalrous and nonrivalrous goods; packets; packet-switching; spam; sovereignty; tcp/ip


questions from lecture

1. which creative commons license would you be inclined to use for an original work of your own making?
2. how valuable is the creative commons license in a society where copyright tends to be manipulated by large corporations?
3. does creative commons licensing provide enough of a gray area between absolute restriction (copyright) and absolute freedom? do you think (cc) should be used as an addendum to or a replacement for absolute copyright?

questions from readings

lawrence lessig, code 2.0

1. why does lessig's website for code 2.0 have a .cc domain name?
2. with cyberspace being composed only of code, software, and hardware, is it in the nature of cyberspace to be regulated or unregulated? why or why not?
3. how do you feel the architecture of cyberspace should be designed? what freedoms should that design guarantee? what type of code should govern cyberspace, and who should control it if anybody?
4. lessig claims that at its inception the internet allowed for "freedom without anarchy, control without government, consensus without power," but it is now moving towards a cyberspace of control. can we still see these features in today’s internet? and moreover, are they fundamental qualities of cyberspace?
5. how is the concept of "code as law" problematic in terms of the international/universal nature of the internet? can code be internationally standardized? does it need to be? can code truly act as law in cyberspace, or is it necessary for law to dictate code?
6. at the moment, do you think that the internet is overregulated or underregulated?
7. lessig quotes former new york times columnist j.c. herz to the effect that the internet "doesn't physically exist." would you agree or disagree?
8. lessig: "left to itself, cyberspace will become a perfect tool of control" (4). scared yet? anyone long for the good old "cyberspace of anarchy" (5) days?
9. do you understand lessig's distinction between the internet and cyberspace? how much time do you spend in the latter?
10. of jake baker, lessig writes: "on the Net he was someone else" (19) does this seem right to you?
11. james boyle asks: "is freedom inversely related to the efficiency of the available means of surveillance?" (22) what do you think?
12. lessig: "code can, and increasingly will, displace law as the primary defense of intelectual property in cyberspace" (175). think so?
13. how do you feel about the "unbundling of rights" (178)?
14. per judge richard posner: "[m]achine collection and processing of data cannot, as such, invade privacy" (210)? agree or disagree?
15. how best to regulate porn vis-a-vis minors? do you think lessig's "h2m" (253) tag makes sense?
16. how best to regulate the digital distribution of nazi paraphernalia, if at all?
17. lessig: "cyberspace is a place. people live there" (298). true or false?
18. how will john perry barlow's eff "declaration of the independence of cyberspace" look in fifty years? prophetic or naive?
19. is google "doing evil" by censoring what appears on google.cn?
20. how does the cyberspace belief that "code is law" distinguish that code manages internet technologies in a powerful and invisible form?