Lawrence Lessig, The Future of Ideas: the Fate of the Commons in a Connected Word
For those reading this book (and I recommend that you do), here is my outline for the first portion of Lawrence Lessig's The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World. (2000). Someone asked me to put it here, so I am. I
1. Chapter One: “Free"
A. In this chapter Lessig examines the Apple slogan, “Rip mix burn. After all, its your music.”
B. He addresses the fact that legally, it’s not "your" music at all.
C. He address the fact that Apple forbids other sorts of digital files, like movies to be ripped mixed and burned. He address the fact that the Apple OS itself cannot be rip mixed and burned legally.
D. Lessig argues that basically, Apple is marketing music as a free resource, when it legally is not. He points out that the “rip mix burn” mentality is significant, because it marks the shift from passive consumer to active producer of one’s own music.
D. Free resources v. controlled resources. (12)
i. Free= available for the taking
ii. Controlled= require permission to take
E. Lessig points out that when he speaks of freedom, he means free as in “freedom of speech”, not “free lunch” (this is Richard Stallman's famous quote.)
i. Lessig concedes that yes, resources cost money to produce, but production is different from consumption. Think of music on the radio, roads you drive on, news we hear about everyday. To access those, you don’t pay up front.
F. "The argument of this book is that always and everywhere, free resources have been crucial to innovation and creativity; that without them creativity is crippled. Thus…the question becomes not whether the govt. or the market should control a resource, but whether that resource should be controlled at all. "(14)
2. Chapter Two: Building Blocks: “Commons and Layers”
A. Lessig defines the commons as a resource held in common. In theory, a resource held in common is “free”. There are two kinds of commons: (20)
i. Rivalrous commons: a system of control is needed to assure the resource is not depleted. Think of a meadow in which sheep are grazing.
ii. Non-rivalrous commons: system of control needed to assure the resource is created. Think about ideas in general.
ii. Tragedy of the commons (22)is what happens when a rivalrous domain gets overrun by selfishness. This is the rationale behind attempts to regulate the Net by media corporations who speak of people stealing their property.
iii. Innovation commons: a place where people may innovate without the permission of anyone else (23)
B. An innovation commons, Lessig argues, is not rivalrous and therefore not subject to tragedy of the commons in the same way a meadow of grass is. Indeed, it may be the reverse—the more people in the commons making innovations, the more “stuff” there is to use.
C. The innovation commons must always be considered in terms of three LAYERS of a network: the physical, the code and the content. (23)
i. Physical layer: the wires, the satellites, the phones, the computers, etc. that makes communication happen. It is the physical “stuff”, which is regulated differently, depending on which sort of stuff we are talking about.
ii. Code layer: the programming that makes the “stuff” run. If the physical layer is the hardware, code is the software.
iii. Content layer: the stuff that is produced for consumption over the network.
3. Chapter 3: Commons on the Wires (Terri’s note: this is the physical layer chapter)
A. In this chapter, Lessig describes the End to End ( e2e) architecture on the Web, in which the "end receivers" are 'smart', while the transmitters are "dumb". Terri's note: think of how "smart" your home computer is compared to the zillions of low end terminals, routers, etc. through which stuff gets transmitted to you over the Net. Lessig says this architecture promotes an information commons for the following reasons:
i. Because they don't require tweaking constantly, e2e networks can adopt to innovations in software introduced to it faster than smart networkers.
ii. Dumb networks wind up being “value neutral platforms” with regard to which software they run. (37)
B. However, there are costs of e2e on the Web, i.e. packet switching doesn’t work optimally for some applications. Hence the Quality of Service advocates, who want to regulate e2e (46)
C. Responses to QoS scenarios:
iv. For QoS: Argument of scarcity (cable companies, etc.) (47)
v. Against QoS:Infinite bandwidth, a la George Gilder (47)
vi. Somewhere in the middle (Lessig)
4. Chapter 4: Commons Among the Wired (Terri’s note: this is the code argument)
A. What is code? Code is written primarily by humans, though the code that humans write (source code) is quite unlike the code that computers run .object code) (50)
B. In the 1960’s, different computers could not speak to one another, and there were a number of attempts to address this:
i. ALGOL
ii. COBOL
iii. UNIX
C. Because UNIX was given away for free, Lessig argues, it was a commons (52)
D. In 1985, AT & T decided UNIX would be proprietary, and Stallman forms Free Software Foundation. Its objective: a commons for code.
E. One of the consequences of “code as commons” is “forking”—what happens when developers wind up taking the code in directions different from its original creators. Richard Stallman was one of the instrumental forkers of UNIX.
F. Alternatives to UNIX
i. Berkely’s BSD
ii. Free Software Foundations’s GNU
ii. GNU/Linux (story on page 54)
G. Other open source projects:
i. “Though the debate about open source…rages…Apache has already done it. “ (56)
ii. Perl
iii. BIND
iv. Sendmail
H. Open source doesn’t happen “naturally” and it doesn’t happen in just one way. Rather, differentiations get codified by law. For instance: (59):
iv. Free code license: you can modify the work as long as you give recipients all the rights you have.” In other words, you can’t improve on something public and then claim it for yourself. (developed as GPL)
v. Open code license: you can modify the work and you can then claim it for yourself.
I. However, freedom with regard to code ONLY works when platforms are free.
i. U.S. v Microsoft (61) and the danger of “strategic code” in DOS and Window.
ii. The govt. alleged that because Microsoft was the only company that permitted access to its source code, “forking” was chilled and thus innovation. (67)
ii. Lessig argues that this is significance because forking is “democracy brought to the level of code.” (68) Terri: I would argue that he really means capitalism brought to the level of code, which is why the Court would be interested in it, vis anti-trust.
J. Open code creates an “inverse rivalrous commons” according to Eric Raymond (67)
i. People are not hostages to bad code—they can invent better
ii. People are not hostages to strategic code—forking helps with this.
5. Chapter Five: Commons, Wire-less (Terri’s note: this is Lessig’s wireless chapter that correlates to Chapter Three)
A. In this chapter, Lessig address growing use of the radio spectuum: between 3 kilohertz and 300 gigahertz
B. Quick history of radio regulation:
i. Titantic gave us radio regulation: Radio Act of 1912 (72)
ii. Radio Act of 1927 insured that spectrum was not a commons (72
iii. In 1946, Supreme Court ruled that govt. control over radio spectrum was necessary because spectrum was a rivalrous resource. He wrote, “there is a fixed number of stations can operate without interfering with one another.” (75)
iv. About the same time, Englishman Ronald Coase argued the opposite: that spectrum was abundant, and it was the market, not government who should control the spectrum Lessig points out BOTH these approaches forbid the spectrum as commons.The question just turns on who controls.
C,. The political architecture of radio’s physical layer:
i. Radio networks were designed almost the opposite as the Internet networks. Where Internet is end to end, with smart end products (home computers) and dumb networked objects (routers), home radios are dumb objects, designed simply to pick up the loudest “smart” frequency in their space. (78)
ii. It is possible to change this scenario: rather than a stream, broadcast radio packets over a wide range of channels, and let “smart receivers” in radios assemble them into sensible broadcasts. Basically, Lessig points out, its “the Internet sans wires”
iii. Heddy Lamar’s work with submarines is an early example of this sort of thing. (79)
D. Experiments with changing things on the radio: using “wideband” and “spread spectrum” technologies, as they are called. (pp 80-81)
i. David Huges’s work in rural US communities
ii. Hendrick’s work in Tonga
iii. Bluetooth technologies
iv. Airport technologies
v. Charmed Technologies and wearables
E. Lessig points out that radio commons argument he makes is for what should be, rather than what currently is. Right now radio is still viewed as a scarce resource and spread spectrum is not a legal reality in the U.S.
F. Still, what would such a commons look like? Lessig argues that there will be room and need for regulation, but very different from what controls there are now. For instance, just as the FCC now insures that computers on planes don’t interfere with radio frequencies, they would similarly regulate the wide spectrum of wireless.
i. Terri: Think more in terms of “who can drive what on the highway” as opposed to “only certain people’s cars can go through.” (83)
G. Lessig closes by emphasizing that lots of commercial interests want the government to get out of the business of controlling radio spectrum, but that the much more contentious (yet potentially important, from democratic standpoint) issue is liberating spectrum from control of the market. (84)
6. Chapter 6: Commons Lessons
A. What is so important about keeping something open as a commons? Lessig uses the example of the road: a road gains value because it is open.
B. Capitalist arguments for commons:
i. Where we have little understanding about how a resource will be used, we have more reason to keep that resource in the commons (88). In network theory, this is called “real options” theory: (89)
ii. When a commons is closed “disruptive technologies” become impossible to locate and capitalize upon. (91)
iii. Modularity liberates control resources (92)
C. Democratic arguments for commons
i. When a resource becomes foundational to participation in a society, then we assume that it remains in the commons. The right to vote is a foundational resource in our society; we don’t allow it to be bought or sold. Access to the roads or highways is central to social freedom; we don’t auction off such aaccess and thereby restrict the right to travel. (93)
D. Lessig points out that he isn’t arguing for a world with only a commons, and that the Internet links seamlessly with networks that are completely private. “A world with open wire radio spectrum is perfectly consistent with a world where people exclusive cable lines are reserved for those who pay.: (94)
E. Lessig points out that a system of control that we erect for rivlarous resources (land, cars, computers) is not necessarily appropriate for nonrivalrous resoucrs (ideas, music, expression.) Indeed the same system for both kinds of resources do REAL HARM. One size won’t fit all (95) What’s more, even for nonrivalrous resources, though, some kind of control will probably be needed.
1. Chapter One: “Free"
A. In this chapter Lessig examines the Apple slogan, “Rip mix burn. After all, its your music.”
B. He addresses the fact that legally, it’s not "your" music at all.
C. He address the fact that Apple forbids other sorts of digital files, like movies to be ripped mixed and burned. He address the fact that the Apple OS itself cannot be rip mixed and burned legally.
D. Lessig argues that basically, Apple is marketing music as a free resource, when it legally is not. He points out that the “rip mix burn” mentality is significant, because it marks the shift from passive consumer to active producer of one’s own music.
D. Free resources v. controlled resources. (12)
i. Free= available for the taking
ii. Controlled= require permission to take
E. Lessig points out that when he speaks of freedom, he means free as in “freedom of speech”, not “free lunch” (this is Richard Stallman's famous quote.)
i. Lessig concedes that yes, resources cost money to produce, but production is different from consumption. Think of music on the radio, roads you drive on, news we hear about everyday. To access those, you don’t pay up front.
F. "The argument of this book is that always and everywhere, free resources have been crucial to innovation and creativity; that without them creativity is crippled. Thus…the question becomes not whether the govt. or the market should control a resource, but whether that resource should be controlled at all. "(14)
2. Chapter Two: Building Blocks: “Commons and Layers”
A. Lessig defines the commons as a resource held in common. In theory, a resource held in common is “free”. There are two kinds of commons: (20)
i. Rivalrous commons: a system of control is needed to assure the resource is not depleted. Think of a meadow in which sheep are grazing.
ii. Non-rivalrous commons: system of control needed to assure the resource is created. Think about ideas in general.
ii. Tragedy of the commons (22)is what happens when a rivalrous domain gets overrun by selfishness. This is the rationale behind attempts to regulate the Net by media corporations who speak of people stealing their property.
iii. Innovation commons: a place where people may innovate without the permission of anyone else (23)
B. An innovation commons, Lessig argues, is not rivalrous and therefore not subject to tragedy of the commons in the same way a meadow of grass is. Indeed, it may be the reverse—the more people in the commons making innovations, the more “stuff” there is to use.
C. The innovation commons must always be considered in terms of three LAYERS of a network: the physical, the code and the content. (23)
i. Physical layer: the wires, the satellites, the phones, the computers, etc. that makes communication happen. It is the physical “stuff”, which is regulated differently, depending on which sort of stuff we are talking about.
ii. Code layer: the programming that makes the “stuff” run. If the physical layer is the hardware, code is the software.
iii. Content layer: the stuff that is produced for consumption over the network.
3. Chapter 3: Commons on the Wires (Terri’s note: this is the physical layer chapter)
A. In this chapter, Lessig describes the End to End ( e2e) architecture on the Web, in which the "end receivers" are 'smart', while the transmitters are "dumb". Terri's note: think of how "smart" your home computer is compared to the zillions of low end terminals, routers, etc. through which stuff gets transmitted to you over the Net. Lessig says this architecture promotes an information commons for the following reasons:
i. Because they don't require tweaking constantly, e2e networks can adopt to innovations in software introduced to it faster than smart networkers.
ii. Dumb networks wind up being “value neutral platforms” with regard to which software they run. (37)
B. However, there are costs of e2e on the Web, i.e. packet switching doesn’t work optimally for some applications. Hence the Quality of Service advocates, who want to regulate e2e (46)
C. Responses to QoS scenarios:
iv. For QoS: Argument of scarcity (cable companies, etc.) (47)
v. Against QoS:Infinite bandwidth, a la George Gilder (47)
vi. Somewhere in the middle (Lessig)
4. Chapter 4: Commons Among the Wired (Terri’s note: this is the code argument)
A. What is code? Code is written primarily by humans, though the code that humans write (source code) is quite unlike the code that computers run .object code) (50)
B. In the 1960’s, different computers could not speak to one another, and there were a number of attempts to address this:
i. ALGOL
ii. COBOL
iii. UNIX
C. Because UNIX was given away for free, Lessig argues, it was a commons (52)
D. In 1985, AT & T decided UNIX would be proprietary, and Stallman forms Free Software Foundation. Its objective: a commons for code.
E. One of the consequences of “code as commons” is “forking”—what happens when developers wind up taking the code in directions different from its original creators. Richard Stallman was one of the instrumental forkers of UNIX.
F. Alternatives to UNIX
i. Berkely’s BSD
ii. Free Software Foundations’s GNU
ii. GNU/Linux (story on page 54)
G. Other open source projects:
i. “Though the debate about open source…rages…Apache has already done it. “ (56)
ii. Perl
iii. BIND
iv. Sendmail
H. Open source doesn’t happen “naturally” and it doesn’t happen in just one way. Rather, differentiations get codified by law. For instance: (59):
iv. Free code license: you can modify the work as long as you give recipients all the rights you have.” In other words, you can’t improve on something public and then claim it for yourself. (developed as GPL)
v. Open code license: you can modify the work and you can then claim it for yourself.
I. However, freedom with regard to code ONLY works when platforms are free.
i. U.S. v Microsoft (61) and the danger of “strategic code” in DOS and Window.
ii. The govt. alleged that because Microsoft was the only company that permitted access to its source code, “forking” was chilled and thus innovation. (67)
ii. Lessig argues that this is significance because forking is “democracy brought to the level of code.” (68) Terri: I would argue that he really means capitalism brought to the level of code, which is why the Court would be interested in it, vis anti-trust.
J. Open code creates an “inverse rivalrous commons” according to Eric Raymond (67)
i. People are not hostages to bad code—they can invent better
ii. People are not hostages to strategic code—forking helps with this.
5. Chapter Five: Commons, Wire-less (Terri’s note: this is Lessig’s wireless chapter that correlates to Chapter Three)
A. In this chapter, Lessig address growing use of the radio spectuum: between 3 kilohertz and 300 gigahertz
B. Quick history of radio regulation:
i. Titantic gave us radio regulation: Radio Act of 1912 (72)
ii. Radio Act of 1927 insured that spectrum was not a commons (72
iii. In 1946, Supreme Court ruled that govt. control over radio spectrum was necessary because spectrum was a rivalrous resource. He wrote, “there is a fixed number of stations can operate without interfering with one another.” (75)
iv. About the same time, Englishman Ronald Coase argued the opposite: that spectrum was abundant, and it was the market, not government who should control the spectrum Lessig points out BOTH these approaches forbid the spectrum as commons.The question just turns on who controls.
C,. The political architecture of radio’s physical layer:
i. Radio networks were designed almost the opposite as the Internet networks. Where Internet is end to end, with smart end products (home computers) and dumb networked objects (routers), home radios are dumb objects, designed simply to pick up the loudest “smart” frequency in their space. (78)
ii. It is possible to change this scenario: rather than a stream, broadcast radio packets over a wide range of channels, and let “smart receivers” in radios assemble them into sensible broadcasts. Basically, Lessig points out, its “the Internet sans wires”
iii. Heddy Lamar’s work with submarines is an early example of this sort of thing. (79)
D. Experiments with changing things on the radio: using “wideband” and “spread spectrum” technologies, as they are called. (pp 80-81)
i. David Huges’s work in rural US communities
ii. Hendrick’s work in Tonga
iii. Bluetooth technologies
iv. Airport technologies
v. Charmed Technologies and wearables
E. Lessig points out that radio commons argument he makes is for what should be, rather than what currently is. Right now radio is still viewed as a scarce resource and spread spectrum is not a legal reality in the U.S.
F. Still, what would such a commons look like? Lessig argues that there will be room and need for regulation, but very different from what controls there are now. For instance, just as the FCC now insures that computers on planes don’t interfere with radio frequencies, they would similarly regulate the wide spectrum of wireless.
i. Terri: Think more in terms of “who can drive what on the highway” as opposed to “only certain people’s cars can go through.” (83)
G. Lessig closes by emphasizing that lots of commercial interests want the government to get out of the business of controlling radio spectrum, but that the much more contentious (yet potentially important, from democratic standpoint) issue is liberating spectrum from control of the market. (84)
6. Chapter 6: Commons Lessons
A. What is so important about keeping something open as a commons? Lessig uses the example of the road: a road gains value because it is open.
B. Capitalist arguments for commons:
i. Where we have little understanding about how a resource will be used, we have more reason to keep that resource in the commons (88). In network theory, this is called “real options” theory: (89)
ii. When a commons is closed “disruptive technologies” become impossible to locate and capitalize upon. (91)
iii. Modularity liberates control resources (92)
C. Democratic arguments for commons
i. When a resource becomes foundational to participation in a society, then we assume that it remains in the commons. The right to vote is a foundational resource in our society; we don’t allow it to be bought or sold. Access to the roads or highways is central to social freedom; we don’t auction off such aaccess and thereby restrict the right to travel. (93)
D. Lessig points out that he isn’t arguing for a world with only a commons, and that the Internet links seamlessly with networks that are completely private. “A world with open wire radio spectrum is perfectly consistent with a world where people exclusive cable lines are reserved for those who pay.: (94)
E. Lessig points out that a system of control that we erect for rivlarous resources (land, cars, computers) is not necessarily appropriate for nonrivalrous resoucrs (ideas, music, expression.) Indeed the same system for both kinds of resources do REAL HARM. One size won’t fit all (95) What’s more, even for nonrivalrous resources, though, some kind of control will probably be needed.