''Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace'' is a 1999 book by

Lawrence Lessig Lester Lawrence Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard ...

on the structure and nature of regulation of the Internet.

Summary

The primary idea of the book, as expressed in the title, is the notion that

computer code A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These pr ...

(or "West Coast Code", referring to

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Coun ...

) regulates conduct in much the same way that

legal code A code of law, also called a law code or legal code, is a systematic collection of statutes. It is a type of legislation that purports to exhaustively cover a complete system of laws or a particular area of law as it existed at the time the cod ...

(or "East Coast Code", referring to

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

) does. More generally, Lessig argues that there are actually four major regulators (Law, Norms, Market, Architecture) each of which has a profound impact on society and whose implications must be considered (sometimes called the "

pathetic dot theory The pathetic dot theory or the New Chicago School theory was introduced by Lawrence Lessig in a 1998 article and popularized in his 1999 book, '' Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace''. It is a socioeconomic theory of regulation. It discusses how l ...

", after the "dot" that is constrained by these regulators.) The book includes a discussion of the implications for

copyright law A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

, arguing that cyberspace changes not only the technology of copying but also the power of law to protect against illegal copying. It goes so far as to argue that code displaces the balance in copyright law and doctrines such as fair use. If it becomes possible to license every aspect of use (by means of trusted systems created by code), no aspect of use would have the protection of

fair use Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests ...

. The importance of this side of the story is generally underestimated and, as the examples in the book show, very often, code is even (only) considered as an extra ''tool'' to fight against "unlimited copying."

Other books

'' The Future of Ideas'' is a continuation of ''Code's'' analysis of copyright, where Lessig argues that too much long term copyright protection hampers the creation of new ideas based on existing works, and advocates the importance of existing works entering the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

quickly.

Revision

In March 2005, Lessig launched th
Code V.2 Wiki
to update the book with current information, which he then adapted into a second edition of the book, '' Code: Version 2.0'', in 2006.

Influence

The book has been widely cited, and Lessig has repeatedly achieved top places on lists of most-cited law school faculty. It has been called "the most influential book to date about law and cyberspace", "seminal", and in a critical essay on the book's 10th anniversary, author

Declan McCullagh Declan McCullagh is an American entrepreneur, journalist, and software engineer. He is the CEO and co-founder, with computer scientist Celine Bursztein, of Recent Media Inc., a startup in Silicon Valley that has built a recommendation engine and ...

(subject of the chapter "What Declan Doesn't Get") said it was "difficult to overstate the influence" of the book.

References

{{Lawrence Lessig 1999 non-fiction books Books about the Internet Works about intellectual property law Copyright law literature Books by Lawrence Lessig

Summary

Other books

Revision

Influence

See also

References