Answers to Cyberspace Questions
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1. The four crucial areas in which we must make choices regarding the future of cyberspace are (1) intellectual property, (2) privacy, (3) free speech and (4) sovereignty.2. First, Lessig considers the protection of intellectual property rights crucial because Internet technology appears to pose a threat to such rights that the law may not be able to control. In particular, Lessig is concerned with copyright protection, for which he states that the "threat posed by technology is maximal, while the protection promised by law is minimal" (125). Lessig notes, for example, that the traditional legal constraints against copyright violations are not enough to protect copyright on the Internet. He does agree that increased efforts to educate people about copyright and government-funded copyright management software systems are helpful in protecting copyright on the Internet. However, he ultimately argues that protective code will increasingly displace law as the primary defense of intellectual property in cyberspace (126). He also argues that this protection may be more complete than any the law could provide through the use of "trusted systems," which only provide access to copyrighted information to those whose systems only enable them to use it in very specific and agreed-upon ways (129). Second, Lessig considers privacy a crucial area because the Internet makes it much easier to "monitor" and "search" people's private live
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we are willing to accept on our privacy versus our willingness to maintain some level of substantive privacy (146-148).
The choice one must make about free speech on the Internet is whether certain types of speech should be banned (for example, child pornography) or whether certain groups (such as children) should be banned access to otherwise legal speech (such as non-child pornography). The choice is essentially one between labeling and filtering all information or labeling and filtering certain types of users. Lessig votes for the latter, which places less of a burden on the free speech rights of all people (181).
The choices over sovereignty are between varying jurisdictional governments. Although the Internet might have its own rules, it cannot govern itself. Thus, Lessig argues that real-space governments must step in to coordinate and regulate jurisdiction over cyberspace activities (199).
4. The words of the framers of the Constitution do not carry us far enough toward making the necessary choices concerning the regulation and development of cyberspace essentially because cyberspace makes possible activities of which the framers never conceived. Thus, in the case of intellectual property, for example, the framers
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Approximate Word count = 1422
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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