I am pleased to announce the release of my latest book, “Permissionless Innovation: The Continuing Case for Comprehensive Technological Freedom.” It’s a short manifesto (just under 100 pages) that condenses — and attempts to make more accessible — arguments that I have developed in various law review articles, working papers, and blog posts over the past few years. I have two goals with this book.

First, I attempt to show how the central fault line in almost all modern technology policy debates revolves around “the permission question,” which asks: Must the creators of new technologies seek the blessing of public officials before they develop and deploy their innovations? How that question is answered depends on the disposition one adopts toward new inventions. Two conflicting attitudes are evident.

One disposition is known as the “precautionary principle.” Generally speaking, it refers to the belief that new innovations should be curtailed or disallowed until their developers can prove that they will not cause any harms to individuals, groups, specific entities, cultural norms, or various existing laws, norms, or traditions.

The other vision can be labeled “permissionless innovation.” It refers to the notion that experimentation with new technologies and business models should generally be permitted by default. Unless a compelling case can be made that a new invention will bring serious harm to society, innovation should be allowed to continue unabated and problems, if they develop at all, can be addressed later.

I argue that we are witnessing a grand clash of visions between these two mindsets today in almost all major technology policy discussions today.

The second major objective of the book, as is made clear by the title, is to make a forceful case in favor of the latter disposition of “permissionless innovation.” I argue that policymakers should unapologetically embrace and defend the permissionless innovation ethos — not just for the Internet but also for all new classes of networked technologies and platforms. Some of the specific case studies discussed in the book include: the “Internet of Things” and wearable technologies, smart cars and autonomous vehicles, commercial drones, 3D printing, and various other new technologies that are just now emerging.

I explain how precautionary principle thinking is increasingly creeping into policy discussions about these technologies. The urge to regulate preemptively in these sectors is driven by a variety of safety, security, and privacy concerns, which are discussed throughout the book. Many of these concerns are valid and deserve serious consideration. However, I argue that if precautionary-minded regulatory solutions are adopted in a preemptive attempt to head-off these concerns, the consequences will be profoundly deleterious.

The central lesson of the booklet is this: Living in constant fear of hypothetical worst-case scenarios — and premising public policy upon them — means that best-case scenarios will never come about. When public policy is shaped by precautionary principle reasoning, it poses a serious threat to technological progress, economic entrepreneurialism, social adaptation, and long-run prosperity.

Again, that doesn’t mean we should ignore the various problems created by these highly disruptive technologies. But how we address these concerns matters greatly. If and when problems develop, there are many less burdensome ways to address them than through preemptive technological controls. The best solutions to complex social problems are almost always organic and “bottom-up” in nature. Luckily, there exists a wide variety of constructive approaches that can be tapped to address or alleviate concerns associated with new innovations. These include:

• education and empowerment efforts (including media literacy, digital citizenship efforts);
• social pressure from activists, academics, and the press and the public more generally.
• voluntary self-regulation and adoption of best practices (including privacy and security “by design” efforts); and,
• increased transparency and awareness-building efforts to enhance consumer knowledge about how new technologies work.

Such solutions are almost always superior to top-down, command-and-control regulatory edits and bureaucratic schemes of a “Mother, May I?” (i.e., permissioned) nature. The problem with “top-down” traditional regulatory systems is that they often tend to be overly-rigid, bureaucratic, inflexible, and slow to adapt to new realities. They focus on preemptive remedies that aim to predict the future, and future hypothetical problems that may not ever come about. Worse yet, administrative regulation generally preempts or prohibits the beneficial experiments that yield new and better ways of doing things. It raises the cost of starting or running a business or non-business venture, and generally discourages activities that benefit society.

To the extent that other public policies are needed to guide technological developments, simple legal principles are greatly preferable to technology-specific, micro-managed regulatory regimes. Again, ex ante (preemptive and precautionary) regulation is often highly inefficient, even dangerous. To the extent that any corrective legal action is needed to address harms, ex post measures, especially via the common law (torts, class actions, etc.), are typically superior. And the Federal Trade Commission will, of course, continue to play a backstop here by utilizing the broad consumer protection powers it possesses under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which prohibits “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.” In recent years, the FTC has already brought and settled many cases involving its Section 5 authority to address identity theft and data security matters. If still more is needed, enhanced disclosure and transparency requirements would certainly be superior to outright bans on new forms of experimentation or other forms of heavy-handed technological controls.

In the end, however, I argue that, to the maximum extent possible, our default position toward new forms of technological innovation must remain: “innovation allowed.” That is especially the case because, more often than not, citizens find ways to adapt to technological change by employing a variety of coping mechanisms, new norms, or other creative fixes. We should have a little more faith in the ability of humanity to adapt to the challenges new innovations create for our culture and economy. We have done it countless times before. We are creative, resilient creatures. That’s why I remain so optimistic about our collective ability to confront the challenges posed by these new technologies and prosper in the process.

If you’re interested in taking a look, you can find a free PDF of the book at the Mercatus Center website or you can find out how to order it from there as an eBook. Hardcopies are also available. I’ll be doing more blogging about the book in coming weeks and months. The debate between the “permissionless innovation” and “precautionary principle” worldviews is just getting started and it promises to touch every tech policy debate going forward.

Related Essays :

• “The Growing Conflict of Visions over the Internet of Things & Privacy,” Technology Liberation Front, January 14, 2014.
• “CES 2014 Report: The Internet of Things Arrives, but Will Washington Welcome It?” Technology Liberation Front, January 8, 2014.
• “Who Really Believes in ‘Permissionless Innovation’?” Technology Liberation Front, March 4, 2013.
• “What Does It Mean to ‘Have a Conversation’ about a New Technology?” Technology Liberation Front, May 23, 2013.
• “On the Line between Technology Ethics vs. Technology Policy,” Technology Liberation Front, August 1, 2013.
• “Planning for Hypothetical Horribles in Tech Policy Debates,” Technology Liberation Front, August 6, 2013.
• “Edith Ramirez’s ‘Big Data’ Speech: Privacy Concerns Prompt Precautionary Principle Thinking,” Technology Liberation Front, August 29, 2013.
• “When It Comes to Information Control, Everybody Has a Pet Issue & Everyone Will Be Disappointed,” Technology Liberation Front, April 29, 2011.
• “Copyright, Privacy, Property Rights & Information Control: Common Themes, Common Challenges,” Technology Liberation Front, April 10, 2012.
• “Can We Adapt to the Internet of Things?” IAPP Privacy Perspectives, June 19, 2013.
• “Why Do We Always Sell the Next Generation Short?” Forbes, January 8, 2012.
• “The Six Things That Drive ‘Technopanics,’” Forbes, March 4, 2012.

Sherwin Siy, Vice President of Legal Affairs at Public Knowledge, discusses emerging issues in digital copyright policy. He addresses the Department of Commerce’s recent green paper on digital copyright, including the need to reform copyright laws in light of new technologies. This podcast also covers the DMCA, online streaming, piracy, cell phone unlocking, fair use recognition, digital ownership, and what we’ve learned about copyright policy from the SOPA debate.

Download

Related Links

• Sherwin Siy, Public Knowledge
• What the DMCA cell phone unlock ban means to you, Reardon
• Why The Library Of Congress Has A Lock On Your Phone, Henn

Jane Yakowitz Bambauer, associate professor of law at the University of Arizona, discusses her forthcoming paper in the Stanford Law Review titled Is Data Speech? How do we define “data” and can it be protected in the same way as free speech? She examines current privacy laws and regulations as they pertain to data creation and collection, including whether collecting data should be protected under the First Amendment.

Download

Related Links

• Jane Bambauer Faculty Profile, University of Arizona
• Is Data Speech?, Bambauer, Stanford Law Review, Forthcoming
• Tragedy of the Data Commons, Bambauer, Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, 2011

Richard Brandt, technology journalist and author, discusses his new book, One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.Com. Brandt discusses Bezos’ entrepreneurial drive, his business philosophy, and how he’s grown Amazon to become the biggest retailer in the world. This episode also covers the biggest mistake Bezos ever made, how Amazon uses patent laws to its advantage, whether Amazon will soon become a publishing house, Bezos’ idea for privately-funded space exploration and his plan to revolutionize technology with quantum computing.

Download

Related Links

• One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com, Brandt
• History of Google/About Google, Brandt
• Five minutes with Richard Brandt, Author of One Click, Ennyman

In my last post, I discussed an outstanding new paper from Ronald Cass on “Antitrust for High-Tech and Low: Regulation, Innovation, and Risk .” As I noted, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever read about the relationship between antitrust regulation and the modern information economy. That got me thinking about what other papers on this topic that I might recommend to others. So, for what it’s worth, here are the 12 papers that have most influenced my own thinking on the issue. (If you have other suggestions for what belongs on the list, let me know. No reason to keep it limited to just 12.)

1. J. Gregory Sidak & David J. Teece, “Dynamic Competition in Antitrust Law,” 5 Journal of Competition Law & Economics (2009).
2. Geoffrey A. Manne &  Joshua D. Wright, “Innovation and the Limits of Antitrust,” 6 Journal of Competition Law & Economics, (2010): 153
3. Joshua D. Wright, “Antitrust, Multi-Dimensional Competition, and Innovation: Do We Have an Antitrust-Relevant Theory of Competition Now?” (August 2009).
4. Daniel F. Spulber, “Unlocking Technology: Antitrust and Innovation,” 4(4) Journal of Competition Law & Economics, (2008): 915.
5. Ronald Cass, “Antitrust for High-Tech and Low: Regulation, Innovation, and Risk ,” 9(2) Journal of Law, Economics and Policy, Forthcoming (Spring 2012)
6. Richard Posner, “Antitrust in the New Economy,” 68 Antitrust Law Journal, (2001).
7. Stan J. Liebowitz & Stephen E. Margolis,”Path Dependence, Lock-in, and History,” 11(1) Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, (April 1995): 205-26.
8. Robert Crandall and Charles Jackson, “Antitrust in High-Tech Industries,” Technology Policy Institute (December 2010).
9. Bruce Owen, “Antitrust and Vertical Integration in ‘New Economy’ Industries,” Technology Policy Institute (November 2010).
10. Douglas H. Ginsburg & Joshua D. Wright, “Dynamic Analysis and the Limits of Antitrust Institutions,” 78 (1) Antitrust Law Journal (2012): 1-21.
11. Thomas Hazlett, David Teece, Leonard Waverman, “Walled Garden Rivalry: The Creation of Mobile Network Ecosystems,” George Mason University Law and Economics Research Paper Series, (November 21, 2011), No. 11-50.
12. David S. Evans, “The Antitrust Economics of Two Sided Markets.”

It’s time again to look back at the major cyberlaw and information tech policy books of the year. I’ve decided to drop the top 10 list approach I’ve used in past years (see 2008, 2009, 2010) and just use a more thematic listing of major titles released in 2011.  This thematic approach gets me out of hot water since I have found that people take numeric lists very seriously, especially when they are the author of one of the books and their title isn’t #1 on the list! Nonetheless, at the end, I will name what I regard as the most important Net policy book of the year.

I hope I’ve included all the major titles released during the year, but I ask readers to please let me know what I have missed that belongs on this list. I want this to be a useful resource to future scholars and students in the field. [Reminder: Here’s my compilation of major Internet policy books from the past decade.] Where relevant, I’ve added links to my reviews as well as discussions with the authors that Jerry Brito conducted as part of his “Surprisingly Free” podcast series. Finally, as always, I apologize to international readers for the somewhat U.S.-centric focus of this list.

Internet Freedom / General Net Regulation & Governance

Online freedom was a major theme in the field of information technology policy in 2011, especially with the continuing hullabaloo over Wikileaks as well as the various protest movements worldwide that tapped social media and mobile technologies to organize and protest. Increased government regulation and/or crackdowns often followed. Several books dealt with these issues. Morozov’s Net Delusion was one big wet blanket to the whole “Net-changes-everything” movement, but it went much too far as I noted in my lengthy review. Sifry’s book was a short manifesto making the opposite case.  Access Contested — the third edition in a series from the same authors — was another indispensable resource for Net researchers exploring censorship trends worldwide, with a particular focus on Asian countries in this latest edition. Finally, the Szoka & Marcus tome was an amazing collection of over 30 essays from a diverse group of scholars on a staggering array of topics. It was a great honor for me to contribute two chapters to the volume. I cannot recommend it highly enough—and it’s free!

• Evgeny Morozov – The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom [my review] [podcast]
• Micah Sifry – WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency [podcast]
• Ronald J. Deibert, John G. Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski and Jonathan Zittrain – Access Contested: Security, Identity, and Resistance in Asian Cyberspace
• Eddan Katz & Ramesh Subramanian (Eds.) –The Global Flow of Information: Legal, Social, and Cultural Perspectives
• Berin Szoka & Adam Marcus (eds.) – The Next Digital Decade: Essays on the Future of the Internet
• Becky Hogge – Barefoot into Cyberspace: Adventures in Search of Techno-Utopia
• Laura DeNardis – Opening Standards: The Global Politics of Interoperability
• Chris Marsden – Internet Co-Regulation: European Law, Regulatory Governance and Legitimacy in Cyberspace
• Philip Howard – The Digital Origins of Dictatorships and Democracy: Information Technology and Political Islam
• Virginia Eubanks  – Digital Dead End: Fighting for Social Justice in the Information Age

Privacy, Security & Safety

Privacy policy and government surveillance issues have been the dominant cyberlaw policy issues of 2011, so it is unsurprising that we are starting to see more major publications in this arena. Jarvis’s book, in particular, generated intense debate and certainly represented one of the most important titles of the year. The Offensive Internet was a hugely important collection of essays since it represented the most forceful attack on the Net and freedom of speech to date. It was practically a jihad against Section 230 and online anonymity. I found it hugely troubling. The two primers on privacy listed below (by Solove & Schwartz and by Craig & Ludloff) were terrifically helpful, accessible booklets. I highly recommend students pick both of them up.

• Saul Levmore and Martha C. Nussbaum (eds.) – The Offensive Internet: Speech, Privacy & Reputation
• Jeff Jarvis – Public Parts [my review]
• Daniel Solove – Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff between Privacy and Security [podcast]
• Susan Landau – Surveillance or Security? The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies
• Daniel Solove & Paul M. Schwartz – Privacy Law Fundamentals
• Terence Craig and Mary Ludloff  – Privacy & Big Data
• Frederick Lane – Cybertraps for the Young

Net Pessimism / Google-phobia / Copyright

Sorry for the extremely broad grouping here, but what ties these last few titles together is a general gloominess about the Internet and what it is doing to culture, learning, dialog, or particular ways of doing business. It’s a common theme in Net policy book these days, as I have noted here before.  I found the Pariser and Vaidhyanathan books to be extremely problematic [read my reviews]. Levine’s Free Ride and Patry’s How to Fix Copyright were the major online copyright policy books this year. Levine’s book offered an outstanding history of the modern copyright wars, but I couldn’t agree with most of his recommendations. Cleland’s book was less notable for its Google-bashing than the fact it represented the beginning of an articulation of a philosophy of cyber-conservatism. Brockman’s compendium of short essays on the Net’s impact on us was a real hodge-podge of views, not all of which were pessimistic.

• Eli Pariser – The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You [my review]
• Siva Vaidhyanathan – The Googlization of Everything, and Why We Should Worry [my review] [podcast]
• John Brockman (ed.) –  Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? The Net’s Impact on Our Minds and Future
• Sherry Turkle – Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
• Scott Cleland – Search & Destroy: Why You Can’t Trust Google Inc.  [my review]
• Robert Levine – Free Ride: How the Internet is Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business can Fight Back
• William Patry – How to Fix Copyright

Net Policy Book of the Year

So, what was the most important info-tech policy book of 2011? I’d say it was Evgeny Morozov’s Net Delusion. As I noted in previous end-of-year compendiums, I regard an “important” info-tech policy book as a title that many people are currently discussing and that we will likely be debating and referencing for many years to come.  In other words, it’s a book that creates a sustained buzz.  Net Delusion has certainly accomplished that in major way and Morozov’s relentless policy writing and Twitter ramblings kept him near the center of many Net policy debates in 2011.

That doesn’t mean I agree with everything in the book, or Evgeny’s style, for that matter. His Tweetstream, like many portions of his book, often drips with relentless, caustic snark-casm. I enjoy that in small doses — hell, I’ve used it myself on occasion here and on Twitter! — but it gets tiresome when dished out endlessly and with the volume turned up to 11. More generally, as I noted above, not only do I think he ultimately fails to prove his thesis but the book is riddled with contradictions regarding the proper disposition of governments and corporations toward the Net and online freedom. Morozov is great at tearing down the grandiose, cyber-utopian visions and visionaries, but he’s far less effective at suggesting a coherent alternative vision.

Nonetheless, the importance of Morozov’s work cannot be denied. He’s opened a new front in the intellectual battle over the role of the Net in various political movements and causes. He aims to spearhead what we might think of as the “realist” movement that counters the more “idealist” (he would say “utopian”) approach, which already has many adherents in global Net policy debates. Morozov has opened the door to more skeptical thinking in this regard. Many others are now likely to follow in his footsteps, and when they do, they will all cite back to The Net Delusion. Likewise, the idealists will now be forced to respond to Morozov in any future tracts. Thus, we’ll be discussing and debating the themes in The Net Delusion for many years to come. That’s why it is the most important Net policy book of 2011.

When it comes to technology policy, I’m usually a fairly optimistic guy.  But when it comes to technology politics, well, I have my grumpier moments. I had at particularly grumpy moment earlier this summer when I was sitting at a hearing listening to a bunch of high-tech companies bash each other’s brains in and basically calling for lawmakers to throw everyone else under the regulatory bus except for them.  Instead of heeding Ben Franklin’s sound old advice that “We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately,” it’s increasingly clear that high-tech America seems determined to just try to hang each other. It’d be one thing if that heated competition was all taking place in the marketplace, but, increasingly, more and more of it is taking place inside the Beltway with regulation instead of innovation being the weapon of choice.

That episode made me think back to the outstanding 2000 manifesto penned by T. J. Rodgers, president and CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, “Why Silicon Valley Should Not Normalize Relations with Washington, D.C.”  I went back and re-read it upon the 10th anniversary of its publication by the Cato Institute and, sadly, came to realize that just about everything Rodgers had feared and predicted had come true.  Rodgers had attempted to preemptively discourage high-tech companies from an excessive “normalization” of relations with the parasitic culture that dominates Washington by reminding them what Washington giveth it can also taketh away. “The political scene in Washington is antithetical to the core values that drive our success in the international marketplace and risks converting entrepreneurs into statist businessmen,” he warned a decade ago. “The collectivist notion that drives policymaking in Washington is the irrevocable enemy of high-technology capitalism and the wealth creation process.”  And he reminded his fellow capitalists “that free minds and free markets are the moral foundation that has made our success possible.  We must never allow those freedoms to be diminished for any reason.”

Alas, as I point out in my new Cato Policy Report essay “The Sad State of Cyber-Politics,” no one listened to Rodgers.  Indeed, Rodgers’s dystopian vision of a highly politicized digital future has taken just a decade to become reality. The high-tech policy scene within the Beltway has become a cesspool of backstabbing politics, hypocritical policy positions, shameful PR tactics, and bloated lobbying budgets. I go on in the article to itemize a litany of examples of how high-tech America appears determined to fall prey to what Milton Friedman once called “The Business Community’s Suicidal Impulse“: the persistent propensity to persecute one’s competitors using regulation or the threat thereof.

It’s a sad tale that doesn’t make for enjoyable reading, but I do try to end the essay on an upbeat (if somewhat naive) note. If you are interested, you can find the plain text version on the Cato website here and I’ve embedded the PDF of the publication down below in a Scribd Reader.

Sad State of Cyber Politics (Cato Policy Report) http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf

[I’ve been working on an outline for a book I hope to write surveying technological skepticism throughout history. I first started thinking about this topic two years when I noticed that a great number of recent books about Internet policy could generally be grouped into one of two camps: Internet optimists vs. Internet pessimists. I subsequently penned an essay on the subject that generated a fair bit of attention. So, I figured I must be on to something, and the more Net policy books I read, the more I realized that the divisions between these two camps were growing wider and increasingly heated. Thus, I thought I would share this very rough draft (much of it still in outline form) of the opening chapter of that book I want to write about this great intellectual war over the impact of technology on society. I invite reader input. Update Jan. 2011: I finally published a full-length essay on this topic. You can find it here. ]

__________

The impact of technological change on culture, learning, and morality has long been the subject of intense debate, and every technological revolution brings out a fresh crop of both pessimists and pollyannas. Indeed, a familiar cycle has repeat itself throughout history whenever new modes of production (from mechanized agriculture to assembly-line production), means of transportation (water, rail, road, or air), energy production processes (steam, electric, nuclear), medical breakthroughs (vaccination, surgery, cloning), or communications techniques (telegraph, telephone, radio, television) have appeared on the scene.

The cycle goes something like this. A new technology appears. Those who fear the sweeping changes brought about by this technology see a sky that is about to fall. These “techno-pessimists” predict the death of the old order (which, ironically, is often a previous generation’s hotly-debated technology that others wanted slowed or stopped).  Embracing this new technology, they fear, will result in the overthrow of traditions, beliefs, values, institutions, business models, and much else they hold sacred.

The pollyannas, by contrast, look out at the unfolding landscape and see mostly rainbows in the air. Theirs is a rose-colored world in which the technological revolution du jour is seen as improving the general lot of mankind and bringing about a better order.  If something has to give, then the old ways be damned! For such “techno-optimists,” progress means some norms and institutions must adapt—perhaps even disappear—for society to continue its march forward.

Our current Information Revolution is no different. It too has its share of techno-pessimists and techno-optimists. Indeed, before most of us had even heard of the Internet, people were already fighting about it—or at least debating what the rise of the Information Age meant for our culture, society, and economy.

Web 1.0 Fight: Postman vs. Negroponte

In his 1992 anti-technology screed Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, the late social critic Neil Postman greeted the unfolding Information Age with a combination of skepticism and scorn.  Indeed, Postman’s book was a near-perfect articulation of the techo-pessimist’s creed.  “Information has become a form of garbage,” he claimed, “not only incapable of answering the most fundamental human questions but barely useful in providing coherent direction to the solution of even mundane problems.”  If left unchecked, Postman argued, America’s new technopoly—“the submission of all forms of cultural life to the sovereignty of technique and technology”—would destroy “the vital sources of our humanity” and lead to “a culture without a moral foundation” by undermining “certain mental processes and social relations that make human life worth living.”

Postman opened his polemic with the well-known allegorical tale from Plato’s Phaedrus about the dangers of the written word.  Postman reminded us how King Thamus responded to the god Theuth, who boasted of how his invention of writing would improve the wisdom and memory of the masses relative to the oral tradition of learning.  King Thamus shot back, “the discoverer of an art is not the best judge of the good or harm which will accrue to those who practice it.”  King Thamus then passed judgment himself about the impact of writing on society, saying he feared that the people “will receive a quantity of information without proper instruction, and in consequence be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant.”

And so Postman—fancying himself a bit of a modern King Thamus—cast judgment on today’s comparable technological advances and those who would glorify them:

we are currently surrounded by throngs of zealous Theuths, one-eyed prophets who see only what new technologies can do and are incapable of imagining what they will undo. We might call such people Technophiles. They gaze on technology as a lover does on his beloved, seeing it as without blemish and entertaining no apprehension for the future. They are therefore dangerous and to be approached cautiously. … If one is to err, it is better to err on the side of Thamusian skepticism.

Nicholas Negroponte begged to differ. An unapologetic Theuthian technophile, the former director of the MIT Media Lab responded on behalf of the techno-optimists in 1995 with his prescient polemic, Being Digital.  It was a paean to the Information Age, for which he served as one of the first high prophets—with Wired magazine’s back page frequently serving as his pulpit during the many years he served as a regular columnist.

Appropriately enough, the epilogue of Negroponte’s Being Digital was entitled “An Age of Optimism” and, like the rest of the book, it stood in stark contrast to Postman’s pessimistic worldview.  Although Negroponte conceded that technology indeed had a “dark side” in that it could destroy much of the old older, he believed that was inevitable, but also not cause for much concern. “Like a force of nature, the digital age cannot be denied or stopped,” he insisted, and we must learn to appreciate the ways “digital technology can be a natural force drawing people into greater world harmony.” (This sort of techno-determism is a theme we would see on display in many of the works by other Internet optimists that followed in Negroponte’s footsteps.)

To Postman’s persistent claim that America’s technopoly lacked a moral compass, Negroponte again conceded the point but took the glass-is-half-full view: “Computers are not moral; they cannot resolve complex issues like the rights to life and to death. But being digital, nevertheless, does give much cause for optimism.”  His defense of the digital age rested on the “four very powerful qualities that will result in its ultimate triumph: decentralizing, globalizing, harmonizing, and empowering.” Gazing into his techno-crystal ball in 1995, Negroponte forecast the ways in which those qualities would revolutionize society:

The access, the mobility, and the ability to effect change are what will make the future so different from the present. The information superhighway may be mostly hype today, but it is an understatement about tomorrow. It will exist beyond people’s wildest predictions. As children appropriate a global information resource, and as they discover that only adults need learner’s permits, we are bound to find new hope and dignity in places where very little existed before.

In many ways, that’s the world we occupy today; a world of unprecedented media abundance and unlimited communications and connectivity opportunities.

But the great debate about the impact of digitization and information abundance would not end with Postman and Negroponte. Theirs would only be Act I in a drama that continues to unfold, and it is growing more heated and complex with each new character that comes on the stage.

Web War II

The disciples of Postman and Negroponte are a colorful, diverse lot. The players in Act II of this drama occupy many diverse professions—journalists, technologists, business consultants, sociologists, economists, lawyers, etc.—and they are disagreeing even more vehemently and vociferously about the impact of the Internet and digital technologies than Postman and Negroponte did.

In Exhibit 1, I have listed the Internet optimists and pessimists and list their key works.

In Exhibit 2, I have sketched out the major lines of disagreement between these two camps and divided those disagreements into (1) Cultural / Social beliefs vs. (2) Economic / Business beliefs.

When you boil it all down, there are two major points of contention between the optimists and pessimists:

1. The impact of technology on learning & culture & the role of experts vs. amateurs in that process.
2. The promise—or perils—of personalization.

The Debate over Learning & Culture

• Internet optimists and pessimists have engaged in heated debates over role of amateur production and benefits of abundant media

• pessimists fear impact of Net and “cult of amateur” on “professional” media

• without “enforceable scarcity” and protection for the “enlightened class,” the pessimists wonder how “high quality” news or “high art” will get funded and disseminated; and they worry about the decline of authority & truth

• optimists argue that new modes of production (namely peer-production) will be an adequate (if not superior) alternative
  • or they believe new business models will evolve to support professional media

• but pessimists argue that all the new choices are largely false choices
  • participatory democracy all bunk (“mob rule” and rumor mill mongering)
  • just more force-fed commercial propaganda; concerns about advertising
  • also worry about “digital sharecropping” where small group of elites make money off backs of free labor

• optimists counter that Web 2.0 offers real choices and voices
  • optimists argue that many (perhaps most) aren’t in it for the money
  • they do it for love of knowledge & “free culture”

• pessimists argue that “free” culture isn’t free at all; often just parasitic copying / piracy
  • could have profound ramifications for future of news, journalism, “high culture”
  • fear loss of trusted intermediaries & authorities
  • could “dumb down” the masses

• the centrality of Wikipedia to the discussion serves as a microcosm of the entire debate
  • does Wikipedia mark the decline of authority?
  • what is “truth,” the pessimists ask? [“truthiness” fear, a la S. Colbert & Manjoo]
  • who and what can be trusted if everyone is considered an authority?
  • on the other hand, what if it works (at least reasonably well)?
  • what does that tell us about peer production / crowdsourcing?

The Debate over the Promise or Perils of Personalization

• both optimists and pessimists agree that Net & Web 2.0 is leading to more “personalized” media experience
  • but they vehemently disagree on whether that is good or bad
  • what will it mean for participatory democracy?

• pessimists fear Negroponte’s “Daily Me” (i.e., hyper-personalization) leads to:
  • homogenization
  • close-mindedness
  • an online echo-chamber
  • overload of choices + just more corporate brainwashing

• optimists counter that personalization leads to:
  • heterogeneity / chance for everyone to be heard
  • openness
  • exposure to new thinking and opinions
  • abundance of choices = diversity of thought / participation
• in the extreme, some pessimists fear the “mechanization of the soul” and the “surrender to the machine”

• while that may sound a bit over the top, it doesn’t help that some optimists speak of the noosphere & “global consciousness” and seem to long for the eventual singularity

Who’s Got It Right?

• On balance, I believe the optimists generally have the better of the argument today
• But pessimists make many fair points that deserve to be taken seriously; they just need a more reasonable articulation of (some of) those concerns
• The better approach is what I call “pragmatic optimism,” which attempts to rid the optimist paradigm of its kookier, pollyannish thinking while also taking into account some of the very legitimate concerns raised by the pessimists, but rejecting its Luddite fringe in the process.

Thoughts on the Pessimists…

• First and foremost, the pessimists need better spokespersons! Or, they at least need a more moderated, less hysterical tone when addressing concerns raised by technological progress (many of which are quite legitimate).

• It’s often difficult to take the pessimists seriously when they persist with their seeming outright hostility to most forms of technological progress / change. Every one of them claim they are not a Luddite, and often I believe them. But the tone of some of their writing, and the thrust of some of their recommendations, have clear Luddite tendencies.

• Moreover, their endless name-calling and derision for the digital generation is, at times, just as insulting and immature as they “mob” they repeatedly castigate in their works. Too often, their criticism devolves into philosophical snobbery and blatant elitism. Constantly looking down their noses at digital natives and all “amateur” production doesn’t help them win any converts.

• It’s quite shocking how the pessimists have almost nothing good to say about Wikipedia and demonize it endlessly. Much the same goes for open source and other collaborative efforts. They don’t appear willing to accept the possibility of any benefits coming from collective efforts. And they wrongly treat the rise of collective / collaborative efforts as a zero-sum game; they seem to imagine it represents a net loss of individual effort & “personhood.” That simply doesn’t follow.

• Most importantly, the pessimists need to come to grips with the Information Revolution and offer more constructive and practical solutions to legitimately difficult transitional problems created by disintermediating influences of the digital technologies and Net.

• The nostalgia the pessimists typically espouse for the past is a common refrain of cultural and technological critics who fear that the “good ‘ol days” are behind us and the current good-for-nothing generation and their new-fangled gadgets are steering us straight into a moral abyss.  The truth typically proves less cataclysmic, of course.  The great thing about humans is that we adapt better than other creatures. When it comes to technological change, resiliency is hard-wired into our genes.  We learn how to use the new tools that are given to us and gradually assimilate them into our lives and culture.  Indeed, we have lived through more radical revolutions than the Information Revolution. We can adapt and learn to live with some of the legitimate difficulties & downsides of the Information Age.

• The pessimists are at their best when highlighting the very legitimate concerns about the challenges that accompany technological change, including the impact of the digital revolution on “professional” media and the decline of authority among trusted experts and intermediaries.
  • we absolutely don’t want to lose all that
  • there are real benefits associated with it
  • and we need to find a way to fund “professional” media / art going forward

• But, practically speaking, what would the pessimists have us do if we can’t mitigate these problems? Would they roll back the clock with burdensome restrictions? As Ben Casnocha noted recently: “the wind at the backs of all techno-optimists … [is] the forward momentum of technological development. You cannot turn back the clock. It is impossible to envision a future where there is less information and fewer people on social networks. It is very possible to envision increasing abundance along with better filters to manage it. The most constructive contributions to the debate, then, heed Moore’s Law in the broadest sense and offer specific suggestions for how to harness the change for the better.”  That’s what many pessimists have failed to do in their works.

Thoughts on the Optimists…

• The optimists currently have the better of the debate as the abundance of Web 2.0 riches is generally benefiting culture / society.

• Relative to the past it is almost impossible to see how one could argue society has not benefited from the Internet and new digital technologies. The Digital Revolution has greatly empowered masses and offered them more informational inputs.

• An age of abundance is certainly preferable to an age of information scarcity!

• But optimists need to be less Pollyanna-ish and avoid becoming the “technopolists”  (or digital utopians) that Postman feared were taking over our society
  • Way too much Rousseauian romanticism at work in some optimist writings. All this talk of the Net “remaking man” or human nature is pure rubbish.
  • Not all change is good change; the optimists need to be mature enough to understand and address the occasional downsides of digital life without dismissing the critics.
  • And they need to acknowledge that sometimes the wisdom of crowds really can = the stupidity of crowds (when does collective intelligence devolve into herd mentality?) And all this crazy talk of “the hive mind” and the “noosphere” must end.  Some of optimists sound like they long for life in The Matrix; bring on the Singularity!  That’s when you know an optimists has crossed over into the realm of quixotic techno-utopianism.

• Optimists often overplay the benefits of collective intelligence, collaboration, and the role of amateur production.  They need to frame Wiki / peer-production models as a complement to professional media, not a replacement for it.
  • Could The New York Times really be cobbled together by amateurs each day?
  • Why aren’t there any really compelling open source video games?
  • There is a big difference between “remix culture” and “rip-off culture”
  • “The Long Tail” is not “the future of all business”; but it is an increasingly important part of it, and it is wonderful that it is so much more accessible than it was in the past.
  • Will we really be better off if all professionals & intermediaries disappear? Optimists play the “old media just don’t get it” card too often and snobbishly dismiss all their concerns and efforts to reinvent themselves

• Optimists need to place technological progress in context and appreciate that, as Postman argued, there are some moral dimensions to technological progress that deserve attention.

• Of course, on the other hand, some of those moral consequences are profoundly positive, which the pessimists usually fail to appreciate or even acknowledge.

Conclusion: Toward “Pragmatic Optimism”

• Generally speaking, I believe the optimists currently have the better of the debate. It is impossible for me to believe that we were better off in an era of information poverty & un-empowered masses.

• But there’s a kernel of truth to what the pessimists predict about how the passing of the old order leaving society without some things that might be worth preserving.  And they are certainly correct that each of us should think about how to better balance new technologies and assimilate them into our lives.

• The sensible middle ground position is “pragmatic optimism”: We should embrace the amazing technological changes at work in today’s Information Age but do so with a healthy dose of humility and appreciation for the disruptive impact and pace of that change. [See my “Pragmatic (Internet) Optimist’s Creed” below]

• We need to think about how to mitigate the negative impacts associated with technological change without adopting the paranoid tone or Luddite-ish recommendations of the pessimists.

• And it is important for us to personally exercise some personal restraint in terms of the role technology plays in our life. While pessimists from Plato and Postman certainly went too far, there is a kernel of truth to their claim that, taken to an extreme, technology can have a negative impact on life and learning.  We need to focus on the Aristotelian mean. We must avoid neo-Luddite calls for a return to “the good ‘ol days” on the one hand, while also rejecting techno-utiopian Pollyanna-ism on the other

• Regardless, the old Theuth-Thamus debate about the relationship between technological change and its impact on culture and society will continue to rage. There is no chance this debate will die down anytime soon. And just wait till virtual reality goes mainstream!  Oh brother, now that is going to be a lively debate. I might turn into a Thamusian once I find my son playing a virtual gangster or pimp in “Grand Theft Auto 12: The Immersive Experience.”

• Nonetheless, generally speaking, I remain quite bullish about the prospects for technology to generally improve the human condition.

The Pragmatic (Internet) Optimist’s Creed

by Adam Thierer

I believe that the Internet and digital technologies are reshaping our culture, economy, and society in most ways for the better, but not without some serious heartburn along the way.

I believe that the world of information abundance that has dawned is vastly superior to the world of information poverty that we just left. But I also understand that not all information is equal and that that the rise of abundance raises concerns about information overload, objectionable content, and the role of “authority” and “truth.”

I believe the era of traditional Mass Media is coming to an end, but “professional” media institutions and creators continue to play a vital role in the creation, aggregation, and dissemination of news, information, culture, and entertainment. The Internet, however, will force gut-wrenching changes on traditional media institutions and some of the more traditionally vital ones (ex: daily local newspapers) will struggle to re-invent themselves, or may wither away entirely. And while I believe that “professional” journalism faces very serious challenges from the rise of the Internet and user-generated content, but I also believe that hybrid forms of news-gathering and reporting are offering society exciting new ways to learn about the world around them.

I believe Wikipedia is an amazing example of collection action / intelligence at work, but I also understand it is not without flaws and limitations. I believe Wikipedia is a wonderful complement, but not a complete substitute, for other media and information sources and inputs.

I believe that free and open source software (FOSS) has produced enormous social / economic benefits, but I do not believe that FOSS (or “wiki” models) will replace all proprietary business models or methods.  Each model or mode of production has its place and purpose and they will continue to co-exist going forward, albeit in serious tension at times.

I believe the Long Tail is a powerful phenomenon, but not “the future of all business.” It is now a more important part of the future of business, but not the entirety of it. But it is wonderful that it is more accessible than ever and that we have found ways to monetize it to benefit less well know creators and innovators.

I believe there is a difference between “remix culture” and “ripoff culture.”  Remix culture generally enhances and extends culture and creativity. Blatant content piracy, on the other hand, can discourage the creative efforts of the citizenry and deprive some of society’s most gifted creators of the incentive to produce culturally beneficial works. Likewise, hacking, circumvention, and reverse-engineering all play an important and legitimate role in our new digital economy, but one need not accept the legitimacy of those activities when conducted for nefarious purposes (think identity theft or chip-modding to facilitate video game piracy.)

I believe that the Internet has empowered the masses and created a world of “pro-sumers” that gives every man, woman, and child a soapbox on which to speak to the world. But that does not mean that all of them will have something interesting to say, and I won’t praise user-generated content as a good in and of itself. It’s quality, not volume, that counts.

I believe that the Internet’s empowering nature has changed much about society and culture, but I do not believe in the romanticism some espouse about how the Net “remaking man” or changing human nature in any fundamental way. The Internet does not liberate us from all earthly constraints and it cannot magically solve all of civilization’s problems.

I believe that the Internet is reinvigorating deliberative democracy and giving us increased exposure to a breathtaking diversity of views previously inaccessible. On the other hand, I understand that some will often seek out only those views that reinforce their pre-existing biases.

I believe in the liberating power of freedom of speech and expression, and appreciate that the Internet and the rise of user-generated content has given us a world of unprecedented information and cultural riches. I also understand, however, that unrestricted freedom of speech and expression permits an increase in the prevalence of objectionable, even loathsome, speech and content. On net, however, (excuse the pun) the Internet is the most important medium of human communication and expression yet.

In sum, there are more reasons to be optimistic than pessimistic about the Internet and its role in shaping our lives, culture, economy, and society. But that doesn’t mean it will be all roses going forward.

­­­­___

Additional Reading (from me):

• Two Schools of Internet Optimism
• The Digital Decade’s Definitive Reading List: Internet & Info-Tech Policy Books of the 2000s
• Grouping Recent Net Books: Internet Optimists vs. Pessimists
• Can Humans Cope with Information Overload? Tyler Cowen & John Freeman Join the Debate
• Book Review: Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in the a Connected Age
• Book Review: Jaron Larnier’s You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto
• Book Review: A Better Pencil by Dennis Baron
• Book Review: Lee Siegel’s Against the Machine
• Book Review: Nick Carr’s Big Switch and The Shallows
• Book Review: Digital Barbarism by Mark Helprin
• Thoughts on Andrew Keen, Part 1: Why an Age of Abundance Really is Better than an Age of Scarcity
• Thoughts on Andrew Keen, Part 2: The Dangers of the Stasis Mentality
• The 10 Most Important Info-Tech Policy Books of 2009
• The Most Important Tech Policy Books of 2008

Additional Reading (from others):

• Plato on writing
• Cyberspace and Information Overload (by Tim Lee)
• Michiko Kakutani essay in the New York Times, “Texts Without Contexts”
• Andrew McAfee’s terrific essay “I Know I’m Not the Only Internet Optimist…” from his blog
• the great PBS documentary about these issues: “Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier” (+ my thoughts on the film)
• a video from a Family Online Safety Institute event about the PBS documentary that features a discussion about Internet optimism vs. pessimism
• Gordon Crovitz of The Wall Street Journal asks “Is Technology Good or Bad?”
• Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal argues that “Information Overload is Nothing New“
• “Technology Sabbaths and Other Strategies for the Digitized World,” by Michael Sacasas
• “Are We Too Plugged In? Distracted vs. Enhanced Minds“, by Aaron Saenz at the Singularity Hub blog

• and here’s a great video from 1995 featuring the late Neil Postman with his pessimistic take on cyberspace..

Also, courtesy of the Brain Pickings blog, check out this amazing 1972 documentary based on Alvin Toffler’s famous 1970 book, Future Shock. It perfectly foreshadowed so many of today’s technology policy debates.

So, did the decade just end or do we have another year to go? Honestly, I’ve never understood when the cut-off is from one decade to the next. (My friend Larry Magid struggles with the same question in his recent column on “The Decade in Technology.”) Nonetheless, I’ve seen a lot of best-of-decade lists published recently, so I thought I would throw my own out there even though it is still a work in progress.

I have been attempting to compile the definitive bibliography for our digital decade—the definitive list of Internet policy books, that is. I started throwing this together two years ago when I was penning my list of “The Most Important Internet Policy Books of 2008” and continued to work on it as I was finishing up my 2009 installment as well. I grabbed every book off my shelf that dealt with the future of the Internet and the impact the Digital Revolution is having on our lives, culture, and economy and threw the title and a link onto this list. (I’m also using the list to help structure my thoughts for a forthcoming book of my own on Internet Optimists vs. Pessimists, something I’ve been writing a lot about here in recent years.)

Below you will find what I’ve got so far. There are around 80 90 books on the list. I’ve divided the list by year, but you may be wondering what determined the order the books appear in. In essence, I’ve listed what I feel are the 1 or 2 most important titles first and then just added others randomly. Eventually, I plan to post a “Most Important Internet Policy Books of the Decade” list outlining which titles I believe have been the most influential. I suspect I’ll name Benkler’s Wealth of Networks to the top slot followed closely by Zittrain’s The Future of the Internet, Lessig’s Free Culture, and Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail. Anyway, that’s for another day.

For now, I would just like to ask for reader suggestions regarding what other titles that should appear on this list. I will add titles as they come in. I want to stress, however, that I am trying to keep this list limited to books that have something to say about Internet policy (cyber-law, digital economics, information technology politics, etc).

I hope others find this useful.  And yes, I have read all most of the books on this list!  As I’ve noted here before, I’m a bit of book nerd.  (Now that I’ve received so many helpful additions to the list, there are some titles on the list I have not had a chance to read through yet).

2000

• George Gilder – Telecosm: How Infinite Bandwidth Will Revolutionize Our World
• Christopher T. Marsden (ed.) – Regulating the Global Information Society
• Bruce Schneier – Secrets & Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World

2001

• Cass Sunstein – Republic.com
• Lawrence Lessig – The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World
• Michael Lewis – Next: The Future Just Happened
• Debora L. Spar – Ruling the Waves: Cycles of Discovery, Chaos, and Wealth form the Compass to the Internet
• Siva Vaidhyanathan – Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity
• Jessica Litman – Digital Copyright
• Manuel Castells – The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society
• Steven Levy – Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government–Saving Privacy in the Digital Age
• Jeffrey H. Rohlfs – Bandwagon Effects in High-Technology Industries
• Marjorie Heins – Not in Front of the Children: “Indecency,” Censorship and the Innocence of Youth
• National Research Council – Youth, Pornography and the Internet
• National Research Council – Global Networks and Local Values
• Paulina Borsook – Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High Tech

2002

• David Weinberger – Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web
• Howard Reingold – Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
• Milton L. Mueller – Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace
• Richard A. Spinello – Regulating Cyberspace: The Policies and Technologies of Control
• Stan Liebowitz – Re-Thinking the Network Economy: The True Forces that Drive the Digital Marketplace
• Adam D. Thierer & Clyde Wayne Crews (eds.) – Copy Fights: The Future of Intellectual Property in the Information Age

2003

• Mike Godwin – Cyber Rights : Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age
• Lorrie Faith Cranor & Steven S. Wildman (eds.) – Rethinking Rights and Regulations: Institutional Responses to New Communication Technologies
• Adam D. Thierer & Clyde Wayne Crews (eds.) – Who Rules the Net?: Internet Governance and Jurisdiction
• Shanthi Kalathil & Taylor C. Boas – Open Networks, Closed regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule
• William Landes and Richard Posner – The Economic Structure of Intellectual Property Law

2004

• Lawrence Lessig – Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity
• Dan Gillmor – We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People
• William W. Fisher – Promises to Keep: Technology, Law, and the Future of Entertainment
• Joe Trippi – The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, The Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything
• Siva Vaidhyanathan –  The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System
• Steven Weber – The Success of Open Source
• Alexander R. Galloway – Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization
• Michael A. Einhorn – Media, Technology, and Copyright: Integrating Law and Economics

2005

• John Battelle – The Search: How Google and its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture
• Edward Castronova – Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games
• Jonathan E. Nuechterlein & Philip J. Weiser – Digital Crossroads: American Telecommunications Policy in the Internet Age

2006

• Yochai Benkler – The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
• Chris Anderson – The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
• Jack Goldsmith & Tim Wu – Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World
• Henry Jenkins – Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide
• Lawrence Lessig – Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace, Version 2.0
• Cass Sunstein – Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge
• Daniel J. Solove, Marc Rotenberg & Paul M. Schwartz – Privacy, Information and Technology
• Ori Brafman & Rod A. Beckstrom – The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations

2007

• Andrew Keen – The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing our Culture
• Daniel Solove – The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet
• Glenn Reynolds – An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths
• David Weinberger – Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder
• National Research Council – Toward a Safer and More Secure Cyberspace
• Tarleton Gillespie – Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture
• Steve Talbott – Devices of the Soul: Battling for Our Selves in an Age of Machines
• Jeff Chester – Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy
• Nancy E. Willard – Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens: Helping Young People Learn to Use the Internet Safely and Responsibly

2008

• Jonathan Zittrain – The Future of the Internet – And How to Stop It
• John Palfrey & Urs Gasser – Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives
• Clay Shirky – Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations
• Nick Carr – The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google
• Ronald J. Deibert, John G. Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski, and Jonathan Zittrain (eds.) – Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering
• Daniel Solove – Understanding Privacy
• Jeanne Pia Mifsud Bonnici – Self-Regulation in Cyberspace
• James Bessen and Michael J. Meurer – Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk
• Michele Boldrin & David K. Levine – Against Intellectual Monopoly
• Don Tapscott & Anthony D. Williams – Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
• Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen, and Harry Lewis – Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion
• Lee Siegel – Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob
• Lawrence Lessig – Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy
• David Singh Grewal – Network Power: The Social Dynamics of Globalization
• Michael Heller – The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives
• Matt Mason – The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism
• David Friedman – Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World
• Cory Doctorow — Content
• Don Tapscott — Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World
• Neil Netanel – Copyright’s Paradox
• Mark Bauerlein- The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30)

2009

• Chris Anderson – Free: The Future of a Radical Price
• Larry Downes – The Laws of Disruption: Chaos and Control in Your Virtual Future
• Dawn C. Nunziato – Virtual Freedom: Net Neutrality and Free Speech in the Internet Age
• David Bollier – Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own
• David Post – In Search of Jefferson’s Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace
• Dennis Baron – A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution
• Mark Helprin – Digital Barbarism: A Writer’s Manifesto
• William Patry – Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars
• John Freeman – The Tyranny of E-Mail: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox
• Gary Reback – Free the Market!  Why Only Government Can Keep the Marketplace Competitive
• Lee A. Bygrave & Jon Bing (eds) – Internet Governance: Infrastructure and Institutions
• Manuel Castells – Communication Power
• Tyler Cowen – Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World
• Randall Stross – Planet Google: One Company’s Audacious Plan to Organize Everything We Know
• Ken Auletta – Googled: The End of the World As We Know It
• Jeff Jarvis – What Would Google Do?
• John W. Dozier Jr. and Sue Scheff – Google Bomb
• James Boyle – The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind
• Scott Rosenberg – Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters
• Erik Brynjolfsson & Adam Saunders – Wired for Innovation: How Information Technology is Reshaping the Economy
• Matthew Scott Hindman – The Myth of Digital Democracy

UPDATE (Dec. 2010): If you believe 2010 should be included in this list, here’s a list of the major books from that year.

by Adam Thierer & Berin Szoka — (Ver. 1.0 — Summer 2009)

We are attempting to articulate the core principles of cyber-libertarianism to provide the public and policymakers with a better understanding of this alternative vision for ordering the affairs of cyberspace. We invite comments and suggestions regarding how we should refine and build-out this outline. We hope this outline serves as the foundation of a book we eventually want to pen defending what we regard as “Real Internet Freedom.” [Note:  Here’s a printer-friendly version, which we also have embedded down below as a Scribd document.]

I. What is Cyber-Libertarianism?

Cyber-libertarianism refers to the belief that individuals—acting in whatever capacity they choose (as citizens, consumers, companies, or collectives)—should be at liberty to pursue their own tastes and interests online.

Generally speaking, the cyber-libertarian’s motto is “Live & Let Live” and “Hands Off the Internet!”  The cyber-libertarian aims to minimize the scope of state coercion in solving social and economic problems and looks instead to voluntary solutions and mutual consent-based arrangements.

Cyber-libertarians believe true “Internet freedom” is freedom from state action; not freedom for the State to reorder our affairs to supposedly make certain people or groups better off or to improve some amorphous “public interest”—an all-to convenient facade behind which unaccountable elites can impose their will on the rest of us.

B.  Application in Social & Economic Contexts

The cyber-libertarian draws no distinction between social and economic freedom when applying this vision:

• Social Freedom: Individuals should be granted liberty of conscience, thought, opinion, speech, and expression in online environments.
• Economic Freedom: Individuals should be granted liberty of contract, innovation, and exchange in online environments.

Cyber-libertarians also argue that social and economic freedoms are inextricably intertwined:  It is not enough to support liberty of action in one sphere; foreclosing freedom in one sphere will eventually affect freedom in the other.

C.  How “Code Failures” Are to Be Addressed

The cyber-libertarian believes that “code failures” (the digital equivalent of so-called “market failures”) are better addressed by voluntary, spontaneous, bottom-up, marketplace responses than by coerced, top-down, governmental solutions.   From a practical perspective, the decisive advantage of the market-driven approach to correcting code failure comes down to the rapidity and nimbleness of those responses.  Stated differently, cyber-libertarians have a strong aversion to the politicization of technology issues and efforts to replace market processes with bureaucratic processes.

Importantly, the cyber-libertarian defines “markets” broadly to include monetary and non-monetary transactions as well as proprietary and non-proprietary modes of production.  To be clear, collaborative, non-proprietary technologies and efforts ( e.g., Wikipedia and open source software) are not at odds with cyber-libertarianism.  But the cyber-libertarian does reject the notion these models are the only acceptable model or that they should be imposed on us by law.  The proper policy position with regards to the “open vs. closed” or “proprietary vs. non-proprietary” debate should be one of techno-agnosticism.  Lawmakers and courts should not be tilting the balance in one direction or the other.

More generally speaking, instead of seeking to define or impose a single utopian vision, the cyber-libertarian seeks to enable what libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick called a “Utopia of Utopias:” a framework within which many different models of organizing commerce and community can flourish alongside, and in competition with, each other.

D.  General Relationship to “Internet Exceptionalism”

Internet exceptionalists are first cousins to cyber-libertarians:  They believe that the Internet has changed culture and history profoundly and is deserving of special care before governments intervene.  [See Section IV for an expanded discussion.]

II. The Intellectual Foundations of Cyber-Libertarianism

A.  Traditional Libertarian Philosophy

• Natural Rights philosophers –John Locke, Ayn Rand, The Founders
• Utilitarian philosophers – John Stuart Mill (On Liberty), Herbert Spencer
• “Austrian School” of Economics – Ludwig von Mises, F.A.  Hayek, Murray Rothbard
• Milton Friedman (Free to Choose)
• Robert Nozick – argument for a minimalist state; “utopia of utopias” notion
• Thomas Sowell – critique of “The Vision of the Anointed”
• Richard Epstein – vision of “Simple Rules for a Complex World

B.  Modern Cyber-Libertarian Theorists

• Ithiel de Sola Pool (Technologies of Freedom)
• Alvin Toffler (The Third Wave , Future Shock)
• George Gilder (Microcosm , Telecosm)
• Peter Huber (Law & Disorder in Cyberspace)
• Tom W.  Bell
• Technology Liberation Front bloggers

C.  Internet Exceptionalists[see Sec.  IV below]

• Nicholas Negroponte (Being Digital)
• John Perry Barlow (“Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace”)
• David Post
• Eric Goldman
• H.  Brian Holland

III. The Contrast with Cyber-Collectivism

A.  Cyber-Collectivism Defined

Cyber-collectivism is the opposite of cyber-libertarianism.  Cyber-collectivism refers to the general belief that cyber-choices should be guided by the State or an elite class according to some amorphous “general will” or “public interest.”  The distant influence of Plato, Rousseau, and Marx can often been seen in the work of cyber-collectivists.

Cyber-collectivism comes in many flavors, however.  “Left”-leaning cyber-collectivists, for example, are more focused on social concerns than economic ones.  Some “Right”-leaning cyber-collectivists are focused on controlling the impact of the Internet on culture or security.  In other words, cyber-collectivism is not as philosophically coherent as cyber-libertarianism—which, though it comes in many flavors, shares a larger core of common agreement

B.  General Relationship to “Information Commons” Movement

There is a close relationship between the Leftist variant of cyber-collectivism and the “digital commons” or “information commons” movement, which generally refers to the belief that digital resources should be shared or perhaps commonly owned instead of held privately—both because cyber-collectivists think this is more equitable and because they generally think such arrangements will ultimately work better.

Cyber-collectivists are typically not Marxists; few of them call for state ownership of the information means of production.  Rather, cyber-collectivists might better be thought of a “cyber social Democrats” (in a European sense) or “Digital New Dealers” (in the American tradition).  They advocate a generous role for law and regulation in many online matters, but do not typically resort to full-blown nationalization.

C. Exponents of Cyber-Collectivism

Some notable cyber-collectivists or information commons adherents (and their key works):

• Lawrence Lessig (Code , Free Culture)
• Tim Wu (Who Controls the Internet?)
• Yochai Benkler (The Wealth of Networks)
• Jonathan Zittrain (The Future of the Internet & How to Stop It)
• David Bollier (Viral Spiral)
• Harvard Berkman Center*
• New America Foundation*
• Public Knowledge*

(*We are, of course, generalizing a bit here. Not everyone in these institutions is a cyber-collectivist and, again, there are many flavors of cyber-collectivism, just as there are many flavors of cyber-libertarianism. Individuals in some of these organizations diverge significantly in attitudes towards technological change and the proper scope of government influence throughout the high-tech sector.)

IV. Relationship Between Cyber-Libertarianism & Internet Exceptionalism

Some non-libertarians occasionally join ranks with cyber-libertarians out of a belief that the Internet is different and deserving of special consideration and care. This is commonly referred to as “Cyber-Exceptionalism” or “Internet Exceptionalism.” John Perry Barlow’s 1996 “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” was probably the earliest (and most extreme) articulation of “Internet Exceptionalism”:

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather. We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions. You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions. You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don’t exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract. This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.

Similarly, in 1994, The Progress & Freedom Foundation brought together four leading technology visionaries (Esther Dyson, George Gilder, George Keyworth, and Alvin Toffler) to pen A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age. In that manifesto, the authors argued:

Cyberspace is the land of knowledge, and the exploration of that land can be a civilization’s truest, highest calling. The opportunity is now before us to empower every person to pursue that calling in his or her own way. The challenge is as daunting as the opportunity is great. The Third Wave has profound implications for the nature and meaning of property, of the marketplace, of community and of individual freedom. As it emerges, it shapes new codes of behavior that move each organism and institution—family, neighborhood, church group, company, government, nation—inexorably beyond standardization and centralization, as well as beyond the materialist’s obsession with energy, money and control. Turning the economics of mass-production inside out, new information technologies are driving the financial costs of diversity—both product and personal—down toward zero, “demassifying” our institutions and our culture. Accelerating demassification creates the potential for vastly increased human freedom. It also spells the death of the central institutional paradigm of modern life, the bureaucratic organization. (Governments, including the American government, are the last great redoubt of bureaucratic power on the face of the planet, and for them the coming change will be profound and probably traumatic.)

As that last paragraph suggests, this “Magna Carta” for cyberspace contained some hints of cyber-libertarian thinking, but the general thrust of the document was more generally of the Internet Exceptionalist school of thought.

Internet Exceptionalists are sometime critiqued for sounding like techno-utopians, but it is a mistake to conflate the two. There are not always synonymous.

V. Cyber-Libertarianism’s Early Legal Foundations & Victories

• Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 is probably the best example of cyber-exceptionalism in practice. It grants broad immunity to online intermediaries for third party content except for criminal and IP law—breaking with traditional tort liability standards. Specifically, Sec. 230 rejected the “deputization of the middleman” model of liability.
• Overturning of the Communications Decency Act’s indecency & obscenity provisions in Reno v. ACLU decision
• Various court decisions blocking enforcement of the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) of 1999
• The encryption wars & the defeat of the “Clipper Chip”
• The Internet Tax Freedom Act of 1998

VI. Applications: How Cyber-Libertarians Think about Various Policy Issues

• Free speech & online child safety: Favor parental empowerment and industry self-regulation over censorship. “Household standards” should trump “community standards.”
• Privacy policy & online advertising: Privacy is a subjective condition and efforts to regulate to “protect privacy” could have unintended consequences for freedom of speech and the growth of online content and commerce. User empowerment and industry self-regulation represent the superior way to address privacy concerns.
• Net neutrality / infrastructure regulation: “Open access” regulation is nothing more the infrastructure socialism. Network operators should be free to own, operate, and price their systems and services as they see fit, subject only to enforcement of their terms of service and other voluntary disclosures as contracts with their users. New entry and innovation are better alternative to regulating yesterday’s networks and technologies.
• Internet taxation: No special taxes should be imposed on online services or Internet access. To the extent the Net disrupts traditional tax bases that should be seen as an opportunity to reform those tax systems.
• Online gambling: People should be free to do what they want with their money and Internet gambling is likely impossible to shut down entirely anyway, given the nature of the Internet.
• Antitrust: “Market power” and “code failures” are best dealt with by spontaneous evolution of markets and new entry, not bureaucratic micro-management of old technologies or market structures. Regulation often creates, or tends to foster, most monopolies. As Ithiel de Sola Pool once noted, “The force that preserves most monopoly privilege is law… most would vanish in the absence of enforcement.”
• IP issues: Cyber-libertarians are deeply divided over IP issues (especially copyright) and this reflects a long-standing division within libertarian ranks on these issues more generally. Some believe IP rights are a natural extension of traditional property rights and/or a sensible way to incentivize scientific and artistic creativity. Others believe no one has a right to “property-tize” intangible creations or that copyright is simply industrial protectionism. And there are many views in between.

VII. Prospects for Cyber-Libertarianism

A. The Pessimistic View

• Government’s will quash online freedom and bring the Internet under their thumbs.
• Regulatory efforts are expanding at a breathtaking pace and will not slow anytime soon.

B. The Optimistic View

• “Technologies of Freedom” (tools and methods to avoid online regulation, censorship and control) will ultimately triumph.
• Technology is evolving faster than government’s ability to regulate it.

VIII. Related Reading on Cyber-Libertarianism & Internet Exceptionalism

• John Perry Barlow, Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace (1996).
• Tom W. Bell, Free Speech, Strict Scrutiny, and Self-Help: How Technology Upgrades Constitutional Jurisprudence , 87 U. Minn. L. Rev. 743 (2003).
• Esther Dyson, George Gilder, George Keyworth, & Alvin Toffler, The Progress & Freedom Foundation, A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age (1994).
• Eric Goldman, The Third Wave of Internet Exceptionalism, Santa Clara Magazine (Winter 2008).
• H. Brian Holland, In Defense of Online Intermediary Immunity: Facilitating Communities of Modified Exceptionalism, Kansas L. Rev. (2007).
• Peter Huber, Law & Disorder in Cyberspace: Abolish the FCC and Let Common Law Rule the Telecosm (1997).
• Ithiel de Sola Pool, Technologies of Freedom (1983).
• David Post, In Search of Jefferson’s Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace (2009).
• Adam Thierer, The Pragmatic Internet Optimist’s Creed, Technology Liberation Front Blog (Nov. 11, 2008).
• Technology Liberation Front Blog, About the Technology Liberation Front (August 2004, revised 2008).

Cyber-Libertarianism: The Case for Real Internet Freedom [Ver 1.0 – Thierer & Szoka] http://d.scribd.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=18490847&access_key=key-14tt6eb4f2cdcil8wnf2&page=1&version=1&viewMode=