THE FUTURE OF INTERNET LAW a review of Jonathan Zittrain’s The Future of the Internet—And How to Stop It James Grimmelmann (will attend with pleasure) Paul Ohm (sends regrets) IP Scholars 2009
THE FUTURE OF INTERNET LAW
a review of Jonathan Zittrain’s The Future of the Internet—And How to Stop It
James Grimmelmann (will attend with pleasure)Paul Ohm (sends regrets)
IP Scholars 2009
PLAN OF ATTACK
• Isolate and identify key features of Zittrain’s approach
• Set him in context with like-minded scholars
• Call the movement “architecturalism”
• . . .
• Profit!
THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET IN FIVE BULLETS
• The Internet is generative
• That’s good
• Generativity creates problems
• Take them seriously
• But preserve generativity
HOW JZ THINKS
• Focus on social and legal consequences of technical decisions
• In particular, identify the technical features that matter most
• Counter-focus on how technical decisions get made
• Describe the political economies of the Internet
• Which technical-social systems are desirable and stable?
FOUR VIRTUES OF JZ’S APPROACH
• It gets the technology right
• It’s inherently interdisciplinary
• It crosses legal boundaries
• It tells a dynamic story
LESSIG, CODEversion 3.0?
SOUND FAMILIAR YET?
• “end-to-end principle”
• “layer-crossing regulation”
• “network neutrality”
• “piracy surveillance”
• “charismatic code”
• “duty of ongoing design”
• “technological due process”
• “the accountable Net”
• “wireless Carterfone”
• “internal perspective”
• “privacy architecture”
• &c.
WHY ARCHITECTURALISM MATTERS
• The Internet is more important than a horse
• The same technical issues recur with monotonous regularity
• Moving from “law of …” to “law and …”
QUESTIONS FOR YOU
• Do you see the pattern too, or are we delusional?
• Who fits into this intellectual tradition? (offline may be best)
• Do you have a better name than “architecturalism?”
QUESTIONS FOR US ME?