|
In Part One, Lessig demonstrated that cyberspace can be altered because
the code that governs it can be altered, and demonstrated that because
of the strong forces of commerce and government, that cyberspace will not
take care of itself. In Part two, Lessig describes the various worlds
and cultures that comprise cyberspace, the good, the bad, and the ugly,
so that the users of the Net, can think about the type of worlds, and the
values inherit in those worlds, they would like the Net to embody.
These many spaces , or communities, in cyberspace, each have different
values. These values are shown by the actions and practices that occur
in these different spaces. "Cyberspace is not a place. It is many
places." (Lessig. Code and other laws...1999 p. 63) The values
of one MUD space differ from another MUD space, and these values
differ from those of different AOL communities, or those of a listserv.
Norms of chats vary from moderated to unmoderated chats, and from chat
to chat. Some of the values might be pseudonymity, visibility, non-transcience,
freedom of speech, privacy and so on. These nature of these places of cyberspace
are created and enforced by code. Lessig repeats, "Cyberspace is
not a place; it is many places. Its places don't have one nature;
the places of cyberspace have many different natures. These natures
are not given, they are made. They are set (in part, at least) by
the architectures that constitute these different spaces... These architectures
of code are set by the architects of cyberspace - code writers." (Lessig.
Code and other laws... 1999. p. 82.)
| Various forces regulate an individual in real space: law, architecture,
norms, and the market. Architecture, norms, and the market are subject
to regulation by the law of the land, the East Coast Code. These
same forces also regulate behavior in cyberspace. Government has
a range of strategies it uses to regulate. "By regulating code writing,
the government can achieve regulatory ends, often without suffering the
political consequences that the same ends, pursued differently, would yield."
(Lessig. Code and other other laws... 1999. p. 99.) Lessig believes
we should worry about this, and we should worry about a regime that
makes invisible regulation, such as regulation of code, easier. Toward
the end of the second section of the book, Lessig shows how open source
code is one system that means less control, or at least control that is
visible. Open code software is less susceptible to regulation.
There may be control, but the user is aware of it. Regulable code
is closed code, and most of this code is controlled by commercial interests.
|