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The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World | 
 enlarge | Author: Lawrence Lessig
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $30.00
Buy Used: $0.88
You Save: $29.12 (97%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  34 reviews
Sales Rank: 710395
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0375505784
Dewey Decimal Number: 346.0480285
EAN: 9780375505782
ASIN: 0375505784
Publication Date: October 30, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy!
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Amazon.com Review
If The Future of Ideas is bleak, we have nobody to blame but ourselves. Author Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor and keen observer of emerging technologies, makes a strong case that large corporations are staging an innovation-stifling power grab while we watch idly. The changes in copyright and other forms of intellectual property protection demanded by the media and software industries have the potential to choke off publicly held material, which Lessig sees as a kind of intellectual commons. He eloquently and persuasively decries this lopsided control of ideas and suggests practical solutions that consider the rights of both creators and consumers, while acknowledging the serious impact of new technologies on old ways of doing business. His proposals would let existing companies make money without using the tremendous advantages of incumbency to eliminate new killer apps before they can threaten the status quo. Readers who want a fair intellectual marketplace would do well to absorb the lessons in The Future of Ideas. --Rob Lightner
Product Description
The Internet revolution has come. Some say it has gone. What was responsible for its birth? Who is responsible for its demise?
In The Future of Ideas, Lawrence Lessig explains how the Internet revolution has produced a counterrevolution of devastating power and effect. The explosion of innovation we have seen in the environment of the Internet was not conjured from some new, previously unimagined technological magic; instead, it came from an ideal as old as the nation. Creativity flourished there because the Internet protected an innovation commons. The Internet’s very design built a neutral platform upon which the widest range of creators could experiment. The legal architecture surrounding it protected this free space so that culture and information–the ideas of our era–could flow freely and inspire an unprecedented breadth of expression. But this structural design is changing–both legally and technically.
This shift will destroy the opportunities for creativity and innovation that the Internet originally engendered. The cultural dinosaurs of our recent past are moving to quickly remake cyberspace so that they can better protect their interests against the future. Powerful conglomerates are swiftly using both law and technology to "tame" the Internet, transforming it from an open forum for ideas into nothing more than cable television on speed. Innovation, once again, will be directed from the top down, increasingly controlled by owners of the networks, holders of the largest patent portfolios, and, most invidiously, hoarders of copyrights.
The choice Lawrence Lessig presents is not between progress and the status quo. It is between progress and a new Dark Ages, in which our capacity to create is confined by an architecture of control and a society more perfectly monitored and filtered than any before in history. Important avenues of thought and free expression will increasingly be closed off. The door to a future of ideas is being shut just as technology makes an extraordinary future possible.
With an uncanny blend of knowledge, insight, and eloquence, Lawrence Lessig has written a profoundly important guide to the care and feeding of innovation in a connected world. Whether it proves to be a road map or an elegy is up to us.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 29 more reviews...
 This is Now Creative Commons January 16, 2008
This books is now free and available under the creative commons license. You can find it as a downloadable PDF online. Search google for it.
Good review September 10, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Deep understanding on what is going on with intelectual property that we don't see on the newspapers
Best on the subject November 4, 2006
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
The author has great insight in the area of intellectual property and how it has an impact in future innovation.
 Complex But Wonderful Nonetheless June 16, 2005
The book is written in a very complex style -- especially the sections where Lessig goes into the nitty gritty of the architecture behind the Internet -- but the book is a wonderful read, especially for those who come from the mindset that copyright laws should serve to give full control to the creator. While Lessig's style is unnecessarily complex, the book is ultimately worth the effort -- especially for Internet enthusiasts and entrepreneurs who need to understand the implications of copyright laws and how they affect culture and future ideas.
Important book for IP lawyers and internet architects June 18, 2004
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
This is the best of Lessig's books that I've read so far. Lessig is one of the more articulate spokespersons for the movement to protect the public domain, which includes such groups as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Creative Commons, etc., although he may be more moderate in his views than some.In this book, Lessig does a great job explaining why the Internet became what it is (or at least what it was in 1999 or 2000). Ultimately the success of the Internet resulted from the fact that no one was in control... But his most important message is that corporate interests don't necessary like what it is, and are using their considerable powers to change it into something more useful to them. This isn't because these companies are evil - their approach is completely rational and legitimate. However, their interests and the interests of the public probably don't coincide here. The only way to ensure that future control and/or regulation properly balances public and corporate interests is to have an informed public. Professor Lessig's book is a great start.
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