1. What is the Internet?
What is 'cyberspace'?
• Leiner et al A Brief History of the Internet
http://www.isoc.org/Internet/history/brief.shtml)
• William Gibson Neuromancer, Ace Books, 1984.
text http://lib.ru/GIBSON/neuromancer.txt
• Study Guide for Neuromancer
http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/neuromancer_stu
dy_guide.html
2. Technical basis - The
Internet protocols (TCP/IP)
and Internet applications
• Roger Clarke, Gillian Dempsey, Ooi Chuin Nee and Robert F.
O'Connor A Primer on Internet Technology (1998)
http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/II/IPrimer.html
• Clarke also provides a very simple introduction The Internet
as a Postal Service: A Fairy Story (1998)
http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/II/InternetPS.html
• Cliff Green An Introduction to Internet Protocols for Newbies
(1996)
http://codewrangler.home.comcast.net/tech_info/internet_prot
ocols.html
3. Origins and history of
the Internet
• The pre-commercial Internet (to 1996)
– Vinton Cerf, Computer Networking: Global infrastructure for
the 21st Century
http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/lazowska/cra/networks
.html
– Howard Rheingold ‘Visionaries and Convergences: The
Accidental History of the Net’ Chapter Three of The Virtual
Community (1994) http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/3.html
– Robert Hobbes' Zakon Hobbes' Internet Timeline v5.6
http://www.zakon.org/robert/Internet/timeline/
3.2 The commercial Internet (since 1996) The 'new economy'
Kevin Kelly's ‘New Rules for the New Economy’
WIRED archive 5.09 (1997)
http://www.wired.com/wired/5.09/newrules.html
– The Law of Connection - Embrace dumb power
– The Law of Plentitude - More gives more
– The Law of Exponential Value - Success is nonlinear
– The Law of Tipping Points - Significance precedes momentum
– The Law of Increasing Returns - Make virtuous circles
– The Law of Inverse Pricing - Anticipate the cheap
– The Law of Generosity - Follow the free
– The Law of the Allegiance - Feed the web first
– The Law of Devolution - Let go at the top
– The Law of Displacement - The net wins
– The Law of Churn - Seek sustainable disequilibrium
– The Law of Inefficiencies - Don't solve problems
3.3 Origins and history of
the Internet
• The Internet in Australia
– Roger Clarke A Brief History of the Internet in
Australia v3.1 (2001)
http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/II/OzIHist
.html
– National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE)
Current State Of Play (April 2002)
http://www2.dcita.gov.au/ie/framework/benchmarking/
csop Chapters 1-23 - statistics on Internet penetration
and use.
4. Theories of cyberspace regulation
5. `Virtual communities' and selfregulation: Digital libertarianism
• Johnson and Post - 'Net federalism‘
David R. Johnson and David G. Post ‘Law and
Borders--The Rise of Law in Cyberspace’ 48
Stanford Law Review 1367 (1996)
http://www.cli.org/X0025_LBFIN.html
Shorter version: Johnson and Post And How
Shall the Net be Governed? - A Meditation on
the Relative Virtues of Decentralized, Emergent
Law (1996) http://www.cli.org/emdraft.html
5.2 Self-regulatory mechanisms –
ADR in cyberspace disputes?
• Consumers International study
http://www.consumersinternational.org/docum
ent_store/Doc35.pdf
• OECD’s Guidelines for Consumer Protection
in the Context of Electronic Commerce (1999)
• Online Ombuds Office
http://www.ombuds.org/center/ombuds.html
6. Regulatory models for cyberspace
7. Lawrence Lessig – 'Code' as regulation
• Lawrence Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace,
Basic Books 1999
http://code-is-law.org/
• Lawrence Lessig ‘The Law of the Horse: What Cyberlaw
Might Teach' 113 Harvard Law Review 501 (1999)
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/works/lessig/finalhls.pdf
• Graham Greenleaf, ‘An Endnote on Regulating
Cyberspace: Architecture vs Law?’ (1998) University of
New South Wales Law Journal Volume 21, Number 2
(Parts III – V)
(http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/unswlj/thematic/1998/
vol21no2/greenleaf.html) 'Electronic Commerce: Legal
Issues For The Information Age'
Lawrence Lessig –
'Code' as regulation (cont.)
Explanation
Example
Law
A body of rules regulating
society’s behaviour, for which
sanctions will be imposed if the
rules are breached.
Crimes Act 1900
(NSW)
Markets
Economic factors which impact
upon the value of a product
Telstra’s
near- monopoly
Norms
Customs or conventions
‘Netiquette’
Code
A set of constraints on how one
can behave
Software code, the
laws of physics
Lawrence Lessig –
'Code' as regulation (cont)
• Critiques/commentaries on Lessig's arguments
Reviews http://code-is-law.org/reviews.html
– Karen Coyle, Information Technology and Libraries,
September 2000 http://www.kcoyle.net/lessig.html
– Mark S. Nadel "Book Review: Computer Code vs. Legal
Code: Setting the Rules in Cyberspace" Federal
Communications Law Journal
http://code-is-law.org/nadel_review.pdf
– Charles C. Mann "The Unacknowledged Legislators of the
Digital World" Atlantic Unbound, December 15, 1999
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/digicult/dc991215.htm
Lawrence Lessig –
'Code' as regulation (cont.)
• The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons
in a Connected World Random House (2001)
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/future/
Tom Zillner, Information Technology and
Libraries http://www.lita.org/ital/2103_books.html
summary
• Free Culture http://free-culture.org/freecontent/
Other theoretical approaches to
cyberspace regulation
• James Boyle's critique of 'digital libertarianism’:
‘Surveillance, Sovereignty, and Hard-Wired Censors’ (1997)
http://www.law.duke.edu/boylesite/foucault.htm
• Joel Reidenberg - "Lex Informatica:
The Formulation of Information Policy Rules through
Technology" (1998) 76 Texas Law Review 553-593
(http://reidenberg.home.sprynet.com/lex_informatica.pdf
• Trotter Hardy's presumption of decentralised control
I Trotter Hardy 'The proper legal regime for cyberspace'
University of Pittsburg Law Review, 1994, 55:993
http://www.wm.edu/law/facultyadmin/faculty/hardy-16.htm
• Johnson and Post - net federalism