Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace

Code and other laws of cyberspace (short title: code ) is a non-fiction book of the U.S. constitutional law expert Lawrence Lessig, published in 1999. A German translation came in 2001 under the title code and other laws of cyberspace out. A second edition appeared in 2006 under the title code: Version 2.0.

Content

Lessig's starting point are the designs that the mid-1990s had arisen about the at that time evolving cyberspace: on the one hand, the building, designed by science fiction authors Vernor Vinge and Tom Maddox risk that the Internet could become a state and economic surveillance apparatus. On the other hand, the classical texts on network theory, especially the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow, in the virtual space of computer networks from a liberal point of view had been described as an evolving place of freedom. The desired objective was to develop a " liberal utopia ": " There is a state- space also should arise. "

Lawrence Lessig goes as Vinge and Maddox, assuming that the power of increased regulation would be defeated. However, he believes that the state's role was not to judge unilaterally negative: "The state is essential for the protection of freedom ..." He is therefore seeking a mediating path between the liberal freedom in which only the Invisible Hand to social control would remain, and a statism that had failed a few years before the publication of his book in Eastern Europe. There you have seen what would happen if the government completely withdraw from its regulatory role and step economy and organized crime in its place. The state will and should not disappear, he would need in cyberspace in order to guarantee freedom.

The " code", namely the hardware and the software, the particular shape of cyberspace and therefore the freedom of the individual as well as determine the right. Lessig 's why formulated: " The code is the law " ( Code is law).

An effective antidote to the de facto restrictions on the freedom he sees but not in certain legal rules, but, following the tradition of the American founding fathers in the Constitution as a " form of life ..., structured and limited the social and political power to certain basic values to protect. " In the disclosure of the code as it is practiced in the open- source movement, Lessig sees an effective way to limit arbitrariness.

Code: Version 2.0

Expenditure

  • Lawrence Lessig: Code and other laws of cyberspace. Basic Books, New York 1999, ISBN 9,780,465,039,128th
  • Lawrence Lessig: Code: Version 2.0. Basic Books, New York 2001, ISBN 9780465039142 ( online edition (PDF, 4.3 MB), and the work was published under the license CC-by -sa 2.5).
  • Lawrence Lessig: Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2001 ( Original title: Code and other laws of cyberspace, translated by Michael Bischoff ), ISBN 3-8270-0404-7 ( German translation of the first edition).
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