The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World

About The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World

In The future of ideas, Lawrence Lessig explains how the Internet revolution has produced a counterrevolution of potentially devastating power and effect. Creativity once flourished because the Net protected a commons on which innovators could experiment. But now, manipulating the law for their own purposes, corporations have established themselves as virtual gatekeepers of the Net while Congress, in the pockets of media magnates, has rewritten copyright and patent laws to stifle creativity and progress. Lessig weaves the history of technology and its relevant laws to make a lucid and accessible case to protect the sanctity of intellectual freedom. He shows how the door to a future of ideas is being shut just as technology is creating extraordinary possibilities that have implications for all of us.