Book Review: The Wealth of Networks; Law vs. Culture

Yochai Benkler is one worrrrrrrrdy bastard.

By now the point has been belabored that the networked economy cannot and should not be treated like a proprietary economy. Though it is necessary to preserve some proprietary rights, it would be disastrous to do so in areas such as science and medicine. Obtuse policy makers and greedy Hollywood bigwigs alike don't seem to realize that even if proprietary restrictions are placed on information and end-products, people will find a way around them. I personally am quite thankful this is so; otherwise, I wouldn't be able to see my favorite drug-dealing suburban MILF on Weeds every week.

At the root of these attempts to force proprietary rights on the networked economy is fear. Fear that, mostly, money will not be made. It's the fear that most industries connected even marginally to the internet have. It's also entirely irrational. There will always be a way to make money, it just might not be in the traditional sense. Corporations will just have to adapt - the people already have.

Benkler offers a variety of explanations for attempts of policy makers to control the networked economy. His arguments fall short sometimes due to rapidly changing network industries - some of the companies he cites simply do not exist anymore. And this is precisely the reason why policy makers cannot continue to treat the networked economy like a traditional material economy. It simply outgrows its legal boundaries, and policy cannot keep up. I do believe, however, that Benkler agrees with me there.

Attempts of policy makers to curb the growth and free-for-all nature of the networked economy are, in some cases, ludicrous. The expansion of patents and copyright especially penalize nonproprietary items by disallowing use of intellectual property that could be considered by now common knowledge, or potentially life-saving. These restrictions can sometimes last several decades beyond their practical use.

It is a question, then, of whether law will prevail over culture and knowledge. It's clear that many other writers can imagine this dystopian drive, where service is highly regulated and restricted, where innovation stemming from the "commons" will be stunted entirely, where the government will be able to tell exactly what you do online.

We're really only a few clicks away from this anyway. Right now, through the use of cookies and other slyly invasive technologies, you are being profiled and sold to advertisers. If your interests can be tracked now by advertising firms, what's to stop the government from compiling information about you? They might be already.

But, aside from my digression, the main thing to take away from The Wealth of Networks is that the networked economy cannot be treated like a traditional, proprietary economy (he only repeats it about a million times). Forcing property-based restrictions on nonproprietary items is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It's clear that the rights that need to be preserved (that is, rights for those who are truly innovative) should be preserved, but the method of preservation will just have to adapt.