To grasp the tremendous importance of Lessig's book we need to understand the concept of "the commons". The term first appeared in 1968, at the onset of the Counterculture movement, when Garret Hardin titled his essay "The Tragedy of the Commons", warning us about the consequences of overpopulation. The Commons, for Hardin, is a freely-shared public resource — for example, a road that everyone can travel on, or a pasture where everyone's cattle may graze.
The tragedy arises when self-serving men increase their herds, thereby ruining the pasture for everyone else. "As the human population has increased," writes Hardin, "the commons has had to be abandoned in one aspect after another."
Lessig's book is about the "innovation commons" — which includes Einstein's theory of relativity, loads of computer code, and writings in the public domain. This innovation commons — a treasure of cultural, literary, and scientific freebies — is the indispensable source that contemporary artists, programmers, and inventors draw upon in order to create new works. "My central claim throughout," Lessig writes, "is that there is benefit to resources held in common and that the Internet is the best evidence of that benefit."
Lessig argues that the Internet, and intellectual property of all kinds, is becoming over-controlled — and hence, made unavailable to us — thanks to government regulations and Big Business's bottomless greed. In developing his argument, Lessig provides invaluable histories of copyright law, patent law, the Napster thing, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the world of Unix/Linux/open source, the Internet and the Web.
There are some positive notes in this precautionary tale — the heroism of copyright martyr Eric Eldred, and the spirit of every creator who works without compensation, for the pure joy of the work, and for the advancement of human culture. Yet the underlying theme of this must-read book is frightening. For it is unthinkable to imagine the glorious Internet transmogrified into a fatuous transmitter of daytime television. And it is impossible to disagree with the conclusion of Lessig's chilling avalanche of facts: We are losing the most precious facets of the Internet; and we are doing nothing to keep the Net open, abundant with essential resources, and free.
