Yochai Benkler - Wealth of Networks - User contributions [en]

Ideas for how to help the wiki grow and be useful

2006-04-20T04:36:30Z

AdyBarkan:

=Help the Wiki Grow=

* For this to be truly useful, the full text of the book should be integrated with the wiki. Let's put the book's theories into practice.

I tried to use pdftotext and pdftohtml but something is wrong with my libraries?:

: ~/Desktop # pdftohtml Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_3.pdf
But got:
: /usr/bin/pdftohtml: Symbol `_ZTV9OutputDev' has different size in shared object, consider re-linking
: /usr/bin/pdftohtml: symbol lookup error: /usr/bin/pdftohtml: undefined symbol: _ZN6PDFDocC1EP9GooStringS1_S1_

* Kathleen Fitzpatrick [http://www.futureofthebook.org/academicpress/2006/04/the_wealth_of_networks.html]:

''"In certain ways, a wiki is of course the ideal format for such a project, allowing as it does for multiple, collaborative authorship and a relatively boundless expansion. But the wiki seems also to maintain a separation between the primary text and its related paratexts -- here are the static PDFs from which the author speaks, and here are the malleable wiki pages on which readers chime in. How might we imagine bringing those voices into closer conversation?"''

* It would be great to have the book's illustrations available for commentary.

* I have just started reading that book and I found many sentences that I have difficulties with understanding. In the spirit of 'peer production' I am thinking about recording a list of such sentences here so that editors of the future version of the book could ease the readers work. Would there be a value in such a list?

:Here are some examples:

: p18 "My own emphasis is on the specific relative roles of market and nonmarket sectors, and how that change anchors the radical decentralization that he too observes, as a matter of sociological observation." (what change?)

: p21 "given that I subject to similar criticism rules styled by their proponents as “property”"

: p29 "High-volume mechanical presses and the telegraph combined with new business practices to change newspapers from small-circulation local efforts into mass media." (what is the predicate here?)
Kathleen: Yochai is using the word "combined" as a past-tense verb. The presses and the telegraph are subjects of the sentence. "combined with new..." is the predicate. - Ady

Ideas for how to help the wiki grow and be useful

2006-04-20T04:36:14Z

AdyBarkan:

Ideas for how to help the wiki grow and be useful

2006-04-20T04:34:49Z

AdyBarkan:

=Help the Wiki Grow=

* For this to be truly useful, the full text of the book should be integrated with the wiki. Let's put the book's theories into practice.

I tried to use pdftotext and pdftohtml but something is wrong with my libraries?:

: ~/Desktop # pdftohtml Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_3.pdf
But got:
: /usr/bin/pdftohtml: Symbol `_ZTV9OutputDev' has different size in shared object, consider re-linking
: /usr/bin/pdftohtml: symbol lookup error: /usr/bin/pdftohtml: undefined symbol: _ZN6PDFDocC1EP9GooStringS1_S1_

* Kathleen Fitzpatrick [http://www.futureofthebook.org/academicpress/2006/04/the_wealth_of_networks.html]:

''"In certain ways, a wiki is of course the ideal format for such a project, allowing as it does for multiple, collaborative authorship and a relatively boundless expansion. But the wiki seems also to maintain a separation between the primary text and its related paratexts -- here are the static PDFs from which the author speaks, and here are the malleable wiki pages on which readers chime in. How might we imagine bringing those voices into closer conversation?"''

* It would be great to have the book's illustrations available for commentary.

* I have just started reading that book and I found many sentences that I have difficulties with understanding. In the spirit of 'peer production' I am thinking about recording a list of such sentences here so that editors of the future version of the book could ease the readers work. Would there be a value in such a list?

:Here are some examples:

: p18 "My own emphasis is on the specific relative roles of market and nonmarket sectors, and how that change anchors the radical decentralization that he too observes, as a matter of sociological observation." (what change?)

: p21 "given that I subject to similar criticism rules styled by their proponents as “property”"

: p29 "High-volume mechanical presses and the telegraph combined with new business practices to change newspapers from small-circulation local efforts into mass media." (what is the predicate here?) Kathleen: Yochai is using the word "combined" as a past-tense verb. The presses and the telegraph are subjects of the sentence. - Ady

Remixes

2006-04-18T05:20:54Z

AdyBarkan:

====This book is available under a [http://creativecommons.org Creative Commons] [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike] license. Here's a list of projects building upon that freedom to make useful remixes.====

HTML Remix

* [http://libreria.sourceforge.net/library/The_Wealth_of_Networks/contents.html LIBREria.org ]

Notes

2006-04-18T05:17:09Z

AdyBarkan:

===[http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Notes.pdf Download full notes here]===
=Notes=
== Introduction ==
=== Chapter 1. Introduction: A Moment of Opportunity and Challenge ===
:
# Barry Wellman et al., “The Social Affordances of the Internet for Networked Individualism,” ''JCMC'' 8, no. 3 (April 2003).
# Langdon Winner, ed., “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” in ''The Whale and The Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology'' (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 19–39.
# Harold Innis, ''The Bias of Communication'' (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1951). Innis too is often lumped with McLuhan and Walter Ong as a technological determinist. His work was, however, one of a political economist, and he emphasized the relationship between technology and economic and social organization, much more than the deterministic operation of technology on human cognition and capability.
# Lawrence Lessig, ''Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace'' (New York: Basic Books, 1999).
# Manuel Castells, ''The Rise of Networked Society'' (Cambridge, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996).

== Part One. The Networked Information Economy ==
;PART I. The Networked Information Economy
:I. Elizabeth Eisenstein, ''Printing Press as an Agent of Change'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).

=== Chapter 2. Some Basic Economics of Information Production & Innovation ===
:
# The full statement was: “[A]ny information obtained, say a new method of production, should, from the welfare point of view, be available free of charge (apart from the costs of transmitting information). This insures optimal utilization of the information but of course provides no incentive for investment in research. In a free enterprise economy, inventive activity is supported by using the invention to create property rights; precisely to the extent that it is successful, there is an underutilization of information.” Kenneth Arrow, “Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for Invention,” in'' Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity: Economic and Social Factors'', ed. Richard R. Nelson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962), 616–617.
# Suzanne Scotchmer, “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Cumulative Research and the Patent Law,” ''Journal of Economic Perspectives'' 5 (1991): 29–41.
# ''Eldred v. Ashcroft'', 537 U.S. 186 (2003).
# Adam Jaffe, “The U.S. Patent System in Transition: Policy Innovation and the Innovation Process,” ''Research Policy'' 29 (2000): 531.
# Josh Lerner, “Patent Protection and Innovation Over 150 Years” (working paper no. 8977, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, 2002).
# At most, a “hot news” exception on the model of ''International News Service v. Associated Press'', 248 U.S. 215 (1918), might be required. Even that, however, would only be applicable to online editions that are for pay. In paper, habits of reading, accreditation of the original paper, and first-to-market advantages of even a few hours would be enough. Online, where the first-to-market advantage could shrink to seconds, “hot news” protection may be worthwhile. However, almost all papers are available for free and rely solely on advertising. The benefits of reading a copied version are, at that point, practically insignificant to the reader.
# Wesley Cohen, R. Nelson, and J. Walsh, “Protecting Their Intellectual Assets: Appropriability Conditions and Why U.S. Manufacturing Firms Patent (or Not)” (working paper no. 7552, National Bureau Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, 2000); Richard Levin et al., “Appropriating the Returns from Industrial Research and Development” ''Brookings Papers on Economic Activity'' 3 (1987): 783; Mansfield et al., “Imitation Costs and Patents: An Empirical Study,” ''The Economic Journal'' 91 (1981): 907.
# In the 2002 Economic Census, compare NAICS categories 5415 (computer systems and related services) to NAICS 5112 (software publishing). Between the 1997 Economic Census and the 2002 census, this ratio remained stable, at about 36 percent in 1997 and 37 percent in 2002. See 2002 Economic Census, “Industry Series, Information, Software Publishers, and Computer Systems, Design and Related Services” (Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau, 2004).
# Levin et al., “Appropriating the Returns,” 794–796 (secrecy, lead time, and learningcurve advantages regarded as more effective than patents by most firms). See also F. M. Scherer, “Learning by Doing and International Trade in Semiconductors” (faculty research working paper series R94-13, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1994), an empirical study of semiconductor industry suggesting that for industries with steep learning curves, investment in information production is driven by advantages of being first down the learning curve rather than the expectation of legal rights of exclusion. The absorption effect is described in Wesley M. Cohen and Daniel A. Leventhal, “Innovation and Learning: The Two Faces of R&D,” ''The Economic Journal'' 99 (1989): 569–596. The collaboration effect was initially described in Richard R. Nelson, “The Simple Economics of Basic Scientific Research,” ''Journal of Political Economy'' 67 (June 1959): 297–306. The most extensive work over the past fifteen years, and the source of the term of learning networks, has been from Woody Powell on knowledge and learning networks. Identifying the role of markets made concentrated by the limited ability to use information, rather than through exclusive rights, was made in F. M. Scherer, “Nordhaus’s Theory of Optimal Patent Life: A Geometric Reinterpretation,” ''American Economic Review'' 62 (1972): 422–427.
# Eric von Hippel, ''Democratizing Innovation'' (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005).
# Eben Moglen, “Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright,” ''First Monday'' (1999), http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_8/moglen/.

=== Chapter 3. Peer Production and Sharing ===
:
# For an excellent history of the free software movement and of open-source development, see Glyn Moody, ''Rebel Code: Inside Linux and the Open Source Revolution'' (New York: Perseus Publishing, 2001).
# Elinor Ostrom, ''Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
# Josh Lerner and Jean Tirole, “The Scope of Open Source Licensing” (Harvard NOM working paper no. 02–42, table 1, Cambridge, MA, 2002). The figure is computed out of the data reported in this paper for the number of free software development projects that Lerner and Tirole identify as having “restrictive” or “very restrictive” licenses.
# Netcraft, April 2004 Web Server Survey, http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_ server_survey.html.
# Clickworkers Results: Crater Marking Activity, July 3, 2001, http://clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov/documents/crater-marking.pdf.
# B. Kanefsky, N. G. Barlow, and V. C. Gulick, ''Can Distributed Volunteers Accomplish Massive Data Analysis Tasks?'' http://www.clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov/documents/abstract.pdf.
# J. Giles, “Special Report: Internet Encyclopedias Go Head to Head,” Nature, December 14, 2005, available at http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html .
# http://www.techcentralstation.com/111504A.html.
# Yochai Benkler, “Coase’s Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm,” ''Yale Law Journal'' 112 (2001): 369.
# IBM Collaborative User Experience Research Group, History Flows: Results (2003), http://www.research.ibm.com/history/results.htm.
# For the full argument, see Yochai Benkler, “Some Economics of Wireless Communications,” ''Harvard Journal of Law and Technology'' 16 (2002): 25; and Yochai Benkler, “Overcoming Agoraphobia: Building the Commons of the Digitally Networked Environment,” ''Harvard Journal of Law and Technology'' 11 (1998): 287. For an excellent overview of the intellectual history of this debate and a contribution to the institutional design necessary to make space for this change, see Kevin Werbach, “Supercommons: Towards a Unified Theory of Wireless Communication,” ''Texas Law Review'' 82 (2004): 863. The policy implications of computationally intensive radios using wide bands were first raised by George Gilder in “The New Rule of the Wireless,” ''Forbes ASAP'', March 29, 1993, and Paul Baran, “Visions of the 21st Century Communications: Is the Shortage of Radio Spectrum for Broadband Networks of the Future a Self Made Problem?” (keynote talk transcript, 8th Annual Conference on Next Generation Networks, Washington, DC, November 9, 1994). Both statements focused on the potential abundance of spectrum, and how it renders “spectrum management” obsolete. Eli Noam was the first to point out that, even if one did not buy the idea that computationally intensive radios eliminated scarcity, they still rendered spectrum property rights obsolete, and enabled instead a fluid, dynamic, real-time market in spectrum clearance rights. See Eli Noam, “Taking the Next Step Beyond Spectrum Auctions: Open Spectrum Access,” ''Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Communications Magazine'' 33, no. 12 (1995): 66–73; later elaborated in Eli Noam, “Spectrum Auction: Yesterday’s Heresy, Today’s Orthodoxy, Tomorrow’s Anachronism. Taking the Next Step to Open Spectrum Access,” ''Journal of Law and Economics'' 41 (1998): 765, 778–780. The argument that equipment markets based on a spectrum commons, or free access to frequencies, could replace the role planned for markets in spectrum property rights with computationally intensive equipment and sophisticated network sharing protocols, and would likely be more efficient even assuming that scarcity persists, was made in Benkler, “Overcoming Agoraphobia.” Lawrence Lessig, ''Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace'' (New York: Basic Books, 1999) and Lawrence Lessig, ''The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World'' (New York: Random House, 2001) developed a rationale based on the innovation dynamic in support of the economic value of open wireless networks. David Reed, “Comments for FCC Spectrum Task Force on Spectrum Policy,” filed with the Federal Communications Commission July 10, 2002, crystallized the technical underpinnings and limitations of the idea that spectrum can be regarded as property.
# See Benkler, “Some Economics,” 44–47. The term “cooperation gain” was developed by Reed to describe a somewhat broader concept than “diversity gain” is in multiuser information theory.
# ''Spectrum Policy Task Force Report to the Commission'' (Federal Communications Commission, Washington, DC, 2002); Michael K. Powell, “Broadband Migration III: New Directions in Wireless Policy” (Remarks at the Silicon Flatiron Telecommunications Program, University of Colorado at Boulder, October 30, 2002).

=== Chapter 4. The Economics of Social Production ===
# Richard M. Titmuss, ''The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy'' (New York: Vintage Books, 1971), 94.
# Kenneth J. Arrow, “Gifts and Exchanges,” ''Philosophy & Public Affairs'' 1 (1972): 343.
# Bruno S. Frey, ''Not Just for Money: An Economic Theory of Personal Motivation'' (Brook- field, VT: Edward Elgar, 1997); Bruno S. Frey, ''Inspiring Economics: Human Motivation in Political Economy'' (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2001), 52–72. An excellent survey of this literature is Bruno S. Frey and Reto Jegen, “Motivation Crowding Theory,” ''Journal of Economic Surveys'' 15, no. 5 (2001): 589. For a crystallization of the underlying psychological theory, see Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan, ''Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior'' (New York: Plenum, 1985).
# Roland Be´nabou and Jean Tirole, “Self-Confidence and Social Interactions” (working paper no. 7585, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, March 2000).
# Truman F. Bewley, “A Depressed Labor Market as Explained by Participants,” ''American Economic Review (Papers and Proceedings)'' 85 (1995): 250, provides survey data about managers’ beliefs about the effects of incentive contracts; Margit Osterloh and Bruno S. Frey, “Motivation, Knowledge Transfer, and Organizational Form,” ''Organization Science'' 11 (2000): 538, provides evidence that employees with tacit knowledge communicate it to coworkers more efficiently without extrinsic motivations, with the appropriate social motivations, than when money is offered for “teaching” their knowledge; Bruno S. Frey and Felix Oberholzer-Gee, “The Cost of Price Incentives: An Empirical Analysis of Motivation Crowding-Out,” ''American Economic Review'' 87 (1997): 746; and Howard Kunreuther and Douslar Easterling, “Are Risk-Benefit Tradeoffs Possible in Siting Hazardous Facilities?” ''American Economic Review (Papers and Proceedings)'' 80 (1990): 252–286, describe empirical studies where communities became less willing to accept undesirable public facilities (Not in My Back Yard or NIMBY) when offered compensation, relative to when the arguments made were policy based on the common weal; Uri Gneezy and Aldo Rustichini, “A Fine Is a Price,” ''Journal of Legal Studies'' 29 (2000): 1, found that introducing a fine for tardy pickup of kindergarten kids increased, rather than decreased, the tardiness of parents, and once the sense of social obligation was lost to the sense that it was “merely” a transaction, the parents continued to be late at pickup, even after the fine was removed.
# James S. Coleman, “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital,” ''American Journal of Sociology'' 94, supplement (1988): S95, S108. For important early contributions to this literature, see Mark Granovetter, “The Strength of Weak Ties,” ''American Journal of Sociology'' 78 (1973): 1360; Mark Granovetter, ''Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers'' (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974); Yoram Ben- Porath, “The F-Connection: Families, Friends and Firms and the Organization of Exchange,” Population and Development Review 6 (1980): 1.
# Nan Lin, ''Social Capital: A Theory of Social Structure and Action'' (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 150–151.
# Steve Weber, ''The Success of Open Source'' (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).
# Maurice Godelier, ''The Enigma of the Gift'', trans. Nora Scott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 5.
# Godelier, ''The Enigma'', 106.
# In the legal literature, Robert Ellickson, ''Order Without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes'' (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), is the locus classicus for showing how social norms can substitute for law. For a bibliography of the social norms literature outside of law, see Richard H. McAdams, “The Origin, Development, and Regulation of Norms,” ''Michigan Law Review'' 96 (1997): 338n1, 339n2. Early contributions were: Edna Ullman-Margalit, ''The Emergence of Norms'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977); James Coleman, “Norms as Social Capital,” in ''Economic Imperialism: The Economic Approach Applied Outside the Field of Economics'', ed. Peter Bernholz and Gerard Radnitsky (New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1987), 133–155; Sally E. Merry, “Rethinking Gossip and Scandal,” in T''oward a Theory of Social Control, Fundamentals'', ed. Donald Black (New York: Academic Press, 1984).
# On policing, see Robert C. Ellickson, “Controlling Chronic Misconduct in City Spaces: Of Panhandlers, Skid Rows, and Public-Space Zoning,” ''Yale Law Journal'' 105 (1996): 1165, 1194–1202; and Dan M. Kahan, “Between Economics and Sociology: The New Path of Deterrence,” ''Michigan Law Review'' 95 (1997): 2477.
# An early and broad claim in the name of commons in resources for communication and transportation, as well as human community building—like roads, canals, or social-gathering places—is Carol Rose, “The Comedy of the Commons: Custom, Commerce, and Inherently Public Property,” ''University Chicago Law Review'' 53 (1986): 711. Condensing around the work of Elinor Ostrom, a more narrowly defined literature developed over the course of the 1990s: Elinor Ostrom, ''Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action'' (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Another seminal study was James M. Acheson, ''The Lobster Gangs of Maine'' (New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1988). A brief intellectual history of the study of common resource pools and common property regimes can be found in Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom, “Ideas, Artifacts, Facilities, and Content: Information as a Common-Pool Resource,” ''Law & Contemporary Problems'' (2003): 111.

== Part Two. The Political Economy of Property and Commons ==

=== Chapter 5. ===

=== Chapter 6. ===

=== Chapter 7. ===

=== Chapter 8. ===

=== Chapter 9. ===

=== Chapter 10. ===

== Part Three. Policies of Freedom at a Moment of Transformation ==

=== Chapter 11. ===

=== Chapter 12. ===

12. Conclusion: The Stakes of Information Law and Policy

2006-04-18T05:14:43Z

AdyBarkan:

===[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/index.php/12._Conclusion:_The_Stakes_of_Information_Law_and_Policy Download the full chapter here]===

==Summary of the chapter==

===Overview===

==Sources==
===Sources cited in the chapter===
===Other relevant readings===
==Case Studies==
===Supporting examples===
===Counter-examples===
==Key Concepts==

12. Conclusion: The Stakes of Information Law and Policy

2006-04-18T05:14:04Z

AdyBarkan:

===[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/index.php/12._Conclusion:_The_Stakes_of_Information_Law_and_Policy Download the full chapter]===

==Summary of the chapter==

===Overview===

==Sources==
===Sources cited in the chapter===
===Other relevant readings===
==Case Studies==
===Supporting examples===
===Counter-examples===
==Key Concepts==

12. Conclusion: The Stakes of Information Law and Policy

2006-04-18T05:13:48Z

AdyBarkan:

===[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/index.php/12._Conclusion:_The_Stakes_of_Information_Law_and_Policy Download the full chapter]

==Summary of the chapter==

===Overview===

==Sources==
===Sources cited in the chapter===
===Other relevant readings===
==Case Studies==
===Supporting examples===
===Counter-examples===
==Key Concepts==

11. The Battle Over the Institutional Ecology of the Digital Environment

2006-04-18T05:12:13Z

AdyBarkan:

===[http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_11.pdf Download the full chapter here]===

==Summary of the chapter==

===Overview===

===Institutional Ecology and Path Dependence===

===The Physical Layer===
====Transport: Wires and Wireless====
====Devices====

===The Logical Layer===
====The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998====
====The Battle over Peer-to-Peer Networks====
====The Domain Name System: From Public Trust to the Fetishism of Mnemonics====
====The Browser Wars====
====Free Software====

===The Content Layer===
====Copyright====
====Contractual Enclosure: Click-Wrap Licenses and the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA====
====Trademark Dilution====
====Database Protection====
====Linking and Trespass to Chattels: New Forms of Information Exclusivity====
====International "Harmonization"====
====Countervailing Forces====

===The Problem of Security===

==Sources==
===Sources cited in the chapter===
===Other relevant readings===
==Case Studies==
===Supporting examples===
===Counter-examples===
==Key Concepts==

10. Social Ties: Networking Together

2006-04-18T05:11:54Z

AdyBarkan:

===[http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_10.pdf Download the full chapter here]===

==Summary of the chapter==

===Overview===
===From "Virtual Communities" to Fear of Disintegration===
===A More Positivie Picture Emerges Over Time===
====Users Increase Their Connections with Preexisting Relations====
====Networked Individuals====
===The Internet as a Platform for Human Connection===
===The Internet and Human Community===

==Sources==
===Sources cited in the chapter===
===Other relevant readings===
==Case Studies==
===Supporting examples===
===Counter-examples===
==Key Concepts==

9. Justice and Development

2006-04-18T05:11:33Z

AdyBarkan:

===[http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_9.pdf Download the full chapter here]===

==Summary of the chapter==

===Overview===
===Liberal Theories of Justice and the Networked Information Economy===
===Commons-Based Strategies for Human Welfare and Development===
===Information-Embedded Goods and Tools, Information, and Knowledge===
===Industrial Organization of HDI-Related Information Industries===
===Toward Adopting Commons-Based Strategies for Development===
===Commons-Based Researc for Food and Medicines===
====Food Security: Commons-Based Agricultural Innovation====
====Access to Medicines: Commons-Based Straegies for Biomedical Research====
===Commons-Based Straegies for Development: Conclusion===

==Sources==
===Sources cited in the chapter===
===Other relevant readings===
==Case Studies==
===Supporting examples===
===Counter-examples===
==Key Concepts==

8. Cultural Freedom: A Culture Both Plastic and Critical

2006-04-18T05:11:16Z

AdyBarkan:

===[http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_8.pdf Download the full chapter here]===

==Summary of the chapter==

===Overview===
===Cultural Freedom in Liberal Political Theory===
===The Transparency of Internet Culture===
===The Plasticity of Internet Cutulre: The Future of High-Production-Value Folk Culture===
===A Participatory Culture: Toward Policy===

==Sources==
===Sources cited in the chapter===
===Other relevant readings===
==Case Studies==
===Supporting examples===
===Counter-examples===
==Key Concepts==

7. Political Freedom Part 2: Emergence of the Networked Public Sphere

2006-04-18T05:10:41Z

AdyBarkan:

===[http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_7.pdf Download the full chapter here]===

==Summary of the chapter==

===Overview===
===Basic Tools of Networked Communication===
===Networked Information Economy Meets the Public Sphere===
===Critiques of the Claims that the Internet Has Democratizing Effects===
===Is the Internet too Chaotic, Too Concentrated, or Neither?===
===On Power Law Distributions, Network Topology, and Being Heard===
===Who Will Play the Watchdog Function?===
===Using Networked Communication to Work Around Authoritarian Control===
===Toward a Networked Public Sphere===

==Sources==
===Sources cited in the chapter===
===Other relevant readings===
==Case Studies==
===Supporting examples===
===Counter-examples===
==Key Concepts==

6. Political Freedom Part 1: The Trouble with Mass Media

2006-04-18T05:10:16Z

AdyBarkan:

===[http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_6.pdf Download the full chapter here]===

==Summary of the chapter==

===Overview===
===Design Characteristics of A communications Platform For a Liberal Public Platform or a Liberal Public Sphere===
===The Emergence of the Commercial Mass-Media Platform for the Public Sphere===
===Basic Critiques of Mass Media===
====Mass Media as a Platform for the Public Sphere====
====Media Concentration: The Power of Ownership and Money====
====Commercialism, Journalism, and Political Inertness====

==Sources==
===Sources cited in the chapter===
===Other relevant readings===
==Case Studies==
===Supporting examples===
===Counter-examples===
==Key Concepts==

5. Individual Freedom: Autonomy, Information, and Law

2006-04-18T05:09:55Z

AdyBarkan:

===[http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_5.pdf Download the full chapter here]===

==Summary of the chapter==

===Overview===

The emergence of the networked information economy has the potential to increase individual autonomy in three ways.

First, it increases the range of things that individuals can do for and by themselves. Information networks can lift many of the material constraints and costs of the industrial information economy. Most of the tools necessary for effective action and communication are now widely available to people in networked environments.

Second, the networked information economy provides alternatives to the proprietary sources of information/communication typical in the industrial economy. The presence of these nonproprietary alternatives decreases the extent to which individuals are being acted upon by the owners of the communications facilities. The culture of passive televiewing subjected its participants to the manipulations of the communications and broadcasting companies. Although this culture lives on, it is losing its dominance in today's information environment.

Third, the internet increases the range and diversity of information available to individuals. It does so by enabling all sources-- both mainstream and fringe-- to produce information and communicate broadly. This diversity and accessibility of information radically changes the universe of options that individuals recognize as open for them to pursue. An increase in available options creates a richer basis to form critical judgments expanded opportunities for critical reflection.

===Freedom to do More for Oneself, By Oneself, and With Others===
===Autonomy, Property, and Commons===
===Autonomy and the Information Environment===
===Autonomy, Mass Media, and Nonmarket Information Producers===

==Sources==
===Sources cited in the chapter===
===Other relevant readings===
==Case Studies==
===Supporting examples===
===Counter-examples===
==Key Concepts==

4. The Economics of Social Production

2006-04-18T05:09:31Z

AdyBarkan:

===[http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_4.pdf Download the full chapter here]===

==Summary of the chapter==

===Overview===

===Motivation===
===Social Production: Feasibility Conditions and Organizational Form===
===Transaction Costs and Efficiency===
===The Emergence of Social Production in the Digitially Networked Environment===
===The Interface of Social Production and Market-Based Businesses===

==Sources==
===Sources cited in the chapter===
===Other relevant readings===
==Case Studies==
===Supporting examples===
===Counter-examples===
==Key Concepts==

2. Some Basic Economics of Information Production and Innovation

2006-04-18T05:09:09Z

AdyBarkan:

===[http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_2.pdf Download the full chapter here]===

==Summary of the chapter==

===Overview===

Information and culture are fundamentally different from standard "economic goods" such as steel and cars in two ways. First, standard goods are rival or exclusive while information is nonrival. Consider an apple: If I eat it, you cannot also eat it. If you want to eat an apple too, more resources (trees, irrigation, fertilizer, labor, etc.) will have to be expended to procure you that apple. This is not the case with information. You and I can both read this book at the same time. My consumption of the information contained in the book in no way diminishes that information or prevents others from consuming it as well. The second way in which information differs from other goods is that it is both an input and an output of its own production process. Consider a wood table: the inputs of the production process are wood, fastening devices (nails, glue), and labor. A carpenter uses these things to make the output: a table. Now consider an academic paper: The inputs are ideas and labor and these ideas are often grounded in previous academic papers. Academic papers are thus "used" in producing new academic papers.

It is these two properties of information, nonrivalry and input/output circularity, that
explain why the law gives people some property-like rights over information but limits those rights in comparison to those given over other types of goods. The standard rationale for giving people property-like rights over information is that people will fail to produce information if they have no incentives to do so. Copyright, which grants the right holder a monopoly over her creation, allows her to turn information into a rival good, creating scarcity and, thus, a market for her work. That is, while the actual cost of producing a second copy of a book is marginal (it is merely the cost of photocopying the pages), copyright prevents people (through threat of sanction) from doing this without the author's permission, and thus allowing the author to control the distribution of her work.

The standard rationale for limiting the monopoly rights created by copyright and patents is that because information is both an input and an output of information, we should not allow the "building blocks" to be captured indefinitely or entirely. Thus we have time limitations on copyright, thus returning old information to its nonrival state, and "fair use" provisions, allow new producers to use otherwise protected information in certain ways and contexts (e.g., criticism, parody, news reporting).

Many economists describe the system of intellectual property as a balance of static and dynamic efficiencies: Intellectual property creates static inefficiency by artificially raising the price of information goods, but this inefficiency is balanced out, however, by gains in dynamic efficiency in form of creating an incentive for new information production.

This chapter explores whether the realities of information production fit well with standard economic theory. It argues that the efficiency of regulation information, knowledge, and cultural production through strong copyright patent is not only theoretically ambiguous but also empirically inaccurate. This chapter posits that innovation and information production is driven mostly by a mixture of (a) nonmarket sources (both public and private) and (b) market actors whose business models do not depend on the protections of intellectual property.

The chapter concludes that while granting exclusive rights-based over information provides some incentives for the future production of information, a comprehensive intellectual property regime that mimics property too closely (such as the system in both the United States and the European Union) cannot work perfectly even under ideal conditions. The upshot is that noncommercial production can often be more efficient and more important commercial production and that noncommercial production is thus moving to a more central role in our information production system.

===The Diversity of Strategies in Our Current Information Production System===

This section maps the variety of strategies used by information producers. The types of strategies can be divided along two axes. The first is the benefit maximization axis. At one end of this axis are information producers that rely on exclusive rights (such as patents and copyrights) to make money; at the other end, are information producers that give their information away for free in order to gain non-monetary benefits; an in the middle are information producers that aim to make money but not by relying on exclusive rights.

The second axis along which information production strategies are divided is the cost minimization axis. This axis describes the various ways in which information producers minimize the cost of the information inputs they rely on. At one end of this axis are producers who rely on public domain (i.e., free for fall) information; at the other end are information producers who barter with other producers for access to protected information (for example, small companies that form patent pools); in the middle are information producers that a) rely on information they already control, and b) purchase without reciprocity control of new information from other producers.

These two axes of three points each create nine different strategies for the production of information, which Benkler describes as follows:

'''The Romantic Maximizer:''' Relies on the public domain to minimize cost and right-based exclusion to maximize benefit. The classic example of the author writing her novel and selling it to a publisher or inventor creating a machine, patenting it, and marketing the invention.

'''Mickey:''' Relies on intrafirm strategies to minimize cost and rights-based exclusion to maximize benefit. A salient example is Walt Disney, which owns a vast number of copyrights over cartoon characters such a Mickey Mouse. Disney reuses these characters to produce derivative works or it hires animators to create new characters with the proviso that Disney will hold the copyright over these characters as well.

'''RCA:''' Relies on bartering/sharing exclusive rights to minimize cost and rights-based exclusion to maximize benefit. In the 1920s four different companies--RCA, GE, AT&T, and Westinghouse each controlled patents that prevent each other from manufacturing the best radios technologically possible. To solve this problem, these four companies agreed to share their patents with one another but not any outside party. Though no single company had a monopoly, together these four companies could effectively exclude every other competitor from the radio manufacturing market.

'''Scholarly Lawyers:''' Relies on the public domain to minimize cost and gives their information products away for free in order to derive income from other sources. For example, legal scholars are not paid when they publish an article in a law journal. But it is not just their devotion to scholarship that drives them to give their information products away for free. They are also trying to acquire status and good reputation in order to get a job or make tenure. Another example is bands that give music away for free in order to attract audiences to their profit-making performances.

'''Know-How:''' Relies on intrafirm information production to minimize cost, but does not sell that information to acquire profits. Law firms that have libraries of boilerplate forms minimize their cost because they do not have to "re-invent the wheel" every time a client wants to form a contract or draft a license. However, the law firm is not making its money from selling these forms. It's making it money by serving a larger number clients more efficiently.

'''Learning Networks:''' Relies on bartering or sharing information to minimize cost, but does not rely on copyright or patents to maximize benefits. Newspapers that join together to create a wire service share reporting information, but it is not the copyright that makes them money. Rather they wider range of stories they offer (because of the sharing) allows each regional newspaper to attract a greater number of customers.

'''Joe Einstein:''' Relies on the public domain to minimize cost and seeks to maximize non-monetary benefits. Joe Einsteins are moved by a wide range of goals. Status in their relevant communities, personal satisfaction from the act of giving, personal satisfaction from the act of creating. Examples of Joe Einsteins include academics who write articles for fame, carolers who sing for free, users who contribute to mailing lists, or programmers who write free software.

'''Los Alamos:''' Relies on intra-firm information sharing to minimize cost and produces public goods. Often these public goods are used to secure additional funding (government grants) or increase the status of the agency.

'''Limited sharing networks:''' Relies on bartering/sharing protected information to minimize cost and produces public knowledge in order to gain nonmonetary benefits. For example, Academics often join working paper groups where they read each others drafts and provide comments on them so that each member can improve her own work before publication. "Copyleft" conditions on derivative works also fall under this category.

===The Effects of Exclusive Rights===
It is only after we examine the diversity of information appropriation strategies that we can truly understand the effects of strong exclusive intellectual property-type rights. The standard economic justification for copyright is that it sacrifices static efficiency in order to achieved dynamic efficiency. But the effect of static inefficiency is different for each type of appropriation strategy, making the argued for trade off much more complex and ambiguous than the standard justification, in its simple form, allows.

Consider the following hypothetical: There are ten firms in the "infowidget" business. Two these rely on the Romantic Maximizer model--they produce the goods and sell them based on their patent rights. Six of these firms produce infowidgets on supply-side (Know-How) or demand-side (Scholarly Lawyer) models--they make their Realwidgets or Servicewidgets more efficient or desirable to customers. Finally, the last two firms are non-profits that exited on a fixed, endowed income. Each firm produces five infowidgets, for a total market supply of fifty. Now let's imagine a change in law that increases exclusivity and is efficient under the simple justification of IP rights. We'll say it increases input costs by 10 percent, but increases appropriability by 20 percent (giving an expected gain of 10 percent). The Romantic Maximizers will thus see an increase in production from 10 infowidgets to 11--making the policy change seem like a good thing. Looking at the market as a whole, however, we see that eight firms see an increase of 10 percent in costs and zero gain in appropriability (because the other eight firms do not rely on exclusive rights to sell their products). Thus the productivity of these eight firms declines from 40 infowidgets to 36, meaning that market as a whole declines in production from 50 to 37. When the scope of our inquiry is widened we see that the policy change made the market less efficient.

What is important to note is that the strength of exclusivity will shape the population of business strategies. Changing the level of exclusivity makes some models more desirable than others. This change can also affect the value and attraction of consolidating information production.

===When Information Production Meets the Computer Network===

Prior to the industrial information age, music was a largely a relational good. It was something people did in the physical presence of each other. Music was produced in the folk way through hearing, repeating, improvising; in the middle-class way through buying sheet music and playing for others or attending public performances; and in the upper class way though hiring musicians. Capital took the form of instruments and performance space and was widely distributed amongst musicians and performance hall (and drawing room) owners. Music, as a market good, depended on the physical proximity of producer and consumer.

The introduction of the phonograph changed all this by transforming music into a product that could be sold in the industrial information economy. Capital became concentrated in the form of studio owners and recorder producers. And with the broadcast of music over the radio, a smaller number of musicians reached a much greater audience. Placing this in the context of the strategies above, we might say that the music industry shifted from a reliance on Scholarly Lawyer and Joe Einstein models to reliance on Romantic Maximizer and Mickey models.

This stylized story of the music industry typifies the mass media more generally. The mechanical press, the telegraph, the phonograph, film, high-powered radio transmitters--all of these evolutions in technology affected the market for information goods. As the industrial information age progressed ownership of newspapers became increasingly concentrated, as was the case with radio stations, cable networks, and film studios. The lesson here is that the technology of information production also affects the kind of business models that are desirable.

Information and cultural production that three primary types of inputs: 1) existing information; 2) mechanical means of producing and sensing information (printing presses and radio transmitters); and 3) human capacity for creativity. In the industrial information the costs of the second type of input was quite high, making it efficient to have a few producers of information that could reach a wide audience. The costs of the second kind of input, though, are drastically declining in the networked information economy. Thus, when information is priced at its marginal cost (zero), human capacity becomes the only truly scare resource in information production. Human communicative capacity, however, is radically different from printing presses and satellites. It's not the kind of capital good that can be transferred or aggregated; rather the capacity of each individual is as unique as the individual herself. The promise of the networked information age is to bring the rich diversity of our individual experiences smack into the middle of our economy and productive lives.

Nonmarket production has always played a greater role in the production of information goods as it has in standard economic goods. Street performances, story telling by the campfire, religious texts that are given away, not sold, folk songs, free galleries, the list goes on and on. What is changing in the networked information age is that means of producing and exchanging information, knowledge, and culture have not only been drastically reduced in price, but also have been widely dispersed throughout the population. Home computers, personal printers, cheap electronic storage, fast transmission capacity over the internet, etc. Nonmarket behavior is thus becoming central to producing our information and cultural environment

===Strong Exclusive Rights in the Digital Environment===

We now have the basic elements for a clash between incumbent institutions and emerging social practices. The incumbent institutions, acting in accordance with rational self-interest, seek to policies that improve the returns on their current business models, which strong, broad, exclusive rights like copyrights and patents. As we have seen, however, technology has evolved so that strong exclusive rights may adversely affect other actors (both market and nonmarket). Thus, we are at a critical juncture for policy development. We must learn to evaluate the effects of exclusive rights on all the modes of information production. And we must be willing to adjust our institutional environment to make way for the new social practices made possible by the changing information economy.

==Sources==
===Sources cited in the chapter===
===Other relevant readings===

==Case Studies==
===Supporting examples===
===Counter-examples===

==Key Concepts==

'''Non-rival''' (36)

'''Standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants Effect''' (37)

'''Input/Output Circularity (see Standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants Effect)
'''

3. Peer Production and Sharing

2006-04-18T05:08:44Z

AdyBarkan:

===[http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_3.pdf Download the full chapter here]===

==Summary of the chapter==

===Overview===

===Free/Open Source Software===

===Peer Production of Information, knowledge, and Culture Generally===

===Reevance/Accrediation===

===Value-Added Distribution===

===Sharing of Processing, Storage, and Communications Platforms===

==Sources==
===Sources cited in the chapter===
===Other relevant readings===
==Case Studies==
===Supporting examples===
===Counter-examples===
==Key Concepts==

1. Introduction: A Moment of Opportunity and Challenge

2006-04-18T05:06:27Z

AdyBarkan:

===[http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_1.pdf Download the full chapter here]===
==Summary of the chapter==
===Overview===
===The Emergence of the Networked Information Economy===

First, advanced economies have shifted from an economy based on production of physical goods and services (e.g., automobiles and textiles, mining and construction) to an economy centered on the production of information goods and services (e.g., cinema and software, legal representation and financial planning).

Second, advanced economies have shifted from a communications environment relies on an expensive centralized communicator that broadcasts to a wide audience (e.g., radio, television) to an environment that relies on a multitude of cheap processors with high computing capacity that are interconnected with one another (i.e., the Internet).

These two shifts make it possible to lessen the market’s influence over political values. The second shift allows decentralized, non-market production. The first shift means that this new form of production will play a central, rather than periphery role, in advanced economies.

The first part of this book explores in detail the economic implications of these two parallel shifts. The central thesis is that a new stage of the information economy is emerging. The industrial information economy of the mid nineteenth and twentieth centuries is now being displaced by the “networked information economy.” The networked information economy is characterized by decentralized individual action carried out through willed distributed, nonmarket means that do not depend on market strategies.

Several factors allowed for the networked information economy to emerge. First, the design of computing technologies and the internet allows for user-to-user communication. Second, the price of computation, communication, and storage has steadily declined and continues to do so. In the old industrial information economy, the desire to communicate was often frustrated by price constraints on the mode of communication. Price constraints on printing, mailing, and broadcasting meant that wider the audience one wanted to reach, the larger the price tag. It was difficult for the average individual, unaffiliated with a commercial business, to broadcast over the radio station and almost impossible to do so via a television network. In the networked information economy, many of these price constraints have been radically loosened.

There are three important observations about this new economy. One, non-proprietary strategies have always been more common in the production of information goods than in the production of physical goods. Examples include public education, the arts and sciences, and political debate. Because these activities are cheaper in the new economy means, in principle, they should play a more central role in information production. Two, there has, in fact, been such an increase in importance. A Google search returns information on almost any subject a user queries. The list of hits comprising the information good is the result of the coordinate efforts of uncoordinated actions a wide and diverse group of individuals. Three, there numerous examples of effective, large-scale, cooperative efforts to create information and culture. This is commonly known as peer-production and is typified by the open-source software movement. Other examples include Wikipedia and SETI@Home.

Without an analytic method of understanding these phenomena, which fly in the face of many traditional economic assumptions, we will see them as mere curiosities or fads. The purpose of Part I of the book is to provide a sophisticated framework that will allow us to understand peer-production for what it really is: a new mode of production, one that is powerful, efficient, and sustainable.

===Networked Information Economy and Liberal Democratic States===

How we make information, how we get it, how we speak to others, and how others speak to us are core components of the shape of freedom in any society. Part II of this book will examine how the networked information economy effects four core commitments of democratic societies: individual freedom, a participatory political system, a critical culture, and social justice. Often these commitments are contradictory and therefore must be balanced against one another. For example, a commitment to social justice that takes the form of a progressive tax necessarily limits individuals’ freedom to spend their income as they see fit. Different societies have achieved this balance in different ways, but in all case the economics of industrial production have constrained the range of possible arrangements. For example, consider the United States’ commitment to a critical culture that took the form of the Fairness Doctrine, which imposed a general obligation on broadcasters to give equal air time to opposing political views. It was market forces and the scarcity of airtime that led the FCC to adopt this position in the first place, But as the number of information outlets increased the FCC began to loosen its rules implementing the Fairness Doctrine, the Commission arguing that the constraint on broadcasters editorial decisions was no longer justified since diverse views could be presented in other ways that impinged less on individual automony. The networked information economy has lifted market constraints on the ordering of liberal values along four different dimensions:

====Enhanced Autonomy====

The networked information economy improves individual autonomy in three ways. First, it improves individuals’ capacities to do more for and by themselves. Take baking for example. The internet offers thousands of different recipes for apple pie. A first time baker no longer needs to buy a Betty Crocker cookbook, call his grandmother for a recipe, or enroll in a cooking class to learn how to bake a pie. All he needs to do is perform a Google search for the phrase “apple pie recipe” Likewise, someone skilled in the art of pie-making and with a wish to share his knowledge does not need technical expertise to share it: he could easily start a blog devoted to pie recipes. Second, it improves individuals’ capacity to do more in loose affiliation with others in a non-market setting. Again, the results of the Google “apple pie recipe” search are an example of the success of this loose uncoordinated affiliation. Three, the networked information society improves individuals’ capacity to corporate with others through formal or organized groups that operate outside the market sphere. Wikipedia, the open source software movement, SETI@home are all examples. The fluidity and low level (both in terms of money and time) of commitment required for participation in these wide range of projects is just one of the ways in which the networked information economy has enhanced individuals’ autonomy.

====Democracy: The Networked Public Sphere====

The networked information economy has also allowed individuals’ greater participation in the public sphere. This has happened in at least three ways. First, it has given individuals alternatives to the news and commentary of mass media. Second, it has created new and more accessible forms for discussion and debate. Now the individual does not need to write a letter to the editor or attempt to get her unsolicited op-ed published, she can comment on Instapundit, or even start her own blog. Third, through both coordinated collective action and loose uncoordinated but coordinate action individuals can affect the content and focus of mass media news and commentary. An example of this is when a blogger “breaks a story” which is picked up by other bloggers until the main stream media take notice and respond.

====Justice and Human Development====

The non-proprietary models of production made possible by the networked information society also can be harnessed to promote justice and human development. There are at east two ways in which this happens.

First, the broad range of free software utilities makes it easier for poor and middle-income countries to meet their core software requirements, helping to bridge the digital divide. Free software also creates a market in services, and since the access to the underlying materials is cost-free it makes it easier for these poor and middle-income countries to enter this industry. Brazil is one salient example of a country that is pursuing this path. Second, the peer-production model is being used in areas outside of software such as agricultural research, open-source textbooks, and even health-related products.

====A Critical Culture and Networked Social Relations====

The networked information economy also allows for the emergence of a more critical and self-reflective culture, this process might be called the democratization of culture. The networked information economy does thus by: 1) making culture more transparent and 2) making culture more malleable. In the industrial information economy the technology that was used to create culture was expensive, or if it wasn’t, the technology needed to spread those creations was. An guitar or drum set may not had required much capital investment, but speakers, microphones, mixing boards, studio time, CD presses, and access to distribution were very expensive. Thus, in the old information economy, even if an individual could write and perform her own music, she could not easily market it. But in the networked information economy not only has the physical capital become easier and cheaper to amass, the economic constraints on distribution are far less in the digital world. Not only does this allow individuals to create and distribute cultural products, it also allows them to speak back to the cultural products they consume. The phrase “rip, mix, and burn” describes some of this behavior, those Jack Balkin’s term “glomming on” highlights the creative as opposed to merely critical capacity of this new cultural literacy and media savvyness

===Four Methodological Comments===

Every thesis or argument relies on assumptions and methodological choices. The four most salient to this book are assumptions about: 1) the role of technology in human affairs; 2) the role of economic analysis and methodological individualism; 3) economic structure in liberal political theory; and 4) the role of the state.

====The Role of Technology in Human Affairs====

Different technologies allow for different kinds of human actions and relationships. This proposition differs from technological determinism in that it does not state that technology dictates the kinds of actions and relationships that will arise. But it does suggest that all other things being equal if a technology makes it easier to perform an action that action will be more likely to occur and similarly that if society lacks certain technologies that that are pragmatically necessary to an activity that activity is not likely occur. But all other thins are never equal. And different societies will react differently to the possibilities a new technology offers. The Gutenberg printing press technologically could produce Bibles, making it possible for individual families to own and read their own Bibles. But different religious attitudes also made the actualization of this possibility more or less likely. Thus the same technology (the printing press) had different effects on literacy in communities that endorsed individual worship and study of the Bible and in communities that discouraged such behavior. Similarly, the role of the new technology upon which networked information economy is built can and will be exploited different in social structures. If we deny (as we should) technological determinism, we should also realize that there is no guarantee that this new technology will be exploited to improve society, enhance individual autonomy or promote democratic values. The role of this technology will be determined not just by its internal logical but according to our external societal attitudes.

====The Role of Economic Analysis and Methodological Individualism====

This book has a descriptive methodology that is individualist and economic in orientation. There are other ways to approach the study of technology, the growth of networks, and the displacement of hierarchical social/organizational models. This work, nevertheless, places the technical and economic characteristics of computer networks and information at the core of the shift in social/organizational models.

The lesson we should learn from globalization and that expanding markets can exert enormous pressure on existing social structures. But if non-market production moves to the center of our economic engine the effects of globalization are altered as the expanse of a market economy is necessarily limited.

====Economic Structure in Liberal Political Theory====

The methodological approach of this book is also practical and human centric. It is humanistic in that it is concerned with the claims of human beings as human beings not with the claims of human beings in relationship to the requirements of democracy, entitlements of citizenship. The work examines how technology affects human freedom, dignity, and well-being. It is practical in that it is concerned with actual human being in actual historical settings, not with representations of human beings abstracted from their environments. Property and markets are just one domain of human action and the enhance human welfare along some dimensions, but their institutional requirements can become onerous when they effect freedom to act in nonmarkets contexts. This means that calibrating the reach of the market is central to shape of justice, welfare and freedom.

====Whither the State?====

In the discussions of autonomy, democracy, justice, and a critical culture, the emphases are placed on 1) the rise of individual and cooperative private action and 2) the relative decrease in the dominance dominance of market-based and proprietary action. This raises the question: What role does the state play in all of this? As will be explored in chapter 11, the state in both the US and Europe has mostly supported the market-based industrial incumbents of the old industrial information economy. These incumbents have, in many instances, captured the legislature with the result that most state interventions have been, at best, well-intentioned but wrongheaded efforts to optimize outdated modes of production.

This book is essentially adopts a libertarian political theory: Freedom and justice is best achieved through a combination of market action and private, voluntary (thought not necessarily charitable) nonmarket action. The state in this theory is a relatively suspect actor. This is not rooted in any theoretical skepticism. There is no reason a liberal state could not purse liberal projects and commitments and there are instances in this book where such liberal state-sponsored projects are suggested. Nevertheless, because the most salient feature of the networked environment is the efficacy and centrality of individual and collective social action, the role of the State should, for the most part, be muted. Once the networked information economy has stabilized, then the state can begin to adjust its policies to facilitate nonmarket action and improve its own support for core liberal commitments.

===The Stakes of It All: The Battle Over The Institutional Ecology of the Digital Environment===

We are coming into the new era of the networked information society, but no benevolent historical force nor invisible hand will necessarily guide us to achieve an open, diverse, and liberal equilibrium. Like economic shifts of the past, this shift will lead to substantial redistributions of money and power. The incumbents--Hollywood, the recording industry, broadcasters, and telecommunications providers, stand to be the losers in this reallocation. And, as any self-interested actor would, these players are not only resisting technological and legal changes that threaten they but also taking pro-active measures to ensure that the techno-legal landscape is favorable to their old modes of production.

This book is offered as a challenge to contemporary legal democracies. We are in the midst of a technological, economic and organization transformation that will affect not only information production, but also the core liberal values of freedom and justice. The end result of this transformation, however, is not pre-determined: It depends on the policy choices that we make in the coming decade. We must recognize that what may appear to be a simple choice over technology-architectures is much more than that. These policy choices are fundamentally social and political choices--choices about how to be free, equal, productive humans.

==Sources==
===Sources cited in the chapter===
[http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman/ Barry Wellman] et al., “[http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol8/issue3/wellman.html The Social Affordances of the Internet for Networked Individualism],” JCMC 8, no. 3 (April 2003).

[http://www.langdonwinner.org/index.html Langdon Winner], ed., “[http://www.courses.psu.edu/phil/phil403_pam208/winner/ Do Artifacts Have Politics?]” in [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226902110/102-1896851-0466565?v=glance&n=283155 The Whale and The Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology] (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 19–39.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Innis Harold Innis], [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&id=nEXqB_KfxjgC&dq=harold+innis+bias+of+communication&psp=wp&pg=PP1&printsec=0&lpg=PP1&sig=07w8qBfAqicAScKD5oaLFfKEBbE The Bias of Communication] (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1951 1951]).

[http://lessig.org/ Lawrence Lessig], [http://www.code-is-law.org/ Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace] (New York: Basic Books, 1999).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Castells Manuel Castells], [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=ISBN0631221409&id=hngg4aFtJVcC&dq=manuel+castells&pg=PP1&printsec=0&lpg=PP1&sig=NBPxhbzO0PMyda3lPEByp1Z5dSk The Rise of the Networked Society] (Cambridge, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996).

===Other relevant readings===

Steven Weber's "[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674018583/sr=8-1/qid=1145166266/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-3528198-0636147?%5Fencoding=UTF8 The Success of Open Source]" snippet from an editorial review on Amazon... "''...we can listen to Steven Weber and begin to make our peace with the uncomfortable fact that the very foundations of our familiar "knowledge as property" world have irrevocably shifted..."''

[http://www.cali.org/index.php?fuseaction=conference.ViewAgenda&eventid=1#goto1-2-1 Webcast] of Steven Weber at the 2005 Conference for Law School Computing titled ''Is Open Source the Opening Shot in an Economic Revolution?''

==Case Studies==
===Supporting examples===
===Counter-examples===

==Key Concepts==

'''Industrial Information Economy:''' A system of production, distribution, and consumption of information goods characterized by a centralized commercial action carried out through a one-to-many distribution and dependent on market strategies. (page 3 of WON)

'''The networked information economy:''' A system of production, distribution, and consumption of information goods characterized by decentralized individual action carried out through wildly distributed, nonmarket means that do not depend on market strategies. (page 3 of WON)

'''Peer-Production:''' (page 5 of WON)

Download PDFs of the book

2006-04-08T22:34:26Z

AdyBarkan:

You can download the whole book in one PDF:

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks.pdf Download whole book] (3.6 MB)

Or you can download each chapter individually:

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_1.pdf Chapter 1. Introduction: A Moment of Opportunity and Challenge] (390 KB)

'''Part One. The Networked Information Economy'''

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_2.pdf Chapter 2. Some Basic Economics of Information Production and Innovation] (687 KB)

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_3.pdf Chapter 3. Peer Production and Sharing] (382 KB)

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_4.pdf Chapter 4. The Economics of Social Production] (394 KB)

'''Part Two. The Political Economy of Property and Commons'''

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_5.pdf Chapter 5. Individual Freedom: Autonomy, Information, and Law] (426 KB)

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_6.pdf Chapter 6. Political Freedom Part 1: The Trouble with Mass Media] (433 KB)

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_7.pdf Chapter 7. Political Freedom Part 2: Emergence of the Networked Public Sphere] (716 KB)

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_8.pdf Chapter 8. Cultural Freedom: A Culture Both Plastic and Critical] (368 KB)

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_9.pdf Chapter 9. Justice and Development ] (485 KB)

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_10.pdf Chapter 10. Social Ties: Networking Together] (341 KB)

'''Part Three. Policies of Freedom at a Moment of Transformation'''

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_11.pdf Chapter 11. The Battle Over the Institutional Ecology of the Digital Environment] (561 KB)

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_12.pdf Chapter 12. Conclusion: The Stakes of Information Law and Policy] (94 KB)

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Notes.pdf Notes] (179 KB)

You can order a copy: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300110561/sr=8-1/qid=1140626021/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-8246423-0950353?%5Fencoding=UTF8 from Amazon]
or
[http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=0300110561 from Yale Press]

http://creativecommons.org/images/public/somerights20.png This book is available under a
[http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ Creative Commons Noncommercial Sharealike] license

Download PDFs of the book

2006-04-08T22:32:56Z

AdyBarkan:

You can download the whole book in one PDF:

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks.pdf Download whole book] (3.6 MB)

Or you can download each chapter individually:

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_1.pdf Chapter 1. Introduction: A Moment of Opportunity and Challenge] (390 KB)

'''Part One. The Networked Information Economy'''

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_2.pdf Chapter 2. Some Basic Economics of Information Production and Innovation] (687 KB)

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_3.pdf Chapter 3. Peer Production and Sharing] (382 KB)

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_4.pdf Chapter 4. The Economics of Social Production] (394 KB)

'''Part Two. The Political Economy of Property and Commons'''

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_5.pdf Chapter 5. Individual Freedom: Autonomy, Information, and Law] (426 KB)

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_6.pdf Chapter 6. Political Freedom Part 1: The Trouble with Mass Media] (433 KB)

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_7.pdf Chapter 7. Political Freedom Part 2: Emergence of the Networked Public Sphere] (716 KB)

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_8.pdf Chapter 8. Cultural Freedom: A Culture Both Plastic and Critical] (368 KB)

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_9.pdf Chapter 9. Justice and Development ] (485 KB)

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_10.pdf Chapter 10. Social Ties: Networking Together] (341 KB)

'''Part Three. Policies of Freedom at a Moment of Transformation'''

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_11.pdf Chapter 11. The Battle Over the Institutional Ecology of the Digital Environment] (561 KB)

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_12.pdf Chapter 12. Conclusion: The Stakes of Information Law and Policy] (94 KB)

[http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/book/pdf/chapters/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Notes.pdf Notes]

You can order a copy: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300110561/sr=8-1/qid=1140626021/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-8246423-0950353?%5Fencoding=UTF8 from Amazon]
or
[http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=0300110561 from Yale Press]

http://creativecommons.org/images/public/somerights20.png This book is available under a
[http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ Creative Commons Noncommercial Sharealike] license