THE FUTURE OF INTERNET LAW

a review of Jonathan Zittrain’s The Future of the Internet—And How to Stop It

James Grimmelmann (will attend with pleasure)Paul Ohm (sends regrets)

IP Scholars 2009

PLAN OF ATTACK

• Isolate and identify key features of Zittrain’s approach

• Set him in context with like-minded scholars

• Call the movement “architecturalism”

• . . .

• Profit!

THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET IN FIVE BULLETS

• The Internet is generative

• That’s good

• Generativity creates problems

• Take them seriously

• But preserve generativity

HOW JZ THINKS

• Focus on social and legal consequences of technical decisions

• In particular, identify the technical features that matter most

• Counter-focus on how technical decisions get made

• Describe the political economies of the Internet

• Which technical-social systems are desirable and stable?

FOUR VIRTUES OF JZ’S APPROACH

• It gets the technology right

• It’s inherently interdisciplinary

• It crosses legal boundaries

• It tells a dynamic story

LESSIG, CODEversion 3.0?

SOUND FAMILIAR YET?

• “end-to-end principle”

• “layer-crossing regulation”

• “network neutrality”

• “piracy surveillance”

• “charismatic code”

• “duty of ongoing design”

• “technological due process”

• “the accountable Net”

• “wireless Carterfone”

• “internal perspective”

• “privacy architecture”

• &c.

WHY ARCHITECTURALISM MATTERS

• The Internet is more important than a horse

• The same technical issues recur with monotonous regularity

• Moving from “law of …” to “law and …”

QUESTIONS FOR YOU

• Do you see the pattern too, or are we delusional?

• Who fits into this intellectual tradition? (offline may be best)

• Do you have a better name than “architecturalism?”

QUESTIONS FOR US ME?