International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

In 1999 Professor Lawrence Lessig, then Berkman Professor for Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, later Director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University, opened his new book, Code and other laws of cyberspace , with a chapter entitled “Code is law.” This short but complex phrase has, since then, found itself at the heart of a thorough interdisciplinary debate on how new media technologies and, in particular, the Internet have altered the configuration of centers of regulatory power and the application of regulatory control mechanisms. “Code is law” is, as a result, one of the most deceptively complex and debated phrases in contemporary regulatory theory (→  Internet Law and Regulation ). Lessig's thesis is predicated upon his belief that “cyberspace presents something new for those who think about regulation and freedom” ( Lessig 1999a , 6). This belief reflects views developed in the 1990s by a group of theorists classified as the cyberlibertarian school, who viewed cyberspace as inherently unregulable because of the borderless nature of its environment ( Johnson & Post 1996 ) and the lack of effective control mechanisms ( Barlow 1996 ). Lessig's “Code is law” thesis, although founded upon some of this school's values, does not represent an addition to the cyberlibertarian literature. Instead, it forms part of the opposing ... log in or subscribe to read full text