Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace

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Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (short title: Code ) is a non-fiction book by the US constitutional lawyer Lawrence Lessig , which was published in 1999. A German translation was published in 2001 under the title Code and other laws of cyberspace . A second edition appeared in 2006 under the title Code: Version 2.0 .

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Lessig's starting point is the drafts that emerged in the mid-1990s about the then developing cyberspace : On the one hand, the danger designed by the science fiction authors Vernor Vinge and Tom Maddox that the Internet could develop into a state and economic surveillance apparatus. On the other hand, there are the classical texts on network theory , above all the declaration of independence of cyberspace by John Perry Barlow , in which the virtual space of computer networks was described from a liberal point of view as a developing place of freedom. The aim was to develop a "liberal utopia": "There should be a space remote from the state."

Like Vinge and Maddox, Lawrence Lessig assumes that the network will be subject to increasing regulation. However, he is of the opinion that the role of the state should not be judged unilaterally negatively: "The state is essential for the protection of freedom ..." He is therefore looking for a mediating path between liberal freedom, in which only the invisible hand and social freedom Control remained, and a state dirigism that had failed a few years before the publication of his book in Eastern Europe. There one saw what would happen if the state withdrew completely from its regulatory role and economy and organized crime took its place. The state should not and should not disappear, it is also needed in cyberspace to guarantee freedom.

The “code”, namely the hardware and the software , determine the respective shape of cyberspace and thus also the freedom of the individual as well as the law. Therefore Lessig formulates: “The code is the law” ( Code is law ).

However, he does not see an effective antidote to the factual restrictions of freedom in specific legal rules, but, following the tradition of the American founding fathers , in the constitution as a "way of life ... that structures and limits social and state power to certain basic values to protect". Lessig sees an effective way of restricting arbitrariness in the disclosure of the code as it is practiced in the open source movement .

Code: Version 2.0

The second edition of "Code", which was published under the title Code: Version 2.0 , was written in a wiki in the period 2005-2006 together with students from Stanford University and Cardozo Law School as well as with the community and later under Creative -Commons license CC-by-sa 2.5 published both as a printed book and online in PDF format . It bears the dedication: To Wikipedia, the one surprise that teaches more than everything here ("for Wikipedia, the surprise that teaches us more than everything else here"). Lessig donated the proceeds from the book to Creative Commons.

expenditure

  • Lawrence Lessig: Code and other laws of cyberspace . Basic Books, New York 1999, ISBN 978-0-465-03912-8 .
  • Lawrence Lessig: Code: Version 2.0 . Basic Books, New York 2001, ISBN 978-0-465-03914-2 ( online edition (PDF; 4.3 MB); the work was published under the CC-by-sa 2.5 license).
  • Lawrence Lessig: Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace . Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-8270-0404-7 (English: Code and other laws of cyberspace . Translated by Michael Bischoff , German translation of the first edition).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lawrence Lessig: Code and other laws of cyberspace . Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-8270-0404-7 , pp. 9 ff . (English: Code and other laws of cyberspace . Translated by Michael Bischoff).
  2. ↑ Lawrence Lessig: Code and other laws of cyberspace . Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-8270-0404-7 , pp. 13, 21 with footnote 1 (English: Code and other laws of cyberspace . Translated by Michael Bischoff).
  3. ↑ Lawrence Lessig: Code and other laws of cyberspace . Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-8270-0404-7 , pp. 21 (English: Code and other laws of cyberspace . Translated by Michael Bischoff).
  4. ↑ Lawrence Lessig: Code and other laws of cyberspace . Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-8270-0404-7 , pp. 12 (English: Code and other laws of cyberspace . Translated by Michael Bischoff).
  5. ↑ Lawrence Lessig: Code and other laws of cyberspace . Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-8270-0404-7 , pp. 20th ff., passim . (English: Code and other laws of cyberspace . Translated by Michael Bischoff).
  6. ↑ Lawrence Lessig: Code and other laws of cyberspace . Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-8270-0404-7 , pp. 24 (English: Code and other laws of cyberspace . Translated by Michael Bischoff, including the title of the first chapter, p. 19ff.).
  7. ↑ Lawrence Lessig: Code and other laws of cyberspace . Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-8270-0404-7 , pp. 23 (English: Code and other laws of cyberspace . Translated by Michael Bischoff).
  8. ↑ Lawrence Lessig: Code and other laws of cyberspace . Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-8270-0404-7 , pp. 27 (English: Code and other laws of cyberspace . Translated by Michael Bischoff).
  9. ↑ Lawrence Lessig: Code: Version 2.0 . Basic Books, New York 2001, ISBN 978-0-465-03914-2 , pp. iv, x (quoted from the online edition (PDF; 4.3 MB); the work was published under the CC-by-sa 2.5 license).