Book Review: The Future of Ideas

Book Review

The Future of Ideas
By Lawrence Lessig

One of the things about this book that I really value about this book is that it is free. You can read it in its entirety or download it at http://www.the-future-of-ideas.com/download/ I think it is pretty cool that an esteemed author such as Dr. Lessig is willing to put his whole work out there to be read and revised as the world sees fit.

Lessig describes an interesting interview he had with (I believe) the head of the RIAA who accused him of being a hypocrite because he was selling his book. Lessig has shown that he is not a hypocrite by releasing his book to the public for free. Will Hollywood follow? Doubtful.

In this book Lessig explores the evolution Internet and how it is a resource that has dramatically altered our society in many ways. He also shows how if we are not careful the freedoms provided by the Internet can be controlled and underutilized to meet the needs of big business and/or other stakeholders whose interest is not the common good.

A theme in the book is the “tragedy of the commons” and Lessig shows various scenarios in which this tragedy does and does not apply. For example, he argues that bandwidth is does not fall in this category because there is an inexhaustible amount of it (although it may currently be untapped).

Although this book was written in 2001, there are still many theoretical nuggets that are valid today, though I was glad to see that some of the more dire predictions have not come to pass (yet).

Lessig suggests many creative solutions to problems we face that should be considered. He strongly feels that the patent office is out of touch and that a radical overhaul is needed as to how long patents can be enforced, and under what conditions.

In this short review I have not done justice to the ideas in this book. But to be brief, I will state my three biggest takeaways.

1. Patents should offer some limited protection, but our current law gives patents that are WAY too long.

2. Control is not necessarily bad, but we need to think carefully about how it is used.

3. Innovation is key to continued growth, and openness is a key to innovation.