OPINION: LAWRENCE LESSIG Adobe in Wonderland continued

RELATED CONTENT • Companies (1) • Articles (9) • Column Archives (3) • Topics (2) Printer-friendly version Email to a friend Write the author: • Lawrence Lessig This issue affects more than books. Every form of digital content - music, film, software - raises the same question. In each case, the issue is how much control the seller should exert and how much freedom the buyer deserves. This is the ambiguity about "copyright" in cyberspace: When cyberspace was born, the copyright mavens panicked that content in cyberspace could not be controlled. But they quickly learned that "could not be controlled" simply meant "under the original version of cyberspace." As the code changes, what can or cannot be controlled changes as well. Hence the possibility that the code protecting copyright in cyberspace will be much stronger than the law protecting copyright in real space. So what's a company like Adobe to do? To its credit, Adobe's system shows some serious thinking about the problem. Rather than constructing a system that gives it perfect control over the use of the content it makes available, Adobe is designing into its code equivalents to the freedoms that exist in real space. The "give" and "lend" functions are great examples: They mirror the capacities that real space guarantees. Just as in real space, when I give an Adobe e-book away, I don't have it anymore. When I lend it, I don't have it while someone else does. More important, the company is building its control into its software - not into the hardware of computing devices. This is the real trend to fear as copyright meets cyberspace: the copyright police building tools of control into the hardware itself. That is what's happening to DVD recording devices, and it was threatened (and then withdrawn) for disk drives. But by building its controls into software rather than hardware, a market of diversity can more easily develop. Some e-book sellers will be control freaks; others will be more free. By keeping the controls flexible, there's a chance for experimentation. During this period of experimentation, those of us in the critic business should adopt a few rules. Obviously some protection of copyrighted material will, and should be, built into code. But the power to perfectly control the use of copyrighted material should not. The key will be to find a balance. And when companies like Adobe clearly signal that their effort is to find a balance, they deserve the benefit of the doubt. Elsewhere I have criticized Adobe's "read aloud" restrictions, taking advantage of the plain meaning of its words (as I suspected the company would in enforcing a license against a consumer). But that was stupid of me: The fairer and more constructive response would have been to support its efforts at building freedom into a system that otherwise could enable perfect control. There are still things to quibble about. (Why exactly does Adobe care to control how many times I print a work in the public domain?) But in a time when all the pressure seems to be pushing for perfect control, the efforts of this company to find balance deserve praise. Let more companies strive for this "not too much, not too little, but just right" position. Let more expressly acknowledge that the public's rights are not simply the permissions granted by a company. For if more did, we would then have a more sensible and useful debate about how best to carry the tradition of balance in copyright law into the new century. Lawrence Lessig is a professor of law at Stanford Law School. <PREV | Page 1 | Page 2

MENTIONED COMPANIES • Adobe Systems Incorporated (ADBE)  RELATED ARTICLES • N.Y. Federal Prosecutor Opens Unit to Fight Cybercrime   September 05, 2001 • Adobe Says It Has No Responsibility For Dmitry   September 04, 2001 • Russian Hacker Pleads Not Guilty, Protests Continue   August 30, 2001 • Be Inc. Sells Assets to Palm for $11 Million   August 16, 2001 • Privacy Wonk Warns of Web Gadgets   August 15, 2001 • Privacy Groups to Amend Microsoft Complaint   August 14, 2001 • People Balk at Giving Personal Info Online, Jupiter Says   August 13, 2001 • Kodak Claims Victory in Photo Flap   August 13, 2001 • Judges Switch Off Web Surveillance   August 09, 2001  COLUMN ARCHIVE - LAWRENCE LESSIG • Visible Hand   Aug 13, 2001 • The Limits Of Credibility   Jul 23, 2001 • Artful Dodges   Jun 11, 2001 > See COMPLETE ARCHIVE  RELATED TOPICS • Media & Marketing > New Media • Policy & Politics > Law > Copyright