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With the radical changes in information
production that the Internet has introduced, we stand at
an important moment of transition, says Yochai Benkler in
this thought-provoking book. The phenomenon he describes
as social production is reshaping markets while at the same
time offering new opportunities to enhance individual freedom,
cultural diversity, political discourse, and justice. But
these results are by no means inevitable: a systematic campaign
to protect the entrenched industrial information economy
of the last century threatens the promise of today's emerging
networked information environment.
With this comprehensive social theory of
the Internet and the networked information economy, Benkler
describes how patterns of information, knowledge, and cultural
production are changing -- and shows that the way information
and knowledge are made available can either limit or enlarge
the ways people create and express themselves. He describes
the range of legal and policy choices that confront us and
maintains that there is much to be gained -- or lost --
by the decisions we make today.
Yochai Benkler is professor of law at
Yale Law School.
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