Week 1

The assignment for this week (and every week) is due before the class. In particular, you should do the readings below before you come to class and be prepared to discuss them. In class, we will call on participants and ask them to answer questions about the readings and to contribute to the discussion. The quality of class participation will be a factor in grades.

Get into the habit of checking the weekly class page towards the end of the previous week to see the assignments for the upcoming Monday and Thursday classes.

Monday class at Harvard: Getting Between You and Where You Want to Go - CDA, PICS & ISP Liability (Zittrain)

Early on, some people surmised that the Internet was about "disintermediation" - a long word for getting rid of the middleperson. It was a blissful thought. From the demand side of the equation, people who needed something could just access the Internet and get it on their own. If you wanted to find information about your hobby or your job search or your elected representatives, you could just go to a Web site and find out what you needed to know. If you wanted to buy a gift for someone, no need to go to a retail outlet; you could go straight to the wholesaler, and pay lower prices as a result. Likewise, from the supply side of the equation, those who wanted to publish something could directly publish what they liked, without needing a publisher and without fear of censorship.

Some of the familiar old intermediaries may have gone, but new intermediaries have replaced them. Instead of "disintermediation," there is "reintermediation."

In this session we will explore the trajectory of various ___mediations, with emphasis on the evolving architecture of the Internet itself - how data moves from one place to another, and the many pressure points, some hidden and subtle, at which gatekeepers could stand, for profit, ideology, or pure mischief.

The readings are designed to show the use of online intermediaries as gatekeepers in a number of roles, at the behest of a variety of entities.

Readings:

• Reno v. ACLU (Required reading: only the summary, pp. 1 - 4)
• Jonathan Zittrain, The Rise and Fall of Sysopdom
• ACLU, Fahrenheit 451.2: Is Cyberspace Burning?
• Lawrence Lessig, Tyranny in the Infrastructure
• Washington Post, Online Companies Draw Fire for Removing 'Offensive' Postings
• The Communications Decency Act (Required reading: only new Section 230) The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (Required reading: only Title II, §20

Thursday class at MIT: Introduction to Internet law and Policy Issues (Abelson, Weitzner)

Slides from class (PDF)

We'll begin the semester with an overall introduction to issues of Internet policy the interplay of technology, law, and policy. Larry Lessig's "code and law" framework provides a perspective for thinking about how technology and policy interact in affecting behavior in the world of the Internet.

Readings to Do Before Class on Thursday

• Read the article by Larry Lessig, The Law of the Horse: What Cyberlaw Might Teach, Harvard Law Review (Draft, Fall 1999). You need read only through the end of Section II (page 533). Be prepared to discuss Lessig's perspective on regulation.
• Read the Supreme Court's ruling in Reno v. ACLU. This is probably your first look at a Supreme Court ruling. Note the form of the ruling as well as the content. We'll examining Reno in more depth later in the semester, as well as other Supreme Court rulings. Notice that the ruling quotes the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (PDF) (which the ruling struck down as unconstitutional).

It will be helpful to have a copy of the text of the Reno ruling with you in class, loaded into a laptop or connected to the Net (all seats in the class have ethernet jacks) if you have a laptop. A printout will be OK too.