North America
Region Nominee
Larry Lessig
Country
of citizenship: United States
Place of residence: Palo Alto, California.
Email address: lessig@pobox.com
Employer: Stanford University Law School
Website: www.lessig.org
Statement
WHY I AM RUNNING
ICANN stands at a critical moment, and the decisions made by this body in the coming years will have a profound impact on the future of the Internet. At stake in this election is much more than who controls the directors of a non-profit organization, or a referendum on past actions of certain players in the process. This election -- the first ever expression of self governance of the Internet -- will determine its very constitution.
THE CODE IS THE LAW
Over the past decade, I have studied and defended constitutions. Some of these constitutions were framed by legal texts - I am a law professor, and I teach and write about constitutional law. But the most profound of these constitutions is framed by code - by the software and hardware that makes up the architecture that constitutes the Internet. My aim over the past six years has been to understand the relationship between the architecture of the Internet and its values, and to defend that architecture so as to defend those values.
Unlike most constitutions, the constitution of the Internet does not centralize power; it does not appoint central committees to decide policy for Internet users. Instead, built into its design is a commitment to decentralized power and to bottom up creativity rather than top down control.
ICANN is a potential threat to that architecture. As a body with the backing of the strongest governments in the world, but without the express sanction of an Internet community, there is a constant risk that ICANN will act beyond its limited mandate in ways that will compromise the initial values of the early Net. There is a danger that it will be captured by special interests, and then use its power to advance these interests.
A LIMITED ROLE FOR ICANN
In my view, the challenge for ICANN is to keep its footprint small. Its role is to be a tiny, coordinating body for technical standards made elsewhere; its function is to assure those standards sustain and support the stability and diversity of the Internet.
Its job is not to become the trademark police; it is not to be the tool of intellectual property; its job is not to set policy for the Internet generally (beyond defending the decentralized architecture of the original net); nor to create artificial scarcity, or choke points of power. ICANN cannot be permitted to claim a mandate beyond the narrow tasks described in its charter.
ICANN must be accountable to that charter and to the values it embodies. Its burden is to do this without becoming captured by powerful interests that would seek to manipulate ICANN's position in service of their own limited ends.
If elected, I will work to ensure that ICANN maintains a vigilant focus on a limited, technical coordination role. I will staunchly defend free expression, privacy, open architecture, and security, by ensuring that ICANN stays out of making policy in these areas. And I will work to ensure that the original spirit of openness, diversity, and the free flow of Information -- the original tenets of the constitution of cyberspace -- are preserved.
RETURN
TO TOP
I do not have the technical savvy of the Net's original architects or of some who are candidates for this board. But I have studied and lived the process of designing structures to enable governance, and to avoid political capture. That's the task of a constitutionalist. And in my view, the structure of governance that we must preserve is the structure implicit in the original Net. ICANN may well do some good relative to this structure; but most importantly, it must do no harm.
RELEVANT WORKS
"Open Access": Testimony before FCC and work in ongoing litigation to defend the Internet's end-to-end architecture, by opposing efforts by cable companies to architect broadband to be inconsistent with end-to-end.
Napster: Experts report for Napster opposing judicial regulation of network search technologies.
CyberPatrol: Amicus Brief defending the right to post and link to copies of cpHack, which revealed sites blocked by CyberPatrol
Copyright Term Extension: Lead counsel in Eldred v. Reno, opposing the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act," which retrospectively increased the copyright term.
Censorware: testimony in opposition to efforts by Congress to require identification in cyberspace, and in opposition to "censorware" technologies.
.
Board Member, RedHat Center for Open Source
Board Member, EFF
|
