Good review of Larry Lessig’s book
The Atlantic

“AT&T would have strangled the Internet in its cradle. Disney hated the VCR. Television broadcasters fought against cable. Even player piano rolls triggered lawsuits from sheet music publishers. Established businesses don’t like innovators, and who can blame them? The innovators threaten to do things better and take business away. But on balance, most of us are better off because of innovation.

The Internet is probably the greatest innovation of the last 20 years, one that promises to give us new ways to distribute music, movies, and books; new ways to do business; and even new ways to create. But in The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World, Lawrence Lessig maintains that old-style businesses are fighting to bring the Net under control and force a return to business as usual.

Two related battles are raging — one technological, one legal — and the author, a Stanford University law professor, explores both. On the legal end, old companies are aided by legislators and courts that have extended intellectual property protection far beyond what’s reasonable, Lessig argues….”