Notes on Benkler's chapters on intellectual property rights, etc.
[Note: if you are looking at this page in the Spring of 2023, this reading is optional. If we did a second week on IP-related issues, as I have done most of the time in past versions of this class, this is what we would be reading.]
From Benkler, The Wealth of Networks:
This book is available online in a wide variety of formats. For online reading I personally prefer the HTML version at the 'CONGO' website, which formats each sentence as separate paragraph. With many texts, this would be annoying, but Benkler's writing style is so dense that I find it helpful to have all that white space around the sentences. Here are links to that version and also links to more normal looking PDF's of the chapters:
1) Read the introduction to Chapter 2 on "The Economics of Information":
Stop when you reach the heading "The Diversity of Strategies in our Current Information Production System." If you get to Table 2.1:
Ideal-Type Information Production Strategies, you've gone too far.
http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_2.pdf
http://www.congo-education.net/wealth-of-networks/ch-02.htm
2) Then read all of Chapter 3 "Peer Production and Sharing":
http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_3.pdf
http://www.congo-education.net/wealth-of-networks/ch-03.htm
3) Finally, read the last section of Chapter 5, "Individual Freedom," which is called "Autonomy, Mass Med ia, and Nonmarket Information Producers":
http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_5.pdf
http://www.congo-education.net/wealth-of-networks/ch-05.htm#5-4
I've tried to keep the amount of reading manageable, but Benkler's book has a lot to offer, if you are interested in the subject. Don't let my selections deter you from reading more if you have the time.
And here's another thing you might like to read, especially if you are a programmer. Eric Raymond's influential essay "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" covers some of the same ground as Benkler in a completely different style: