Conference -- Spectrum Policy: Property or Commons?

Lauren Gelman writes with an announcement of a conference to take place March 1-2 at Stanford Law School titled "Spectrum Policy: Property or Commons?" The conference is sponsored by Thomas Hazlett, the Manhattan Institute, and Lawrence Lessig of the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society. "The purpose of the conference will be to discuss the very live policy question before the FCC of how to best reform the current method of allocating spectrum in order to stimulate innovation. The outcome of this policy decision will influence the future of the wireless Internet." Here's a link to full conference details and registration; note that "academic, non-profit or government employee[s]" can sign up for free admission (room dependent) and a limited number of students can volunteer to trade set-up help for free admission.

What should eventually happen..

[hackwrench]

is that all the bandwith will given over to devices that use only the capacity they need, not like television and radio that send over a wide area, going into area that doesn't have a device in it.

Lessig's "Future of Ideas"

[wbm6k]

Quick book plug for people interested in this issue.

Lawrence Lessig [lessig.org] had this topic as a major theme of his book "The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World." [stanford.edu]

The book is a good read to get a feel for Lessig's ideas about copyright, the Public Domain, and other commons. It was written while the Eldred case was still winding its way through the courts, so that section is now a bit dated (but his blog can get you up to date on the case, which was lost on appeal in the supreme court).

Re:Lessig's "Future of Ideas"

[Kirruth]

Lessig talks alot of sense on this issue. It's such a shame the arguments on this subject are, by their very nature, complex and involved. People yawn and look the other way, while the very means they use to communicate and develop ideas are sold out from under them.