The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind
by James Boyle
Yale University Press, 2008
336 Pages
ISBN 0300137400
Original price: Free (ebook)
What I paid: Free (ebook)
Acquired from: ThePublicDomain.org
Condition: N/A

For a long time the legal boundaries that protected intellectual property were invisible to the ordinary masses of mankind. This was chiefly due to the fact that it was very difficult to copy intellectual property without a massive investment in equipment and technical know-how. But when the general-purpose computer gained widespread adoption by the masses, and when it became possible to network these computers together, all over the world, copying became very, very easy indeed. People who either didn’t know the rules of intellectual property – or who didn’t care about them – began freely trading copyrighted materials, which led to the content owners freaking out, further leading them to push for ever more draconian intellectual property protections in law.

This sets the scene for James Boyle’s book, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind. From there, using analogies, case studies, copious examples and excerpts from legal opinions and court decisions, Boyle makes a case for action against the digital rights “land grab” being pursued by content owners. It’s an important book, no question. In fact, it rather reminds me of another important book from way back when.

In the days before Nicholas Negroponte turned into the Bob Geldof of technology, he wrote a little book about a big idea. It was called Being Digital. The impact of Negroponte’s little book would be difficult to describe to someone who didn’t read it back in the mid-to-late nineties, and some of its premises might seem a little hoary these days – but it was an immensely important book at the time. Back then, when computers were for geeks, and few people imagined that shopping, watching videos, or making friends via keyboard would ever come to pass, Being Digital was a statement of belief, a manifesto that could be handed off to people who didn’t understand what we were talking about. In those days, geeks were evangelists, and Being Digital was our liturgical literature.

The value of books like Being Digital and The Public Domain is that they help teach us how to think about their concepts in ways that we might not be used to. In Negroponte’s case, he taught a generation of budding technologists how to decouple information from the mediums that carried it; Boyle, on the other hand, shows us how to look at intellectual property rights without succumbing to the logical traps that might otherwise lead us into supporting ever-expanding restrictions on how consumers can and should use the products of the content-owners.

The problem with these sorts of books, and with The Public Domain specifically, is that the certain factors lead to undesirable effects. Many of the people who would be most interested in a polemic against expanded intellectual property are already on board with the ideas being espoused in the book. They might, therefore, find it boring or obvious; or they might enjoy having their beliefs reinforced by reading a clear and persuasive restatement of all the things they already think. It’s also possible that the book will be read by strong IP restriction advocates looking to debunk it, and not many of those readers will be turned by any argument, no matter how persuasive. More importantly, however, is the fact that the lay reader may not care enough about the issues either way to give the book a shot.

They really should, though. It’s entertaining enough and non-technical enough to serve as a primer for intellectual property issue novices. The examples and analogies are down to earth, easy to understand, and may engender a certain amount of suspicion in a skeptical reader that the topics have been simplified too much to be useful. It should go without saying (but that won’t stop me) that sympathetic readers will appreciate the grounding that Boyle’s analogies provide.

I found certain portions of the book to be a little repetitive. While one certainly wants the book to tie together into a sensible whole, Boyle’s gift for reiteration gets a little out of hand. He’ll make a point. Then he’ll have an example. Then he’ll restate the original point without actually needing to, at least to my mind. But then, the issues are complex, and perhaps they do need to be driven home repeatedly. My own dislike for this method may have a lot to do with the fact that I have been reading about intellectual property issues since 1996 and, frankly, I’m kind of sick to death here.

Still, even if you’re the sort of person who doesn’t want to delve too deeply into the concepts and arguments of intellectual property, it still might be a good idea to read this book, because these issues ultimately effect the entertainment media landscape that we all have to inhabit. Seeing how those results percolate down from the high-minded concepts and legal wrangling explained in the book might be enough to anger you into action – or at least interest. At the very least, by the end of the book, you’ll definitely understand why the public domain is monumentally important to a healthy and vibrant culture, even if you don’t actively engage in the movement Boyle describes at the end of the book.

And hey, the e-edition is free, so you’ve got nothing to lose but your time.