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Strategies for a Generative Future 197
ity is a function of its initial design, modified by the sum of vectors to rework it
for control: as Lessig has put it, code is law, and commerce and government can
work together to change the code. There is a hierarchy of dogs, cats, and mice:
Governments might ask ISPs to retain more data or less about their users; individual
users might go to greater or lesser lengths to cloak their online activities
from observation by their ISPs. 93 Tethered appliances change the equation’s results
by making life far easier for the dogs and cats. Tools for group generativity
can change the equation itself, but in unpredictable directions. They allow the
level of regulability to be affected by conscious decisions by the mice about the
kind of online world they want, not only for themselves but for others. If there
is apathy about being able to experience the Internet as others do elsewhere,
tools like Blossom will not be able to sustain much traffic, and the current level
of regulability of the Internet will remain unchanged. If there is a wellspring of
interest on this front, it can become easy to evade geographic restrictions.
One objection to the unfettered development of generative tools that can
defy centralized authority in proportion to the number and passion of those
willing to use them is that there are large groups of people who would be empowered
to do ill with them. Criminal law typically penalizes conspiracy as a
separate crime because it recognizes that the whole can be bigger than the sum
of the parts—people working in concert can create more trouble than when
they each act alone. Continued pressure on public file-sharing networks has led
to fully realized “darknets,” semi-private systems whose sole purpose is to enable
the convenient sharing of music and other content irrespective of copyright.
94 For example, a network called Oink incorporates many of the community
features of Wikipedia without being open to the public. 95 People may join
only on invitation from an existing member. Oink imposes strict rules on the
sharing of files to ensure maximum availability: users must maintain a certain
ratio of uploaded-to-downloaded material. Those who fall short risk being cut
off from the service—and the penalty may also be applied to the members who
sponsored them. The Oink service has none of the difficulties of the public networks,
where files are nominated for takedown as they are discovered by publishers’
automated tools, and where publishers have inserted decoy files that do
not contain what they promise. 96 Oink is easier and faster to use than the
iTunes store. And, of course, it is cheaper because it is free. If there are enough
people to see to the creation and maintenance of such a community—still one
primarily of strangers—is it a testament to the dangers of group generativity or
to the fact that the current application of copyright law finds very little legitimacy