Kathy Bowrey, Law & Internet Cultures

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005

ISBN - 0521600480

Reviewed by Mathias Klang

University of Göteborg, Sweden

<[email protected]>

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Kathy Bowrey understands that the Internet is complex and she does not make the typical error of attempting to oversimplify the Internet or its impact. Already from the title she shows that the Internet is not one culture, and continues by demonstrating what many forget – that the Internet is not one technology but a complex socio-technical system. Too many books on Internet regulation focus on the visible aspects of Internet regulation, such as domain names, without really getting involved in the messy reality of technology regulation. Too many books are written from the American viewpoint, taking the US legal system and cultures as default; fortunately this is changing. Like most Internet lawyers, Bowrey displays understanding of both her own legal system and the US system. This multi-culturalism creates an excellent basis for comparison and analysis.

Bowrey begins with the way in which Internet technology has been developed in a social consensus; the non-hierarchical and, to an outsider, disorganized world of regulation by “Requests for Comments” technological discussions that create basic consensus as opposed to final solutions.  This realisation is important since one of Bowrey’s goals is to show that code is not law but it is a tool of social control. The effects of this developing technology on the law are also discussed in the first chapter. Here Bowrey addresses the question of jurisdiction by discussing the seminal defamation case of Dow Jones & Co Inc v Gutnick [2002] HCA 56. Gutnick, an Australian businessman, initiated defamation proceedings in Australia over an article published on Barron’s Online by Dow Jones, based in New York. The Supreme Court of Victoria accepted that the Internet was a great technological advance but also found jurisdiction over the alleged defamation.

Therefore, in the first chapter the scene is set. The technology is not hierarchically regulated, it is global in its reach and it accommodates many types of activities. At the same time it is not out-of-this-world, as some have tried to claim. Gutnick has shown that the judiciary can, and will, assert jurisdiction over online matters on the grounds that harm occurs locally.

In the second chapter, “Defining internet cultures”, Bowrey opens by explaining that the locus of the many cultures on the Internet can be found in its many varied online communities. She attempts to define the growth of Internet communities by using the efficient metaphor of travel narratives from the middle ages, focusing on Mandeville’s travels. Attempting to map foreign worlds with second hand tales of travellers is a very apt metaphor of how the Internet is discussed today. However this begs the question, now as it did then, whose description of the community should be given precedent? If the outsider does not comprehend what is seen and heard does this make the community inferior? Or should the community describe itself through providing value to its members? From communities she moves on to the dot.com era and the telling story of online commerce through the legendary commercial venture of pets.com. The company raised 100 million USD based on the concept of selling dog food online. Today the idea that anyone could invest in such risky ventures seems alien to us. However this was the age when profitability was not to be measured in sales but in confidence. It was a bubble that had to burst. However it was not the first, and will not be the last, such bubble.

The role and responsibility of engineers is the core of chapter three. Here the focus is on the organizational acronyms that have come to stand for the infrastructural debates of our age. These include, but are not limited to, IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) and the ISOC (Internet Society). Usually attempts to explain the inner workings of the Internet entail graphical representations and organisational schemes to attempt to show the positions of these different groups. Bowrey does not fall for such a simplification but rather attempts to show the groups (and in some cases their self-appointed watchdogs) as groups of informally and formally interacting organisations. There are no clear chains of command since the Internet is not a single proprietary organisation. All attempts to display the interactions of these important groups in any other way are in fact oversimplifications of reality.

Bowrey’s main focus is on the IETF. This is arguably the most important of all these groups. However since its formal organisation is not too fixed and its decisions are pursued by voluntary consensus, the group is rarely given the attention it deserves in literature on Internet regulation. Bowrey, therefore, presents the reader with valuable insights on the role and functioning of one of the Internet’s most important groups. It is, as the chapter preceding it describes, a community. Occasionally unintelligible to the outsider but providing meaning and substance to those who belong, Bowrey opens this world to the outsider and explains it in a readable manner without losing focus on the important role it plays.

Chapter four takes on the world of intellectual property seen from the development of movements such as the Free Software Movement, the Open Source Movement and the comparatively younger Creative Commons licenses. My first reaction when reading this chapter was that Bowrey was presenting Open Source but discussing Free Software. This is a common enough mistake but has the same effect of dragging nails across a blackboard to those involved in Free Software. The movements are related – not identical. The chapter happily does not make this fundamental error but goes on to explain the philosophies of Free Software, the community building of Debian’s social contract and the wider success of Open Source.

Once again Bowrey looks to the people who have become the leaders of these movements. Showing both their influence and upon what their power depends. The personalities and public personas of Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds play an important and influential role in the development of software today. However, we see once again, how their power is not absolute but rather earned through the communities within which they have worked. Stallman’s role has been to coordinate the building of a base of available software that can be owned and adapted by the community, and individuals, which it serves. While Torvald’s role has been to hold together the development of the Linux operating system. They exert their power mainly by discussion and they are the foremost actors because they are accepted as such by the larger community.

The movements described in chapter four are sometimes seen as reactions to existing software development and ownership models. It is important to remember that to many computer users the need for a reaction against these models is not obvious. In chapter five Bowrey attempts to show some reasons why reaction may be needed. In her usual manner, she personifies the discussion by showing the most prominent actor and personality:  Microsoft and Bill Gates. This chapter revisits the browser wars, the bundling discussions, and tackles the overall problem of what can be wrong with market dominance. The chapter looks at: why a corporation (not the worlds biggest) inspires so many emotions, how the Microsoft position of domination was obtained, the economics of the lock-in, the anti–trust actions and competition law cases against Microsoft in the US and EU, and the outsourcing of technology to developing countries.

Chapter six deals with the most visible of conflicts that the Internet brought into our homes. While the discussions on software development and control are fundamentally more important, the more visible and volatile discussion concerns the downloading of music and films through peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. The paradoxical nature of this discussion can be seen in the fact that an iPod can hold 10,000 songs, the storage capacity of laptops has exceeded 100GB and broadband can move data around at 24Mbits per second. What do you think all this technology is for? Bowrey jumps right in, drawing up the two opposing sides of the argument and presenting the dilemma involved when the potential of the technology clashes with the limitations of copyright legislation. She revisits the Napster and Grokster cases, looks at the role of digital rights management and then moves on to the Creative Commons licensing scheme which is presented as an application of copyright licensing in an attempt to help people share the material they create by helping them to create easy to use licenses.

The book closes with the emerging patterns of web communication. Bowrey addresses the position of the nation state in the interconnected world and recognises that the nation state is still the actor with the greatest influence. However, this influence is not what it used to be. Bowrey retells the story of Aladdin Sisalem, the Palestinian refugee held on Manus Island. Sisalem was a forgotten detainee who, thanks to the Internet, managed to communicate his plight to the outside world and force the Australian government into action. Similar stories show how the increased power of individuals to communicate forces topics onto the political agenda that the nation state would prefer to be  left off it.

In the conflict between the idea of the omnipotent nation state and the growth of online activism we find the future of the Internet. Does the nation state create allowances and acceptance for the popular voice online? Is online activism the popular voice? Or is it the role of the nation state to maintain order and follow the business interests? Bowrey presents the cyberactivists and attempts to group their interests and what it is they are attempting to achieve or protect. Once again Bowrey does not fall prey to oversimplification; neither side can be easily summarised, however, Bowrey shows the clash of two cultures attempting to define the Internet according to their culture and interests.

This is a well-written and highly readable book. Filled with stories of people using and abusing technology. Each chapter presents another side of the Internet debate, shows the people behind the headline as being complex and not as easily boxed in as the media would like. This book is about the law but it is not another law book. The author has mastered the domain of Internet law and instead of presenting the readers with dry, fleeting legislation, she provides the factors behind the legislation – that which needs to be regulated.

This book does make some demands on its readers. It presupposes some knowledge and interest in the Internet and the people behind it. If the reader is not careful she will jump from story to story without pausing to understanding the implications which may leave the idea that the book has nothing much to say. The book should not be glossed over, it is an argumentative presentation of the cultures behind the Internet and a reasoning for the rationales of legislation.

This is not a book for someone looking for a quick answer or a legal ruling. It is not a howto book. It is a book for large groups of academics, activists, businessmen, lobbyists politicians and technologists who want to understand more about how the Internet as a sociotechnical system works. It is a book for anyone who wants to think and discuss the role of the Internet in society today.

Once again we see an example of how Australian legal authors are rising to the challenge to define Internet culture and legislation. The view from the antipodes is not particularly different or odd so as to be outside the interest of Internet scholars but rather refreshing, like familiar stories told with a different flavour. Even those who have heard them before will take something new with them from reading this book.