Foreword

Abstract

"In the decade since Boyle's book first appeared, the understanding he pushed has matured into what we should now call the cultural environmentalism movement. For, like the global environment, more now see how relatively specific choices about how information gets regulated have radical effects upon the health and diversity of an information ecology. And just as we need to account for the global effects of our decision to heat with coal, or drive with oil, so too we need to account for the global cultural effects of the radical increase in regulation that marks information law. The claim is not for anarchy. Information environments, like physical environments, need regulation. None doubt that some regulation is good. But just because some is good, it does not follow that more is better. Or even if more is better for some purposes, it is not necessarily better for the spread of knowledge or the progress of culture."