I mentioned this on Fadori a while ago ... it's now available at your favorite neighborhood bookseller. I picked it up on Thursday and have just started reading it. If you liked _Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace_, check this out.

The Internet revolution has come. Some say it has gone. What was responsible for its birth? Who is responsible for its demise?

In The Future of Ideas , Lawrence Lessig explains how the Internet revolution has produced a counterrevolution of devastating power and effect. [...] The cultural dinosaurs of our recent past are moving to quickly remake cyberspace so that they can better protect their interests against the future. Powerful conglomerates are swiftly using both law and technology to "tame" the Internet, transforming it from an open forum for ideas into nothing more than cable television on speed. Innovation, once again, will be directed from the top down, increasingly controlled by owners of the networks, holders of the largest patent portfolios, and, most invidiously, hoarders of copyrights.

The choice Lawrence Lessig presents [...] is between progress and a new Dark Ages [...]

With an uncanny blend of knowledge, insight, and eloquence, Lawrence Lessig has written a profoundly important guide to the care and feeding of innovation in a connected world. Whether it proves to be a road map or an elegy is up to us.

The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World