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Overview
Lawyer and writer Mike Godwin has been at the forefront of the struggle to preserve freedom of speech on the Internet. In Cyber Rights he recounts the major cases and issues in which he was involved and offers his views on free speech and other constitutional rights in the digital age. Godwin shows how the law and the Constitution apply, or should apply, in cyberspace and defends the Net against those who would damage it for their own purposes.Godwin details events and phenomena that have shaped our understanding of rights in cyberspace—including early antihacker fears that colored law enforcement activities in the early 1990s, the struggle between the Church of Scientology and its critics on the Net, disputes about protecting copyrighted works on the Net, and what he calls "the great cyberporn panic." That panic, he shows, laid bare the plans of those hoping to use our children in an effort to impose a new censorship regime on what otherwise could be the most liberating communications medium the world has seen. Most important, Godwin shows how anyone—not just lawyers, journalists, policy makers, and the rich and well connected—can use the Net to hold media and political institutions accountable and to ensure that the truth is known.
This book is a thoughtful discourse on the freedom of speech in cyberspace. It describes the net backlash, net libel and the relationship between privacy and society. It also details copyright on the net, the cyberporn panic and the Communications Decency Act of 1996. With a straightforward tone and interesting tales, the book is targeted toward those who are interested in the first amendment`s role in cyberspace.
Synopsis
A first-person account of the fight to preserve First Amendment rights in the digital age.
Publishers Weekly
With an unusually broad view of free speech, lawyer and advocate Godwin, counsel to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, brings his opinions to bear on a slate of Net-related First Amendment cases and policy issues. Citing examples ranging from the landmark Compuserve ruling, in which the court found that an Internet service provider was akin to a bookstore and not a publisher in its culpability for disseminating offensive speech, to the LaMacchia incident, a software piracy case that was ultimately dismissed, Godwin argues for less government intervention, displaying a Panglossian view of the Net's potential. In doing so, he frames nicely some of the issues raised by the encounter of the 200-year-old Bill of Rights and the cutting-edge Internet. But through much of his book Godwin sounds defensive, and his polemics often trump nuanced analysis. By the time he gets to discussing the notorious Time magazine expose on cyberporn, criticizing the magazine for buying into hype, his arguments have become predictable--or flimsy, as when he implies that the Net poses no new risks with its dissemination of dangerous information, such as bomb-making instructions, because libraries have carried such information for years. Godwin's book is a thoughtful examination of an important subject, but its thoughts seem too often filtered through rose-colored screens. Editor, Tracy Smith; agent, General Median. (Aug.)
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
With an unusually broad view of free speech, lawyer and advocate Godwin, counsel to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, brings his opinions to bear on a slate of Net-related First Amendment cases and policy issues. Citing examples ranging from the landmark Compuserve ruling, in which the court found that an Internet service provider was akin to a bookstore and not a publisher in its culpability for disseminating offensive speech, to the LaMacchia incident, a software piracy case that was ultimately dismissed, Godwin argues for less government intervention, displaying a Panglossian view of the Net's potential. In doing so, he frames nicely some of the issues raised by the encounter of the 200-year-old Bill of Rights and the cutting-edge Internet. But through much of his book Godwin sounds defensive, and his polemics often trump nuanced analysis. By the time he gets to discussing the notorious Time magazine expose on cyberporn, criticizing the magazine for buying into hype, his arguments have become predictable--or flimsy, as when he implies that the Net poses no new risks with its dissemination of dangerous information, such as bomb-making instructions, because libraries have carried such information for years. Godwin's book is a thoughtful examination of an important subject, but its thoughts seem too often filtered through rose-colored screens. Editor, Tracy Smith; agent, General Median. (Aug.)Library Journal
An impassioned argument for First Amendment rights in cyberspace is illustrated with compelling narratives of cases involving censorship, cyberporn, libel, privacy, and copyright issues. (Feb.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.School Library Journal
YA--Teens growing up with the Net aren't likely to find a better roadmap to the issues affecting their First Amendment future there than this book. Godwin is a pioneering advocate for First Amendment rights in cyberspace and, while this book is an impassioned argument for free speech, he effectively articulates "all sides" in order to make the issues clear. More than this, Cyber Rights reveals the Net to be a community with a human face. Recognizing that many people see cyberspace as marginal, unreal, and lawless, the author counters that image with history, fact, and principled argument. He consistently grounds his consideration of legal issues in human realities, relating his own experience, how virtual communities work (and are still developing), and how people have responded to similar challenges in the past. A fine storyteller, Godwin spins compelling narratives of cases involving issues such as censorship, libel, privacy, and copyright. Troubling "cyberporn" cases are described in all their legal and ethical complexity, and the author shows how the media and the public sometimes have been misled about the facts. He offers useful information about how these processes work and what individual citizens can do to guide them in positive directions. As new legal cases inevitably overtake the ones in this book, Cyber Rights will remain useful for its clear explication of the legal and historical issues underlying those cases--and for the light it sheds on humans in cyberspace.--Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VAMichael Swaine
Standing Up For Your Rights
Cyber Rights by Mike Godwin is a book for any champion of the rights of the little guy. Godwin, counsel to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, set out in this book to explain cyberspace and why it matters; to show how the law and the U.S. Constitution apply to cyberspace, or how they should; to answer widespread fears about cyberspace; and to defend the Internet. I think he does a good job on all counts.
Godwin is not a dispassionate observer. If I read his biases correctly, he believes that it's better for children to live in an adult world than for adults to live in a child's world, better for the guilty to go free than for the innocent to be punished, that freedom is not a means to an end but a human need.
Godwin has been involved in some landmark cases involving the Internet, sometimes only peripherally. The book is organized around those cases, and although it does justice to the cases and to the law, it is hardly dry legalese. Godwin is a surprisingly readable writer. In part it's because he is passionate about what he's writing; in part, because the issues are so important. But it's also because he's a good writer.
Cyber Rights addresses the whole range of speech issues on the Net: libel, what it means, and whether the concept even applies to the Net; hate speech; privacy; copyright and other intellectual property issues; censorship, obscenity, and whether there's any sense in applying community standards to a global medium. The capstone of the book and of Godwin's career to date is the defeat of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, a triumph of common sense over FUD.--Dr.Dobb's Electronic Review of Computer Books