In the 1970s, as a student of environmental science, I read the seminal Science essay Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin (1968). Among other things, the essay used the example of a common area for grazing cattle in a small New England town to illustrate how overuse of a resource could lead to erosion. His key point was that by everyone maximizing their own interests, conditions would arise that would irreversibly destroy the “common land” resource. The tragedy is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently (pursuing their own self-interest), will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone’s long-term interest for the resource to be depleted.
Now, in the 21st century, decades after significant progress in the methods and applications of rational resource management, a new abuse of a “commons” area is rearing its ugly head. This more recent commons is one that is entirely man-made; cyberspace. Like physical resources, cyberspace has elements that have been commoditized, elements that may be characterized as “private”, and elements that could be referred to as “common” resources. A commoditized product might be a microchip for the hardware industry. A private element would refer to personally identifiable information (PII) which is protected by several legal constructs in the E.U., the US, and elsewhere. A commons element might refer to the Internet backbone of ultra high speed, high volume fiber optic cables used by the telecommunications companies to route traffic around the world.
Defining Cyberspace
The term “cyberspace” requires some definition in this context. I draw my roadmap from a detailed exposition given in Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance (Mueller, 2010). Mueller’s book presents a conceptual framework that helps to define the issue dimensions of the cyberspace policy framework. Mueller’s basic argument can be summarized along the two dimensions. He deals here with what is considered a legitimate polity for the governance of the critical resources of the Internet. He juxtaposes the ideology of the governance of Internet resources by only nation-state actors (characterized as Hierarchy), with the ideology of “loose but bounded and consciously constructed organization based mainly on the benefits of reciprocity” (characterized as Networks). On a horizontal axis he contrasts the ideology of National governance (i.e., traditional geographically-based territorial rights that accrue to cyberspace, and the control of access and content within that territory), with the ideology that has emerged as part of Transnational governance of the Internet through the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) (especially the Internet Governance Forum (IGF)) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Within each of the quadrants of the figure Mueller expounds upon distinct constituencies each advocating their own brand of Internet governance. The reader is encouraged to explore his definitions in the original book for an in-depth discussion of the model. For our purposes here, the model is illustrative of the new policy space that gives rise to fundamental questions regarding individuals’ rights on the Internet. But can we use the word “Internet” and cyberspace interchangeably? I think not. Cyberspace refers, not only to the Internet, but also to the entire complex of interdependent information technology networks that includes the public Internet and private intranets both fixed line and wireless. This broader definition is what is at risk in the modern era. Nonetheless, it is from Mueller’s basic framework that I hope to reflect upon the origin of the concept of “commons” within this new domain. But, before I do that, let’s explore the dimensions of the current battles that are being fought over who controls what on the Internet.Global Governance: Three Battles
There are currently three key battles being waged over the future of Internet governance; the outcomes of which will dictate how the future unfolds for millions of individual users. The battle lines are drawn around the following issues:- Intellectual property protection (IPP) versus Internet Protocol (IP) freedom;
- Content filtering and control versus total access to non-blocked, non-filtered content;
- Nation state-only governance of key standards institutions versus the current model of multistakeholder (i.e., public and private) governance.
- Extensions of copyright protection for decades beyond previous limits;
- Prohibitions on the sale of technological devices or measures for the circumvention of intellectual property rights;
- Exemption for Internet service providers (ISPs) from strict liability for the actions of their customers.
Cyber Property Rights
In Garrett Hardin’s original essay he dealt with both overgrazing of the commons area as a way to “take something out” of the environment but he also dealt with pollution as a way to “put something in”[to] the environment. My perception of the problems outlined here today is that multiple individual actors, each operating from the basis of their own ideological framework, feel that they have the right to put something into the Internet. It might be malware, it might be control of content, or it might be an offering for a cut-rate version of a pirated DVD. The notion of stewardship, so important in the environmental movement, has not emerged with respect to cyber space. At this point the actors include a wide range of participants. On the one hand there are hacktivists, black hat hackers, code kiddies, common thieves and criminals from organized crime syndicates seeking limited governance, total access without content filtering, and freedom to share on peer-to-peer networks. These actors are accompanied in this agenda by individuals who are concerned about the potential for abuse by governments of individual rights and civil liberties and by those who believe that, for philosophical reasons, the sharing of source material among and between parties enhance the whole (i.e., the open source movement and access to knowledge [A2K] movement). On the other side of the battlefield are those that are seeking more control over the present anarchistic environment through increased regulation, monitoring, and legal enforcement of intellectual property infringements. Both sides of this battle are making incursions into the commons of cyberspace. But as I have made clear above, this is not a battle taking place in a single domestic nation-state. The battlefield is global. The stakes are high. The outcome is not assured for any set of cyberactors. When Garrett Hardin ended his original essay he focused on the importance of population control as a way to decrease pressure on the commons of natural resources. Is that one radical solution that some nation-states will try? Limited access to the Internet resource? Or is Balkinization of the Internet through the imposition of different naming and numbering of the root in our future. The alternative is to recognize the fragile nature of the freedoms of the Internet and the uncertainty of the future for all who use it as a resource. Perhaps what we need is non-anonymous engagement. What do you think? [i] The entertainment industry, represented by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the pharmaceutical industry represented by Pharma.org among others.
[ii] Peter Cowhey and Jonathan Aronson cover some of these alternative models in their discussion of modularity in Transforming Global Information and Communication Markets: The Political Economy of Innovation (2009) MIT Press.
[iii] The current IPv.4 when combined with the Transmission Control Protocol (TPC) is often specified as: TCP/IPv.4. A revised version of the IP standard, version 6, is being integrated into the network for expanding the size of the domain name space and to enhance security.
[iv] The website of the US Chamber of Commerce was subjected to a DDoS attack in the build-up to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House of Representatives and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) in the Senate.
[v] Ongoing administration of WSIS’s consultation process is administered by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the UN agency for ICT. Mueller gives a detailed account of the history and politics of this series of meetings, and the institutional outcome (2010). For our purposes, I will note that the ongoing contractual arrangement between the US Department of Commerce and ICANN, particularly with respect to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), is a point of contention between several UN members, notably, China and Russia.
[vi] In 2008 Wang Xiaoning a teacher in the Sichuan province who had taken pictures of collapsed schools after the 5.12 earthquake on May 12, 2008.
[viii] Brazil, Russia, and India.
[x] S.2105 would assign the authority to the Department of Homeland Security, while S.2151 would assign that authority to the Department of Defense.
Bibliography
Cowhey, P. &. (2009). Transforming global information and communication market: The political economy of innovation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162 , pgs. 1243-1248. Mueller, M. (2012). China and Global Internet Governance. In R. P. Deibert, Access contested: Security, identity, and resistance in Asian cyberspace. (pp. 177-194). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Mueller, M. (2010). Networks and states: The global politics of Internet governance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.