IP Democracy: Susan Crawford on the Internet as a Commons

In a post entitled “the self-owned internet,” Susan Crawford argues that the Internet is a “commons…owned by all for common use…and no sovereign ever showed up to which the people who ‘own’ the internet (that is, everyone) surrendered their ownership.”

In a follow-up post, Susan says:

If any individual attempted to stop the [Internet] in its tracks and demand an accounting of precisely what value he had contributed, so that he could propertize it and take it home to buy groceries, the network would not be able to respond and would collapse. Closing the network, making it exclusive, changes it into something that is no longer alive.

The telephone companies claim that they own “the network,” because they built it. But “the internet,” as it is understood by the public, is owned by no one. Indeed, the internet arguably owns itself and has value of its own that is entirely independent of the identity of its access valves. This value is being captured daily by the “owners” of the internet—everyone.

…So the internet is not only unowned, but it also has a liveliness and liberty of its own that is highly beneficial to mankind and requires protection. The role of government should be to prohibit any form of ownership (or other action) that unreasonably interferes with the openness of and access to and responsible use of this commons by the collective group.

We can start from the premise that there is a strong public interest (evidenced by Bush Administration as well as Clinton Administration comments) in having high-speed, unfettered internet access be available as widely as possible. We can graciously accept that there is a general public interest in protecting property and compensating property owners. But we can regard access to the commons of the self-owned internet as a more important public interest than protecting the private property of the telecom companies.

In her earlier post, Susan draws an analogy to the sea. She quotes an 1824 Supreme Court decision:

“When the Revolution took place the people of each state became themselves sovereign, and in that character hold the absolute right to all their navigable waters, and the soils under them, for their own common use, subject only to the rights since surrendered by the constitution to the general government.”

While acknowledging that “the internet wasn’t created by nature,” Susan says that it is nonetheless “a great gift, and it is very important to being a citizen, and for these reasons it is owned by all for common use.”

It’s fine to build a house on the seashore, or a wharf jutting into a lake, as long as you don’t keep people from navigating that ocean or lake. And, by the way, you can certainly have a privately owned thing on/in the sea, like a ship or a self-owned whale. But access to the sea has to be available.

…So — it’s fine to build special services and make them available online. But broadband access companies that cover the waterfront (literally — are interfering with our navigation online) should be confronted with the power of the state to protect entry into this self-owned commons, the internet. And the state may not abdicate its duty to take on this battle.

Posted by Mitch Shapiro on January 22, 2006 8:35 PM to IP Democracy