John Perry Barlow's essay, "The Economy of Ideas: A Framework for Rethinking Patents and Copyrights in the Digital Age," addresses a topic that is currently one of the hottest topics of the day. Barlow has very thoroughly perused the issue with great insight, understanding, and common sense. The essay effectively communicates the transition from hard property to intellectual property that we as a society are currently undergoing. After having been a society concerned mostly with concrete, physical property and tangible things, we now find the focus shifting to what Barlow calls "soft property," or information and intellectual property.

It is easy enough to keep a book under lock and key, or to fence in a live musical concert and then charge patrons a fee to enter through the gate. While it's possible to check out a library book and then copy it, it is not so nearly as easy or effective as simply downloading a file and keeping it. As we are finding out, it is no easy task to keep information locked up in an environment where information's natural state is one of self-propagation; the Internet is just such an environment. The Internet is a place of ideas and information, and it is also naturally conducive to the sharing of information, regardless of whether or not certain people do or do not want ideas and information shared. Vast high-speed networks and constantly improving technology make it increasingly easier to share files and electronic content of many kinds. As Barlow points out, "It may be unnecessary to constitutionally assure freedom of expression in an environment which, in the words of my fellow EFF co-founder John Gilmore, 'treats censorship as a malfunction' and reroutes prescribed ideas around it" (333). The fact is, this new "soft property" cannot be controlled and sold in "shrink-wrapped units" as easily as the various properties of the past. This lack of control has already become evident with the online sharing of everything from poems and cross-stitch patterns to digital music files and pirated software.

Barlow goes on to expand upon the various technical, legal, and ethical considerations that are to be dealt with concerning the matter of "soft property," copyrights, patents, and the value of information. He maintains that technology will actually begin to replace the authority of the law with the authority of ethics and the rules of social acceptance. Technology, simply put, will begin to police itself. Barlow's main thrust is that the systems of information control we currently use will continue to become less effective, and humanity will have to begin to view information as something altogether new and learn to deal with information all over again.

Barlow's message is convincingly and eloquently delivered. Our world is changing, specifically in the area of our ideas, our thoughts, and our motivations for having and/or sharing them. The structures of business and government that exist today surely do not know how to deal with the vast transformation that is taking place. What transpires now and in the near future, as our definitions of information and/or property evolve into something new, is anything but predictable.

I believe that Barlow is correct in his assertion that the capitalistic world as we know it will be forced to adapt and find ways to cope with the new society. We are only scratching the surface of the issues that we will have to deal with pertaining to intellectual property. The dawning of the information age has forced society to take another look at the rules pertaining to information and ownership, and it will take some time to know the best path to take. Perhaps in the future we as a culture will come to realize that "there are the inexplicable pleasures of information itself, the joys of learning, knowing, and teaching; the strange good feeling of information coming into and out of oneself" (Barlow 332).

Barlow, John Perry. "The Economy of Ideas: A Framework For Rethinking Patents and Copyrights in the Digital Age." CyberReader. 2nd ed. Ed. Victor J. Vitanza. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1999. 318-338.

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