The Master Switch

I met Tim Wu while I was working at the Berkman Center. He's known as a major scholar (in fact coined the term) on "Net Neutrality." This book was published to rave reviews, so I tracked it down.

Bibliographic Deets
Wu, Tim. The Master Switch. Knopf. New York. 2010.

Overview
In this text, Wu contends that since the Industrial Revolution, developments in "information technology" (aka "communications") have followed the same pattern which he terms "the cycle." After one or two inventors break light on a new field/technology, hordes of Amateurs and small businesses improve and extend the technologies uses, integrating the technology in a culture of users. This period of "openness" is then subsumed by a growing monopoly/empire. That empire may promise full development and social integration for their product, but they do so at the cost of development outside of the corporation (patents & other legal intimidations) and even keep major developments within the corporation (as in Bell Labs).

Summarized, may want information to be free, but the world will allow it to be someone's property.

Style
For a lawyer, Wu works through the problems and cultures of info tech very historically. He may overrely on the great myths of inventors and amateurs (which he puts in opposition to corporate folks), but the history is fascinating.

The Separations Principle
After working through the history of information and its corporate overlords for nearly 300 pages, Wu makes a major change in the last chapter of the book and actually offers what he suggests is a solution for ending "The Cycle."

"Today the information industries are collectively embedded in our existence in a way unprecedented in industrial history, involving every dimension of our national and personal lives - economic, yes, but also expressive and cultural, social and political. They are not just effectively integral to every transaction; they also decide who among us gets hear or seen and when, whether it be the aspiring inventor, artist, or candidate, And that creates a challenge for an American system used to a clean split between the treatment of political and economic power..." (302).

"What I propose is not a regulatory approach but rather a constitutional approach to the information economy. By that I mean a regime whose goal is to constrain and divide all power that derives from the control of information." (304)

This is his "Separations Principle" ...

"It would mean that those who develop information, those who own the network infrastructure on which it travels, and those who control the tools or venues of access must be kept apart from each other" (304)

Further Notes
This was bought in the US, and read as part of At Cambridge

Also, I listened to Wu lecture on the book (via Webcast) at Berkman - Here's the link to the audio