The Laws of Disruption - Larry Downes (2009)

Larry Downes is a consultant and author who specializes in information technology and law. He is a non-resident fellow of the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society.

Downes identifies nine "Laws of Disruption." The overarching law, however, is: "Technology changes exponentially, but social, economic, and legal systems change incrementally." Thus, as technological capabilities and resources expand, the systems used to manage the physical world are increasingly inadequate to manage the digital world.

Downes explains that the Law of Disruption along with Moore's Law, which states that every 18 months the processing power of computers doubles while the price remains constant, and Metcalf's Law, which states that the usefulness of a network grows exponentially in relationship to the number of users connected.

The economics of information, Downes illustrates, runs counter to the normal rules of economics in the physical world. For instance, value in the physical world is determined by supply and demand. Scarcity leads to higher value. In the digital world the opposite is true.

Downes identifies five principles that characterize information as an economic good. He notes that they run counter to many of the traditional principles of economics. They are:
1. Renewability - Information cannot be used up.
2. Universality - Everyone can use the same information at the same time.
3. Magnetism - The value of information increases exponentially as more people use it.
4. Lack of Friction - The more easily information is disseminated the more its value increases.
5. Vulnerability - The misuse of information can destroy its value.

The nine Laws of Disruption are:
1. Convergence - the border between the physical and digital worlds is blurring. This has led to difficulties in interpreting and managing business practices and private life.
2. Personal Information - Information technology has made access to personal information easier. While this has created great concern. Downes notes the "Privacy Paradox," which is the dichotomy between the concern people express about protecting their personal information and the lengths that they go to give it away.
3. Human Rights - Modern technology raises many questions regarding individual rights to privacy and property. Downes recounts some of the ways that technology has been used by the government for surveillance and raises questions about property rights as they relate to digital information and content.
4. Infrastructure - The rapid deployment of high-speed networks throughout the world has led to conflict and confusion as regulators, such as the FCC have tried to apply laws and regulations to new technologies that were not even conceived of when the laws were first passed.
5. Business - Business practices in the digital age have proven to be the most perplexing as the government has tried to apply Antitrust laws designed to regulate railroads and utilities to digital programs and services. Downes states that antitrust suits have been extremely costly and have stifled innovation.
6. Crime - Cyber crime, including such things as cyber bullying, is a very real problem. Downes notes, however, that the biggest threat is that legislators, who do not understand the nature of the technology or the crime, tend to react in a knee jerk fashion, creating laws that do not ameliorate the problem, but result in collatoral damage to other positive aspects of digital life. Downes claims that most of the crime can be most effectively addressed by industry and the digital community.
7. Copyright - Copyright poses one of the most perplexing and troubling issues in the digital age. Although originally intended to protect artistic and literary works, copyright has been expanded to include other digital media as well. With the low transaction costs afforded by digital media, the length of copyright protection should be reduced. Instead it has been extended to 70 years past the death of the owner, which Downes feels runs counter to the original intent.
8. Patent - Since the dawn of the digital age, there has been a surge in patent applications. This surge has overwhelmed those charged with evaluating the application and consequently has resulted in the erroneous award of volumes of patents. A particularly nefarious outgrowth of the digital age are "Patent Trolls." These are businesses that buy up patents with no plan to actually implement them. They then wait for opportunities to sue companies that actually manufacture products that may have features covered by the patent, even though they were created entirely independently. The most notable case involved the RIM Blackberry.
9. Software - Because of the low marginal costs for distributing software and the extremely short shelf life, assigning value and cost is very difficult. Downes describes how this has led to the "Open Source" movement that provides software for free and accrues revenue through value-added services. With regard to software, Downes proclaims, "Open always wins."

Downes concludes, "the core principles of public law, private law, and information law are being turned upside down. Policymakers from the physical realm have increasingly less influence in digital life, while consumers, both individually and in virtual groups, have correspondingly more."

Of all of the social systems, education tends to be one of the last to change. How can education as we know it continue to exist in the digital world?