Mikael, I think I can explain this issue. To quote Donald Weightman [tinyurl.com]:

"Declan is [the] poster boy for auto-pilot libertarianism as a response to any given Net-related socio-political issue."

Lessig's work has been in intellectual opposition to the stifling Libertarian proselytizing [tinyurl.com] which is Declan's stock in trade. I was a participant in early Net debates. It's hard to convey how frustrating it was in those days, to have Libertarianism [tinyurl.com] constantly, repeatedly, preached at one. A mind-numbing thought-stopping religious dogma of fanatical cultists, who delighted in drowning out anything they deemed unpalatable, via use of their signal-destroying noise.

Declan has done extraordinarily well for himself by being a devotee of this cult [g21.net], advocating their doctrines from his platforms at every opportunity. And also gained in reputation by often being their representative in various debates. Note there's a problem in that too much treating of him as a standard-bearer may give him unwarranted intellectual status. But there's always the counter-temptation to reason that if you can convince someone like that, you can convince anyone!

Think of it as why, for example, evolutionary biologists are so unhappy about creationists, or why doctors have such disgust with faith-healers. That's the type of interaction taking place here.

Blog. Then blog some more. Give some money to EFF, or the Free Software Foundation. Then blog about it.

Second, do blogs reach the right audiences? For debates to be useful, they need to include the right participants and reach the proper targets. I'm not sure discussing cyberlaw policy through blogs is successful on either count. Of course, who the proper audiences are is certainly debatable, but I would venture a guess that both the authors of cyberlaw-related blogs and the readers of those blogs consist of a very narrow demographic.

Howard Dean's guest spot on the Lessig Blog this week has been very enlightening for me. Prior to the guest spot, Prof. Lessig's blog entries inspired, on average, less than 20 comments each. The signal-to-noise ratio was quite high - most comments were topical and well-reasoned. Howard Dean, on the other hand, is pulling in over 100 comments per entry, even though his entries have very little substance to them. Signal-to-noise ratio has decreased (including posts of just "Yes!"). From what I have seen, most of the repliers are not the same people who generally reply to Prof. Lessig's entries, but a group of Dean-blog followers who post wherever Mr. Dean posts. Furthermore, the "debate" happening as a result of Mr. Dean's entries does not include Mr. Dean himself. I have not found any replies from Mr. Dean (though, in fairness, I have not read through all the comments in each entry, though a search turned up no replies from Howard Dean).

Is this the "debate" Prof. Lessig envisions? To me, this case demonstrates why blogs are not the proper forum for such discourse. There has been no debate per se between the Presidential candidate and the voting public reading his entries. Moreover, the replies of the intended audience of those entries (the regular readers and posters of Prof. Lessig's blog) is lost amongst the cacophony of Mr. Dean's blog-groupies.

Is there a proper online forum for cyberlaw policy debate? I don't know. And perhaps I'm in the minority with my opinion of the utility of blogs. Perhaps someone can post a well-reasoned rebuttal to this and we can have a good debate about it.

Thanks for the insightful commentary. I totally disagree with Lessig on the blogging issue.

I think blogs, like the rest of the Internet, are still overwhelmingly for the elite and those rich enough to afford a computer. I feel fortunate that I'm in that crowd, but I also feel like it's like doing a phone poll back when phones were new and only the rich could afford to own one.

Is blogging the best forum for this? No. It's a horrible forum for this, actually. Any debating that goes on is (at best) debates among blog participants (which nobody wants to hear from in comparison to hearing from a celebrity or politician) on a site that is probably not mirrored anywhere and subject to the whim of the moderator (so if anyone doesn't like someone's input or if there's catastrophic error, it's gone or heavily edited).

Is there a proper online forum for cyberlaw policy debate?

Not to my knowledge, not one that means a damn to most legislators. Nor is there likely to be one in the forseeable future. Legislators have very little time, they will not spend time wading through blogs. Blogs are basically intellectuals talking amongst themselves. Copyright is on very few people's political radar because the people who are interested in copyright issues are not organized. Copyright issues are not yet an issue of presidential concern. Nobody cares about losing the vote of a bunch of people who are willing to let the debate be shaped by those running for office. Those people (of which I am one) are perceived as too few to be worth catering to. Organize and this could change.

I don't know who the Democratic Party will pick to run against Bush in 2004, but I have a hard time believing that any copyright issue will be asked of either major party candidate as they tour and advertise looking for votes. Organize and publicize your desire for how copyright should be viewed (don't just criticize what's wrong with copyright law) and maybe this will change.

Because I don't feel like getting an account with yet another website, I'll put my e-mail address and name here: J.B. Nicholson-Owens jbn@forestfield.org

To reply to an immediate rebuttal--why don't I start organizing people on this? I'd love to but I'm busy trying to build a citizen's police review board so people in my town will stop being mistreated by the cops. But I host a radio show on copyright, free software, and related issues (Digital Citizen on WEFT 90.1 FM) and I'd love to have anyone on who is willing to talk about these issues, but please be prepared to talk about this stuff to an audience that has never heard of it before. It's hard speaking in widely understandable terms, but well worth the practice).

Actually, there's quite a bit of back-and-forth between blogs...you see this on scripting.com, for example. A lot of bloggers use technologies like Trackback to find other blogs' responses to their posts.

Really? As a Colorado resident, I'd like to hear more about this. It doesn't seem to have much of a public profile.