Overprotected

Imagine the situation where we are buying a soft-copy of a famous book online. First, there is a pop-out window with that 10-page license agreement (some sort of contract). In that license, described that we are not allowed to make copies and sell those book or any of its content, and such other things protected under the copyright law. Like every other normal person, we clicked on the bottom-left box that says, I agree, without even pick a glance on that contract. And yet, we are most likely to make copies of that book, share them among friends, and even publish them on the Internet. We are talking about cyberspace, with unlimited contents on the Internet; it's hard to keep track of every single person who violates the contract. This is where the code plays its role. The creator (or in many cases, the publisher) embedded codes in the soft-copy, making it impossible for us to make copy of its content. Or maybe they can make it that you can only read the book via their website, in which you have to pay first before you have access to that website. Smart! People don't have to rely totally on the law as code provides better protection. But, as Lessig discussed more and more about striking balance between the right of the creator to exclude others and the right of the public to make use of the content, I start to think that, what if the protection of intellectual property is too powerful? It is just like the enclosure in the past. The code, is like the fence, it denies people's access to the contents surrounded by the fence. Why is this not good? Well, it's hard to tell the future, but it could be, one day, code protects the creators and ignored public interest. And there will be shortage of new inventions, and that's a shame.