Dan Gillmor is live-blogging the five day Harvard Law School Internet law seminar, starting with Larry Lessig's talk:
There are four constraints on our behavior and freedom, Lessig says. They are the law, norms (cultural and social influences), markets and — crucially — architecture. We understand the first three pretty well, but the last of those has not been well appreciated.
"If there are no ramps coming into the building, that's a way of saying people in wheelchairs may not enter," he notes. Similarly, if there were no ethernet connections at these desks, there'd be no way people could "send nasty e-mails about the professors" — or, in my case, blog this event.
"Laws can affect how these other modalities regulate," he says. Law can interact with norms, the market and architecture, affecting each and influencing society.