Primavera De Filippi

Economics of Blockchain

Claims blockchain is more than just ICT innovation, but facilitates new types of economic organization and governance. Suggests two approaches to economics of blockchain: innovation-centred and governance-centred. Argues that the governance approach — based in new institutional economics and public choice economics — is most promising, because it models blockchain as a new technology for creating spontaneous organizations, i.e. new types of economies. Illustrates this with a case study of the Ethereum-based infrastructure protocol and platform Backfeed.

The invisible politics of Bitcoin: governance crisis of a decentralised infrastructure

Bitcoin is a decentralised currency and payment system that seeks to eliminate the need for trusted authorities. It relies on a peer-to-peer network and cryptographic protocols to perform the functions of traditional financial intermediaries, such as verifying transactions and preserving the integrity of the system. This article examines the political economy of Bitcoin, in light of a recent dispute that divided the Bitcoin community with regard to a seemingly simple technical issue: whether or not to increase the block size of the Bitcoin blockchain. By looking at the socio-technical constructs of Bitcoin, the article distinguishes between two distinct coordination mechanisms: governance by the infrastructure (achieved via the Bitcoin protocol) and governance of the infrastructure (managed by the community of developers and other stakeholders). It then analyses the invisible politics inherent in these two mechanisms, which together display a highly technocratic power structure. On the one hand, as an attempt to be self-governing and self-sustaining, the Bitcoin network exhibits a strong market-driven approach to social trust and coordination, which has been embedded directly into the technical protocol. On the other hand, despite being an open source project, the development and maintenance of the Bitcoin code ultimately relies on a small core of highly skilled developers who play a key role in the design of the platform.

Blockchain and value systems in the sharing economy: The illustrative case of Backfeed

This article explores the potential of blockchain technology in enabling a new system of value that will better support the dynamics of social sharing. Our study begins with a discussion of the evolution of value perceptions in the history of economic thought. Starting with a view on value as a coordination mechanism that defines meaningful action within a certain context, we associate the price system with the establishment of capitalism and the industrial economy. We then discuss its relevance to the information economy, exhibited as the techno-economic context of the sharing economy, and identify new modalities of value creation that better reflect the social relations of sharing. Through the illustrative case of Backfeed, a new system of value is envisioned, comprising three layers: (a) production of value; (b) record of value; and (c) actualisation of value. In this framework, we discuss the solutions featured by Backfeed and describe a conceptual economic model of blockchain-based decentralised cooperation. We conclude with a tentative scenario for blockchain technology that can enable the creation of commons-oriented ecosystems in a sharing economy.

Disrupting Governance: The New Institutional Economics of Distributed Ledger Technology

Distributed ledger technology, invented for cryptocurrencies, is increasingly understood as a new general-purpose technology for a broad range of economic activities that rely on consensus of a database of transactions or records. However, blockchains are more than just a disruptive new ICT. Rather, they are a new institutional technology of governance that competes with other economic institutions of capitalism, namely firms, markets, networks, and even governments. We present this view of blockchains through a case study of Backfeed, an Ethereum-based platform for creating new types of commons-based collaborative economies.

Wireless Community Networks: Towards a Public Policy for the Network Commons

The history of communication technologies is populated with conflicts between centralization and decentralization. While many of these technologies started or have existed at some point of their development as a decentralized structure, often replacing older technological paradigms, nearly all progressively evolved into concentrated clusters of power as a result of industrialization and of the reaffirmation of state sovereignty, following a Schumpeterian process of “creative-destruction”. However, when the needs of citizens turn out to be systematically overlooked in existing power dynamics, decentralized initiatives may emerge as an attempt to disrupt the dominant hegemony and allow for the democratic re-appropriation of technology – a process that the philosopher Andrew Feenberg calls “subversive rationalization.” In this paper, we focus on an ongoing – though too often neglected – phenomenon of decentralization in telecommunications networks. We show that current telecoms regulation significantly overlooks the contribution of community networks in fostering political and socio-economic objectives associated with broadband policy and we propose a number of policy recommendations to overcome this gap.

The Paradoxes of Open Data and How to Get Rid of It? Analysing the Interplay between Open Data and Sui-Generis Rights on Databases

Open Data is an important public policy that contributes to achieving greater transparency and broader access to information, more citizen participation and engagement, while also supporting innovation and economic growth. The pace at which the Open Data movement is spreading in different fields of endeavour can be taken as an illustration that society is evolving towards greater openness, transparency and accountability. Yet, several constraints and legal uncertainties subsist beyond the facade of Open Data. This article investigates different layers of rights that regulate the use and re-use of data: from the copyright vesting in the content and/or structure of a particular dataset, to the sui-generis right protecting against the substantial reproduction and/or extraction of the content of a database. The objective is, ultimately, to illustrate the conflictual relationship that subsists between the underlying principles of Open Data, which purports to promote the free use and re-use of information, and the underlying legal system, whose provisions are increasingly relied upon to establish an exclusive right on public sector information.

Regulatory failure of copyright law through the lenses of autopoietic systems theory

The paper explores the mechanisms that led to the current crisis of copyright law in the digital environment (understood as its inability to regulate social dynamics as regards the production, dissemination and access to creative works) by applying the concept of law as an autopoietic system. It analyses how the copyright regime (a subsystem of the legal system) evolved over time, by scrutinizing the interdependencies between copyright law and the other constitutive systems of its environment: the creative system (concerned with the creation, reproduction, distribution, and access to creative works) the political system (comprising both the State and the Church), the economic system (ruled by right holders and intermediaries on the market for creative works), and the technological system.It will be shown that every new development in the technological system irritated the remaining systems, thereby stimulating the evolution of the overall ecosystem. For a long time, copyright law managed to properly adjust to the environmental changes brought by technological developments, so as to successfully regulate the production, dissemination and access to creative works. It is only with the advent of Internet and digital technologies that copyright law’s selective response to environmental stimuli resulted in its failure to adapt to the new reality and, consequently, in the loss of its regulative power. Reacting mostly to the pressures of the economic and political systems (i.e. the lobbying of right holders and intermediaries), while neglecting the needs of the creative system, and even failing to adjust to the specificities of the changing technological system, copyright law eventually disrupted the balance of the surrounding environment. Furthering the economic interests of intermediaries (often at the expense of the public and in certain cases of the authors) created a series of divergences between legal norms - increasingly restricting the access, use and reuse of creative works - and social norms (produced within the creative system, and supported by the new opportunities of digital technologies), which advocate for the free use and reuse of digital works. Over the years, copyright law distanciated itself so much from the social reality in which it operates that it has lost most of its credibility and applicability in the digital world.Hence, the paper contends that, for copyright law to successfully regulate the production, dissemination and access to cultural works, it must be radically reformed in light of the intrinsic logic and needs of all constitutive systems of modern society, without favoring those of the economic and political systems over those of the creative system. It concludes that society (as a whole) might only benefit from the new opportunities offered by digital technologies if copyright law properly adapts to the digital era by embracing - rather than opposing - the specificities of the digital world.

General Introduction: Towards a Multistakeholder Approach to Network Neutrality

This book is the result of a collective work aimed at providing deeper insight into what is network neutrality, how does it relates to human rights and free competition and how to properly frame this key issue through sustainable policies and regulations. The Net Neutrality Compendium stems from 3 years of discussions nurtured by the members of the Dynamic Coalition on Network Neutrality (DCNN), an open and multi-stakeholder group, established under the aegis of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The creation of the DCNN was proposed by one of the co-editors of this book, Luca Belli, during the Council of Europe’s Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue on Network Neutrality and Human Rights (MSDNN), in order to foster a cooperative analysis of the net neutrality debate and promote the elaboration of policy suggestions for the protection of network neutrality. Many of the stakeholders involved in the Council of Europe MSDNN manifested their interest in the initiative, and the establishment of the DCNN was officially approved by the IGF Secretariat in July 2013.

From Material Scarcity to Artificial Abundance: The Case of FabLabs and 3D Printing Technologies

FabLabs are ‘fabrication laboratories’ that encourage the development of new methods of artistic production based on participation and interaction between peers. 3D printing plays a central role in these labs. FabLabs constitute an attempt to transpose the open source mode of production from the domain of software into the field of art and design. In doing so, however, they run the risk of encountering the same legal restrictions that have been applied to the information realm, where e.g. copyright law has been used to create artificial forms of scarcity. De Filippi and Troxler discuss ways in which the copyright regime has been countered in the information realm to turn this scarcity into abundance. They investigate how 3D printing could be used to generate artificial abundance rather than artificial scarcity, meaning that resources that are naturally scarce are made more abundant (or less scarce) by legal or technical means. They conclude that there are three main barriers to abundance in the physical realm: raw material scarcity, exclusivity of production tools and facilities, and improper access to knowledge and skills.

“Three-Strikes” Response to Copyright Infringement: The Case of HADOPI

Another notable example of how copyright enforcement has moved well beyond addressing specific infringing content or individuals into Internet governance-based infrastructural enforcement is the graduated response method, terminating the Internet access of individuals that (allegedly and) repeatedly violate copyright. The case of the French Hadopi (Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Œuvres et la Protection des droits sur Internet), law first, agency next, both highly controversial, illustrates this strategy of dubious effectiveness for the purpose it is meant for, but of high disruptive potential for Internet users and access rights – and potentially affecting other, perfectly legitimate activities as a collateral effect. In this paper, we will describe the unexpected and perverse effects of this law using the notion of legislative serendipity to explain why this law has never reached the target it was intended for.