This semester, our class on Internet, Law and Politics has been led
through the power of new networks to affect politics by a new book, the
Wealth of Networks, by Yochai Benkler.  This book is bound to be
one of the most important statements on technology and politics of this
generation.  It’s our great pleasure to
welcome Prof. Benkler to HLS tomorrow night in person.  We hope
you
will join us.

Festivities begin on Tuesday late afternoon, April 18, 2006, at 5:45 p.m. for a
short talk by Yochai Benkler
in Hauser Hall room 102 at Harvard Law School, and then a party in
honor and in celebration of his new book at the Berkman Center
immediately thereafter (at 1587 Mass Ave, Cambridge).  Prof. Benkler
has recently published his book, “*The Wealth of Networks: How Social
Production Transforms Markets and Freedom*,” through the Yale
University Press.

Prof. Benkler’s research at Yale Law School focuses on the effects of
laws that regulate information production and exchange on the
distribution of control over information flows, knowledge, and culture
in the digital environment. His particular focus has been the neglected
role of commons-based approaches toward management of resources in the
digitally networked environment, the increasing importance of nonmarket
production in general and collaborative peer production in particular,
and the significance of these phenomena in both economic and political
terms. “The Wealth of Networks” is a comprehensive social theory of the
Internet and the networked information economy. In it, Benkler describes
how patterns of information, knowledge, and cultural production are
changing—and shows that the way information and knowledge are made
available can either limit or enlarge the ways people can create and
express themselves.

More information on the book (and ordering information) is available at here, and you
may download it (and much more) on his wiki.  For directions
and maps, please see http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/contact.  Erica George at the Berkman Center is in charge — phone is 617-495-7547.  Hope to see you there.