Today's Justice Department ruling against Microsoft brought a new face into the tangled debate over the roles of government and law as they apply to the conduct of the software superpower.
US District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson appointed Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig as a "special master" to take additional evidence in the antitrust case.
Lessig's specific assignment is somewhat uncertain, but may involve the thorny issue of Microsoft's integration of their Internet Explorer Web browser with Windows. The company has said that the product's next generation, Windows 98, will obliterate the line between where the browser ends and the operating system begins.
Based on initial information, Lessig seems well up to the task. He is currently teaching a course called "The Law of Cyberspace." In the summer of 1996, he wrote " Reading the Constitution in Cyberspace," an article in the Emory Law Journal that was cited repeatedly by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in her opinion in the Communications Decency Act decision last June.
Lessig's papers include The Law of the Horse: What Cyberlaw Might Teach, given in April at the Boston University Law School Faculty Workshop. He also works with the Lexis-Nexis Electronic Authors Press and is a member of its Editorial Advisory Board.
Lessig is also currently teaching "The High Tech Entrepreneur," a course that a syllabus says analyzes "the chess-like machinations and legal combat that characterize competition in the information industry. Antitrust, contract, and taxation will be explored as instruments of public policy and private gain in high-tech ventures."
His current projects include an as-yet untitled book on the law of cyberspace, which views the issue as a type of comparative constitutional law, exploring the significance of problems that the regulation of cyberspace might present.
Lessig has until 31 May 1998 to report his findings to the court.
