Yochai Benkler

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Yochai Benkler speaking at UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of law on 27 April 2006.

Yochai Benkler is Joseph M. Field '55 Professor of Law at the Yale Law School and the author of The Wealth of Networks and the influential paper Coase's Penguin.

1 Biography
2 Works
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Biography

Benkler received his LL.B. from Tel-Aviv University in 1991 and J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1994. He worked at the law firm Ropes & Gray from 1994-1995. He clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer from 1995 to 1996.

He was a professor at New York University School of Law from 1996 to 2003, visiting at Yale Law School and Harvard Law School (during 2002-2003), before joining the Yale Law School faculty in 2003.

[edit] Works

Benkler's research focuses on commons-based approaches to managing resources in networked environments. He coined the term commons-based peer production to describe collaborative efforts, such as free and open source software and Wikipedia which are based on sharing of information. Benkler's book The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom examines the ways in which information technology permits extensive forms of collaboration that may potentially have transformative consequences for economy and society. Wikipedia, Creative Commons, Open Source Software and the blogosphere are among the examples that Benkler draws upon. (The Wealth of Networks is itself published under a Creative Commons license). For example, Benkler argues that blogs and other modes of participatory communication can lead to "a more critical and self-reflective culture," where citizens are empowered by the ability to publicize their own opinions on a range of issues. Much of the book "The Wealth of Networks" is presented in economic terms, and Benkler raises the possibility that a culture where information were shared freely could prove more economically efficient than one where innovation is frequently protected by patent or copyright law, since the marginal cost of re-producing most information is effectively nothing.