James Boyle's book Shamans, Software and Spleens (1996) was a reference in Lessig's Code, and attempts to construct a social theory of the information society. He addresses international policy considerations of current intellectual property law and theory, conflicts between incentives and monopolies, efficiency and property. James Boyle is Professor of Law at the American University.
Boyle utilizes four "puzzles" to illustrate the issues he sees: 1) conflicts between copyright and free speech, 2) the prohibition of blackmail, 3) the prohibition of insider trading, 4) the patenting of biologicals obtained from human and native sources, as addressed in Moore v. The Regents of the University of California, 793 P.2d 479 (Cal. 1990), cert denied, 111 S.Ct. 1388 (1991).
He finds that what he calls "a romantic vision of authorship" can explain the outcome of many controversial issues in the realm of intellectual property and privacy, when combined with "the theme of originality, and the conceptual distinction between idea and expression." Id. p. 98.
He raises doubt that such theories will always result in optimal solutions, and that the trend is toward increasing rights for those seen as "authors" at the cost of free speech, the public domain and the interests of indigenous populations and biospheres. His conclusions in this 1996 book are an expansion upon a manifesto published in 1993 called the "Bellagio Declaration"
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