Regulating File Sharing: Open Regulation for an Open Internet

Regulators have a choice of approaches available to them in regulating digital copyright issues that lie on a scale between restrictiveness and openness. In a world in which the regulator seems to exclusively rely on entrenching a restrictive approach, this paper questions whether the long-forgotten open approach is worth reconsidering in the digital age. The ideal of cyber socialism is examined in the context of the roots and structure of cyberspace and its state of nature, and digital distribution models operating outside of the existing law are considered. The Creative Commons licenses are evaluated for their suitability in opening the current one-note regulatory regime.