FCC freed spectrum generally. But it is an appropriately translated role for
the state when superhighways carry bits rather than trucks.

/tab\/tab\THE CODE LAYER/tab\/tab\

The code layer is the heart of the Internet; its particular architecture is
what was special. It would make no sense, however, to say that we should fix
ourselves to the particular architecture of the network at any one time. The
point is not a blind originalism; the point instead is to preserve the values ex-
pressed by that original architecture. Some ways to do that are considered
here.

/tab\/tab\_Neutral_Platforms_/tab\/tab\

The critical layer to protect if we are to protect innovation on the Net
is the code layer -- the space where code decides how content and applica-
tions flow, and where code could control how innovation develops. It is at
this layer that the Internet originally embraced the principle of end-to-end.
That principle assured that control was bottom up; that what would succeed
would succeed because users demanded it; and that what users demanded
would be free to flow to them.

It is the compromise of this principle that threatens the greatest harm to
innovation. And the pressure to compromise comes from those who would
use their power over architecture to protect a legacy monopoly. The danger
exists when control over the platform can translate into the power to protect
against new innovation.

We've seen this power in two different contexts. The claims the govern-
ment made against Microsoft were the clearest example of this danger:
Microsoft, the government argued, used its power over the Windows plat-
form to protect the Windows platform from innovation that would threaten
it. Likewise in the context of broadband cable: the danger was that by re-
stricting the number of ISPs, the network owner could exercise control over
the ISPs to assure that its content, or business model, would not be threat-
ened by certain uses of the Net.

This power, whether exercised over the operating system or over the net-
work within which Internet traffic flows, threatens innovation. The risk of a
strategic response by the platform owner reduces the expected benefit from
innovating in certain status quo-threatening ways. Thus, if innovation is

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v?