How does the 'on-line' world relate to the 'off-line' world? Is it different, separate, or even unique compared to the off-line world, or just a part thereof? And when do we need to regulate it, and how? These have become important, but complex questions for legislators, policy-makers, regulators, and politicians who design regulatory frameworks to address fast-moving technologies that change society in intricate ways. Over the course of time, governments and international organizations have developed regulatory 'starting points', in order to consistently and effectively deal with ICT and Internet regulation. These offer policy one-liners such as 'what holds off-line, must hold on-line' and 'regulation should be technology-neutral'. This book questions these regulatory starting points in detail and systematically explores their application, meaning and value for international e-regulation. It digs deeper than existing literature in trying to find out in which cases the starting points merit attention, and how we should really use them. This volume is the product of close collaboration and debate between scholars working at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT), to which international colleagues have added valuable reactions and reflections. The contributions in this volume have been written by TILT researchers Simone van der Hof, Bert-Jaap Koops, Miriam Lips, Sjaak Nouwt, Corien Prins, Maurice Schellekens. and Kees Stuurman, and by guest authors Dan Burk (University of Minnesota), Herbert Burkert (University of St. Gallen), and Yves Poullet (Facultes universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix, Namur). This is Volume 9 in the Information Technology and Law (IT&Law) Series

PEERS, PIRATES, AND PERSUASION: RHETORIC IN THE PEER-TO-PEER DEBATES investigates the role of rhetoric in shaping public perceptions about a novel technology: peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. While broadband Internet services now allow speedy transfers of complex media files, Americans face real uncertainty about whether peer-to-peer file sharing is or should be legal. John Logie analyzes the public arguments growing out of more than five years of debate sparked by the advent of Napster, the first widely adopted peer-to-peer technology. The debate continues with the second wave of peer-to-peer file transfer utilities like Limewire, KaZaA, and BitTorrent. With PEERS, PIRATES, AND PERSUASION, Logie joins the likes of Lawrence Lessig, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Jessica Litman, and James Boyle in the ongoing effort to challenge and change current copyright law so that it fulfills its purpose of fostering creativity and innovation while protecting the rights of artists in an attention economy. Logie examines metaphoric frames-warfare, theft, piracy, sharing, and hacking, for example-that dominate the peer-to-peer debates and demonstrably shape public policy on the use and exchange of digital media. PEERS, PIRATES, AND PERSUASION identifies the Napster case as a failed opportunity for a productive national discussion on intellectual property rights and responsibilities in digital environments. Logie closes by examining the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the "Grokster" case, in which leading peer-to-peer companies were found to be actively inducing copyright infringement. The Grokster case, Logie contends, has already produced the chilling effects that will stifle the innovative spirit at the heart of the Internet and networked communities. ABOUT THE AUTHOR John Logie is Associate Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Minnesota.

Producers and Consumers in EU E-Commerce Law argues that the European Union is failing adequately to protect consumers' critical interests in the area of e-commerce. The book compares the Union's close protection of producers' critical interests in e-commerce, considered in terms of authorship and of 'domain-identity', with its faltering steps towards protection of consumers' corresponding interests, considered in terms of fair trading, privacy and (on behalf of children) morality. The book assesses the threats posed to those interests, the extent to which self-help can and does neutralise those threats and, as regards any gaps left, the extent to which the Union has stepped into the breach. The argument is important given that surveys show low levels of consumer confidence in European cross-border e-commerce, a motor of integration par excellence.

Even though the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution grants freedom of speech and freedom of the press, laws and regulations governing media frequently evolve as the media themselves do. As a result, it is often a challenge to keep pace with new laws and regulations. Electronic Media Law is a comprehensive, up-to-date textbook on the constantly changing and often complex world of electronic media law. Author Roger L. Sadler examines the laws, regulations, and court rulings affecting broadcasting, cable, satellite, and cyberspace. The book also looks at cases from the print media and general First Amendment law, because they often contain important concepts that are relevant to the electronic media. Electronic Media Law is written for mass media students, not for future lawyers, so the text is straightforward and explains "legalese." The author covers First Amendment law, political broadcasting rules, broadcast content regulations, FCC rules for station operations, cable regulation, media ownership rules, media liability lawsuits, intrusive newsgathering methods, media restrictions during wartime, libel, privacy, copyright, advertising law, freedom of information, cameras in the court, and privilege. Key Features Provides an easy-to-use format of chapter categories and sections that facilitate research on individual topics Frequently Asked Questions highlight important points from cases Explains complex, legal concepts in basic terms that give students the foundation for further studies in electronic media law Electronic Media Law provides an understanding of the First Amendment and the American legal system with an emphasis on the electronic media. It is an excellent textbook for undergraduate and graduate students studying broadcast law and media law.

The free trade and commerce available through website in what is known as cyber space has also given birth to a mobile population where intent may basically be criminal. This encyclopaedia tries to cover as many laws as possible, promulgated by various countries.

An exploration of telecommunications law in the USA. It offers a jargon-free discussion of how electronic media and telecommunications companies are required to price their services, interconnect with customers and other service providers, and respond to competition. This revised edition includes a comprehensive look at the Telecommunications Act of 1996, its sweeping reforms, and the short-term increase in TC regulation complexity resulting from its passage. The volume also covers how the rapid advance of telecommunications technology has drastically altered regulations first developed when TC meant fixed networks, copper wire and mechanical switches.

This book offers conceptual analyses, highlights issues, proposes solutions, and discusses practices regarding privacy and data protection in transitional times. It is one of the results of the 15th annual International Conference on Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP), which was held in Brussels in May 2022. We are in a time of transition. Artificial Intelligence is making significant breakthroughs in how humans use data and information, and is changing our lives in virtually all aspects. The pandemic has pushed society to adopt changes in how, when, why, and the media through which, we interact. A new generation of European digital regulations - such as the AI Act, Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act, Data Governance Act, and Data Act - is on the horizon. This raises difficult questions as to which rights we should have, the degree to which these rights should be balanced against other poignant social interests, and how these rights should be enforced in light of the fluidity and uncertainty of circumstances. The book covers a range of topics, including: data protection risks in European retail banks; data protection, privacy legislation, and litigation in China; synthetic data generation as a privacy-preserving technique for the training of machine learning models; effectiveness of privacy consent dialogues; legal analysis of the role of individuals in data protection law; and the role of data subject rights in the platform economy. This interdisciplinary book has been written at a time when the scale and impact of data processing on society - on individuals as well as on social systems - is becoming ever more important. It discusses open issues as well as daring and prospective approaches and is an insightful resource for readers with an interest in computers, privacy and data protection.

Government and Information: The Law Relating to Access, Disclosure and their Regulation is the leading text offering comprehensive and practical advice on the access, disclosure and retention of government records under UK, EU and ECHR requirements. It is essential reading for all those dealing with public authority information. The fifth edition is extensively revised following numerous developments in both UK and EU law as well as the ever expanding case law on information rights under statutory, Convention and common law provisions. Legislation: Justice and Security Act 2013; Crime and Courts Act 2013 (s 34 in relation to press standards following Leveson); Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2015 Investigatory Powers Bill 2016; Environmental Information Regulations 2004; General Data Protection Regulation 2016; Key cases since the last edition include: Evans v Attorney General [2015] UKSC 21 - the SC ruled that the Attorney General had acted unlawfully in issuing a veto preventing disclosure Kennedy v Charities Commission [2014] UKSC 20 - Supreme Court extended the ambit of the common law in relation to access to information and transparency Case 362/14 Schrems [2015]) - involving data transfer to the USA PJS v Newsgroup Newspapers ltd [2016] UKSC 26 - developing the law of personal privacy

Broadcasting in the European Union: The Role of Public Interest in Competition Analysis explores whether and to what extent EC Competition law promotes media pluralism and how broadcasting's public service and commercial interests can be reconciled in Europe, where public and economic competition have traditionally been defined as distinct concepts. It employs a multi-disciplinary approach to identify how the term 'public interest' is used by different actors. Publicists, it is believed, compete on words, not on products or prices. Against the background of increased commercialisation, this book takes a different point of view. It identifies how EC law and the case law of the European Courts balance public interest considerations with economic competition on media markets. It also contrasts various policy options and examines issues from EC merger control to the marketing of sports rights. This book offers the first comprehensive application of competition analysis to European broadcasting.

TyAnna K. Herrington explains current intellectual property law and examines the effect of the Internet and ideological power on its interpretation. Promoting a balanced development of our national culture, she advocates educators' informed participation in ensuring egalitarian public access to information. She discusses the control of information and the creation of knowledge in terms of the way control functions under current property law.

TyAnna K. Herrington explains current intellectual property law and examines the effect of the Internet and ideological power on its interpretation. Promoting a balanced development of our national culture, she advocates educators' informed participation in ensuring egalitarian public access to information. She discusses the control of information and the creation of knowledge in terms of the way control functions under current property law.

For companies in and around the telecommunications field, the past few years have been a time of extraordinary change-technologically and legally. The enacting of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the development of international trade agreements have fundamentally changed the environment in which your business operates, creating risks, responsibilities, and opportunities that were not there before.

Until now, you'd have had a hard time finding a serious business book that offered any more than a cursory glance at this transformed world. But at last there's a resource you can depend on for in-depth analysis and sound advice. Written in easy-to-understand language, "Telecommunications Law in the Internet Age" systematically examines the complex interrelationships of new laws, new technologies, and new business practices, and equips you with the practical understanding you need to run your enterprise optimally within today's legal boundaries.
* Offers authoritative coverage from a lawyer and telecommunications authority who has been working in the field for over three decades.
* Examines telecommunications law in the U.S., at both the federal and state level.
* Presents an unparalleled source of information on international trade regulations and their effects on the industry.
* Covers the modern telecommunications issues with which most companies are grappling: wireless communication, e-commerce, satellite systems, privacy and encryption, Internet taxation, export controls, intellectual property, spamming, pornography, Internet telephony, extranets, and more.
* Provides guidelines for preventing inadvertent violations of telecommunications law.
* Offers guidance on fending off legal and illegal attacks by hackers, competitors, and foreign governments.
* Helps you do more than understand and obey the law: helps you thrive within it.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 envisioned a competitive free-for-all in the U.S. telecommunications industry with removal of barriers to entry in local telecommunications markets and the lifting of the artificial restrictions that kept the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) out of the interLATA long-distance market. After close to 5 years, only one RBOC has been granted permission (controversially) to enter the interLATA market, and local competition has yet to provide most consumers with meaningful choices. In addition, the wave of mergers across the industry has raised the specter of putting the former Bell System back together again. Policymakers now openly question whether the Act can deliver what it promised. Three principal themes are developed in this book. First, there has been a coordination failure between Congress and the FCC in translating the principles embodied in the Act into practice. The authors provide evidence for this by analyzing stock market reactions to legislative and regulatory actions. This coordination failure was largely predictable, given the ambiguity in the Act, as well as conflicting jurisdictions between the FCC and the states. Second, the Act calls for wholesale prices to be based on cost.' Regulators adopted a costing standard (TELRIC) that provides a means to subsidize competitive entry in local telephone service markets. The ready adoption of the TELRIC standard by regulators is shown to be tied to the third theme: price cap regulation provides regulators with insurance' against the adverse effects of competition in local telephone markets. Statistical analysis reveals that regulators in price cap states set uniformly lower unbundled network element prices (lower barriers to entry) in comparison with regulators in rate-of-return and earnings sharing states. The result is a triumph of regulatory processes over market processes - the antithesis of the purpose of the Act.

Legal problems abound in the information society. Electronic commerce, copyright, privacy, illegal and harmful content, taxes, wiretapping governments face an enormous challenge to meet the advent of the Internet and ICT with a flexible, up-to-date, and adequate legal framework. Yet one aspect makes this challenge even more daunting: internationalization. Law is still to a great extent based on nation states, but the information society is above all a borderless and global society. Territoriality and national sovereignty clash with the need for a global approach to address ICT-law issues. Should states leave everything to the global market, or should they intervene to protect vital national interests? If they create regulations, should these reflect the rules of the physical world? How can one enforce national rules in a world where acts take place somewhere in Cyberspace? This text presents the positions on these issues of the governments of the Netherlands, Germany, France, the UK, and the US, as well as of international organisations. How do they think about co-regulation, law enforcement, harmonization, international co-operation, and alternative dispute resolution? How do they deal with applicable law and online contracts, privacy, international liability of Internet providers, and electronic signatures? What are the implications of the European Electronic Commerce Directive and the draft Crime in Cyberspace convention? Any legal framework that is to fit the global information society must take into account internationalization. This volume shows to what extent governments are meeting this challenge.

Information technology is continuing to transform global communications and the world economy with innovative products and services. In this dynamic environment, events tend to be market-driven and it may be difficult for the regulators to keep up. At the same time, there is a need for public authorities to promote effective competition within a clear, coherent, and predictable framework. This reference work summarizes the major rules and policies for information technology at European level. It describes the institutional framework and general policies for the "information society", examines the detailed rules for external trade, competition and intellectual property, and discusses the Internet and electronic commerce. It provides an excellent overview of the subject as well as a good starting point for additional research on particular issues. This work should be of interest to practising lawyers, corporate counsel, business executives, consultants, academics, and government or trade association officials.

Using numerous practical examples,this book examines the evolution of EC telecommunications law following the achievement of liberalisation, the main policy goal of the 1990s. After reviewing the development of regulation in the run-up to liberalisation, the author identifies the methods used to direct the liberalisation process and tests their validity in the post-liberalisation context. A critical analysis is made of the claim that competition law will offer sufficient means to regulate the sector in the future. Particular emphasis is given to the way in which EC Competition Law changed in the 1990s using the essential facilities doctrine, an expansive non-discrimination principle and the policing of cross-subsidisation to tackle what were then thought of as regulatory matters. Also examined within the work is the procedural and institutional interplay between competition law and telecommunications regulation. In conclusion, Larouche explores the limits of competition law and puts forward a long-term case for sector-specific regulation, with a precise mandate to ensure that the telecommunications sector as a whole fulfils its role as a foundation for economic and social activity.

Implementing appropriate security measures will be an advantage when protecting organisations from regulatory action and litigation in cyber security law: can you provide a defensive shield? Cyber Security: Law and Guidance provides an overview of legal developments in cyber security and data protection in the European Union and the United Kingdom, focusing on the key cyber security laws and related legal instruments, including those for data protection and payment services. Additional context is provided through insight into how the law is developed outside the regulatory frameworks, referencing the 'Consensus of Professional Opinion' on cyber security, case law and the role of professional and industry standards for security. With cyber security law destined to become heavily contentious, upholding a robust security framework will become an advantage and organisations will require expert assistance to operationalise matters. Practical in approach, this comprehensive text will be invaluable for legal practitioners and organisations. It covers both the law and its practical application, helping to ensure that advisers and organisations have effective policies and procedures in place to deal with cyber security. Topics include: - Threats and vulnerabilities - Privacy and security in the workplace and built environment - Importance of policy and guidance in digital communications - Industry specialists' in-depth reports - Social media and cyber security - International law and interaction between states - Data security and classification - Protecting organisations - Cyber security: cause and cure Cyber Security: Law and Guidance is on the indicative reading list of the University of Kent's Cyber Law module.

This work analyses the scope of copyright protection for computer software in the United Kingdom, and examines challenges for the future. The work presents the case for the adoption and application of infringement methodology, emanating from the courts in the United States, resulting in a narrower scope of protection than is presently argued for by many UK academics, practitioners and judges alike. The work makes a careful evaluation of the efficacy of the various prevailing tests for infringement of copyright in software and their progenies, suggesting an improved formula and advocating the utility, of limiting doctrines to assist in the determination of substantial similarity of particular non-literal software elements, user interfaces and screen display protection. The monograph also contains a detailed study of reverse engineering, copyright defences, permitted acts, database protection and the copyright-contract interface in the context of computer software, not omitting crucial discussions of the internet, digital dissemination and the impact of recent treaty, and legislative initiatives on British copyright law. As such it will be an important resource for practitioners, lecturers and students alike.

This volume is a presentation of all methods of legal knowledge representation from the point of view of jurisprudence as well as computer science. A new method of automatic analysis of legal texts is presented in four case studies. Law is seen as an information system with legally formalized information processes. The achieved coverage of legal knowledge in information retrieval systems has to be followed by the next step, conceptual indexing and automatic analysis of texts. Existing approaches of automatic knowledge representations do not have a proper link to the legal language in information systems. The concept-based model for semi-automatic analysis of legal texts provides this necessary connection. The knowledge base of descriptors, context-sensitive rules and meta-rules formalises properly all important passages in the text corpora for automatic analysis. Statistics and self-organizing maps give assistance in knowledge acquisition. The result of the analysis is organized with automatically generated hypertext links. Four case studies show the huge potential but also some drawbacks of this approach.

"Cyberspace" is the emerging invisible, intangible world of electronic information and processes stored at multiple interconnected sites. The digital revolution leads to "convergence" (of telecommunications, computer/Internet and broadcasting) and to dynamic multimedia value chains. Deregulation and competition are major driving forces in the new interactive electronic environment. This volume contains normative proposals for "cyber"-regulation, including self-regulation, grounded on developments in the EU, US and the Far East, in international organizations (WTO, OECD, WIPO, ITU), in business fora, in NGOs, in the "Internet community" and in academic research. The multi-actor (government, business, civil society) and multi-level analysis (subsidiarity) pertains, for example to ex-ante and ex-post access-regulation, competition, network economics (external effects, essential facilities), public interest principles (human dignity, free speech, privacy, security), development and culture, consumer protection, cryptography, domain names and copyright.

This book outlines and analyses the legislative activity of the Union in an area which is currently experiencing exponential growth in terms of both commercial activity and legal significance. The scope of the book is current,pending and proposed Internet-related law on contracts, copyright, data protection, commercial communications, financial services, electronic cash and electronic signatures. John Dickie argues that the Union is in the process of displacing Member State autonomy in the regulation of the Internet. Within that frame, it is argued that there is a lack of focus on the individual in the electronic marketplace and a lack of co-ordination between relevant legislative instruments. This book will be of interest to all those engaged with Union and Internet law, including lawyers, policy-makers and academics.

As information is both the source and the product of all legal work, legal practitioners are crucially dependent on good access to legal information. The legal databases that are currently available to store and retrieve statutes, judicial decisions, and legal literature, however, often pose problems to the users with the effect that they cannot find the information they need. To a large extent, these problems can be attributed to the limitations of the traditional Boolean query mechanism used in text databases which is difficult for users to operate. As a possible solution for these problems, in this book an architecture is proposed for an intelligent interface to legal databases. An intelligent interface uses knowledge of the task domain of legal practitioners to operate as an intelligent intermediary between the user and the database. This work addresses the most pressing issues that need to be resolved to allow for the development of advanced user-friendly legal databases. It involves a study into the nature of legal information-handling and the representation of legal knowledge. In addition to the theoretical study, it is demonstrated, with the development of a prototype, how the architecture can be used for the development of practical legal information retrieval systems. The results of these studies are interpreted to discuss a number of possible applications for the intelligent interface architecture, including the publication of government information and the organisation of legal information on the Internet.

Cryptography is essential for information security and electronic commerce, yet it can also be abused by criminals to thwart police wiretaps and computer searches. How should governments address this conflict of interests? Will they require people to deposit crypto keys with a `trusted' agent? Will governments outlaw cryptography that does not provide for law-enforcement access? Can the police require suspects to hand over keys, thus infringing the privilege against self-incrimination? Or should law enforcement forget about wiretapping and computer searches altogether? This is not yet another study of the crypto controversy to conclude that this or that interest is paramount. This is not a study commissioned by a government, nor is it a report that campaigns on the electronic frontier. "The Crypto Controversy" is neither a cryptography handbook nor a book drenched in legal jargon. "The Crypto Controversy" pays attention to the reasoning of both privacy activists and law-enforcement agencies, to the particulars of technology as well as of law, to "solutions" offered both by cryptographers and by governments. The author proposes a method to balance the conflicting interests and applies this to the Dutch situation, explaining both technical and legal issues for those interested in the subject.

Cyberspace, the electronic super-highway or the Internet, as it is most commonly known, is a globally-networked, computer-sustained, computer-accessed and computer-generated multidimensional virtual reality, the use of which is increasing at a tremendous rate. Although much has been written on the legal issues relating to this virtual reality, this book provides coverage of the private international aspects. The work aims to address two basic questions, namely, which court has jurisdiction and which law is to be applied when litigation arises from activity on the Internet? The book comprises seven key papers, presented at an international symposium organised by Utrecht University's Molengraaff Institute of Private Law and the Hague Conference on Private International Law, which was held in Utrecht in June 1997. The main topics covered include: the role of law in cyberspace; experiences in the field of intellectual property; can private international law provide order to the chaos?; problems concerning jurisdiction and applicable law; and conclusions and recommendations.

For the first time in history, everyone - Third World freedom fighters to urban drug dealers - can communicate in secrecy via unbreakable codes made available by advances in cryptography and computer technology. As the welcome and unwelcome consequences of this new technology begin to dawn on governments worldwide, responses have varied from stringent regulation to laissez faire liberalism. Written by a former General Counsel of the National Security Agency and an expert in cryptography law, this text explores the policy and legal issues raised by the democratization of cryptography and offers a guide to the ways in which the law of cryptography translates issues of trust into standards for lawful conduct. The book addresses the international regulation of cryptography and digital signatures both in terms of confidentiality (cryptography used to keep secrets) and authentication (cryptography used to verify information). Coverage includes: a description of over 45 countries' policies and laws on cryptography import, export, and domestic controls and digital signature initiatives worldwide; a concise history of the cryptography debate in the United States from its beginnings after World War II to the recent debates over the Clipper Chip and key recovery encryption; and a presentation of the efforts of the United States government (and others) to build a new national consensus on regulation of encryption.