What happens in the virtual world doesn't always stay in the virtual world Tens of millions of people today are living part of their life in a virtual world. In places like World of Warcraft, Second Life, and Free Realms, people are making friends, building communities, creating art, and making real money. Business is booming on the virtual frontier, as billions of dollars are paid in exchange for pixels on screens. But sometimes things go wrong. Virtual criminals defraud online communities in pursuit of real-world profits. People feel cheated when their avatars lose virtual property to wrongdoers. Increasingly, they turn to legal systems for solutions. But when your avatar has been robbed, what law is there to assist you? In Virtual Justice, Greg Lastowka illustrates the real legal dilemmas posed by virtual worlds. Presenting the most recent lawsuits and controversies, he explains how governments are responding to the chaos on the cyberspace frontier. After an engaging overview of the history and business models of today's virtual worlds, he explores how laws of property, jurisdiction, crime, and copyright are being adapted to pave the path of virtual law. Virtual worlds are becoming more important to society with each passing year. This pioneering study will be an invaluable guide to scholars of online communities for years to come.

Social media is one of the hottest topics in business today. The power of reaching hundreds of thousands of people is enticing. Correct use of social media for marketing a law practice or legal nurse consulting business is an art as well as a science. You may use the material in this book to deepen your understanding of social media, and to define a realistic plan for your own efforts.

The Software Licensing Handbook leads you through the twists and turns of the language found in almost all software, maintenance and professional services contracts. Plain English explanations of standard contract wording enables anyone to understand what you are reading, regardless of whether you are buying OR selling software. Additionally, sections on negotiation and contract management enable you to fully understand, appreciate and if necessary, implement a complete contracting process.

Recent developments in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have brought about changes that have revolutionalised traditional ways of conducting business. While these developments in cyberspace bear legal implications, legal regimes in some African countries such as Tanzania have not kept pace with the changes in order to properly regulate related activities happening under cyberspace. This volume attempts to bridge the gap between the Law and ICT developments in East Africa. It attempts to respond to questions such as: What is Cyber Law? How are Parties Identified under a Relationship in a Cyberspace Environment? How are Banking and other Cyber Payments Done? What about Combating Cyber Crime and Managing E-Commerce? What is the Impact of ICT on Intellectual Property Rights? And, how are Internet Domain Names Regulated? The volume is a useful handbook for those who want to understand the changing legal guidelines in relation to developments in ICT.

How can attorneys reach new clients on the Internet? Veteran attorney and Internet entrepreneur Jeff Lantz provides the definitive source for law firm Internet marketing, brand and value proposition creation, effective website development, search engine optimization (SEO), search engine/pay-per-click marketing on Google, Bing, and Yahoo , blogging, and social/business networking on Facebook and Twitter. The book discusses domain name acquisition, hosting, website platform and Content Management Systems, Web 2.0 design, SEO for high rankings on Google, and creating a powerful Client-Centered Website that resonates with clients and serves as a call to action. What Internet marketing is the most effective? Learn how to measure cost-per-client and to use website statistics for better marketing allocation. Step-by-step instructions are provided for domain registration, designing PPC ad campaigns on Google, Bing, and Yahoo , and creating business pages on Facebook and Twitter.

Transmission of copyrighted work over the Internet has resulted in the introduction of a new exclusive right: the right of communication to the public, which was established by the WIPO Copyright Treaties. However, in implementing the Treaties, different jurisdictions have their own understandings and legislative solutions. This book examines these laws and the nature of the new right of communication to the public. In addition, copyright exceptions are an important way to balance the relationship of interest between copyright owners and the public by way of free uses, statutory licences and compulsory licences. In the environment of the Internet, this way is still effective on adjusting the relationship. This book analyses the relationship between transmission over the Internet and the exclusive rights, and examines all exceptions, such as fair use, sui generis rights, library and archive exceptions and educational use exceptions.

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.

Is the existing law in England and Wales is adequate to protect the privacy of the individual against the intrusion by the press? This book considers the nature and extent of existing legal protection and what alternatives there may be through the Press Complaints Commission and its Code of Practice. Future legal developments are also addressed. Contents: .Complaints and the Press .Confidentiality .Copyright .Nuisance .Others Sources of Protection .Technology .Data Protection and the Press .The Human Rights Act Essential reading for the press, lawyers advising the press and those that need protection from the press, Privacy and the Press remains as accessible and easy to use as the first edition.

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.

The regulatory architecture available for cyberspace law still seems incapable of conceiving, much less resolving, the new issues of privacy raised by the use of the Internet in the workplace. This analysis of the thorny problems in this area of the law attempts to clarify the nature of the conflicts and disputes that arise and that are likely to continue to arise. It is a detailed comparative treatment of the subject, analysing the relevant law both at the international level and in six major national jurisdictions. The author first examines the international jurisdictional problems related to the Internet and new technologies. Starting from an economic analysis of the law of cyberspace, the author demonstrates that the problem of conflicting legal rules may be solved by adopting new laws, regulations and guidelines governing the Internet. The second part explores the ways in which the Internet and the introduction of new information technologies has dramatically affected the world of work and individual rights. The author analyses the origins, limits and boundaries of these rights, and makes a comparative analysis of the relevant constitutions and statutes in both common law and civil law. Finally, an examination of the legal systems of the USA, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan, and of their responses to the new Internet-related issues, enable the author to propose effective ways to achieve a better balance between the employee's right to privacy and the responsibilities of the employer in the new electronic environment.

Are super-capable robots and algorithms destined to devour our jobs and idle much of the adult population? Predictions of a jobless future have recurred in waves since the advent of industrialization, only to crest and retreat as new jobs-usually better ones-have replaced those lost to machines. But there's good reason to believe that this time is different. Ongoing innovations in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics are already destroying more decent middle-skill jobs than they are creating, and may be leading to a future of growing job scarcity. But there are many possible versions of that future, ranging from utterly dystopian to humane and broadly appealing. It all depends on how we respond. This book confronts the hotly-debated prospect of mounting job losses due to automation, and the widely-divergent hopes and fears that prospect evokes, and proposes a strategy for both mitigating the losses and spreading the gains from shrinking demand for human labor. We should set our collective sights, it argues, on ensuring access to adequate incomes, more free time, and decent remunerative work even in a future with less of it. Getting there will require not a single "magic bullet" solution like universal basic income or a federal job guarantee but a multi-pronged program centered on conserving, creating, and spreading work. What the book proposes for a foreseeable future of less work will simultaneously help to address growing economic inequality and persistent racial stratification, and makes sense here and now but especially as we face the prospect of net job losses.

High Marks for the Internet Legal Guide

"The Internet Legal Guide is a fascinating exploration of discovery in understanding the legal frontiers of the Internet. Dennis Powers does an immense service for all of us in an Internet form of business with this comprehensive and thorough guide." —Ahnalira Koan, Laughing Place Travel (www.ourlaughingplace.com)

"I feel that this book is invaluable and a must read not only for my management team and all of my employees, but also my clients. I especially appreciated the text from actual agreement examples, as well as the discussions of provisions that followed them. I encourage anyone and everyone to buy and read this book twice. The first time to show you everything you have been doing wrong, and the second time to learn how to do it right the next time." —Jim Teece, President and Chief Executive Officer, Project A, Inc. (www.ProjectA.com)

"This book is rich in content and practical advice. It is filled with informative–as well as entertaining–descriptions of the latest developments in cyberlaw. Most importantly, it gives anyone interested in doing business on the Web the know-how to avoid costly legal pitfalls and problems." —Ray August, Professor of Business Law (http://august1.com/about/)

"What I really like about this book is that it takes a business approach to Internet issues. This is a book for business people with an eye to the bottom line, and how businesses can capitalize on the Web and not get entangled in legal issues. The Internet Legal Guide is essential reading for small business owners, who can not afford the luxury of an in-house legal counsel. A savvy business owner will find this book a road map to turn the Web from threat to opportunity." —Kevin Talbert, Chief Information Officer, Southern Oregon University

"The New Economy is arriving. Even as the stock market and businesses adjust to absorb the 'irrational exuberance' of the late 1990s, consumers and businesses continue unabated in their march to use technology and the Internet to reduce costs, to increase profits, to improve service, to increase choice, and generally to increase the efficiency and potential of all that we do. Dennis Powers has written a timely and informative book to help prepare the nonlawyer, and even to educate lawyers, to prepare for and benefit from this new online world." —Richard Keck, Partner, Telecommunications and Electronic Commerce Practice Group, Troutman Sanders LLP

"A wonderful book that melds the practical into the legal, so we all can navigate our virtual twenty-first-century operations through today’s legal-infested waters. I wish I had had it two years ago!! I could have saved a lot of time and legal costs when I was organizing my Internet company. It’s so convenient and efficient to have all the material in one place. (The good news is I can still save and benefit from the many excellent ideas.)" —Charles "Hop" Fuhrmann, Chairman, HealthyPlace.com, Inc.; Chairman and CEO, Texaco Limited

The Dutch telecommunications market is probably one of the most open in the world. Three years after its full liberalization (which was completed six months ahead of the EU timetable) the Netherlands have approximately 65 operators with interconnection or special network agreements, including five providers of mobile telephony networks. Nearly all of the world's largest international players have established a presence in the Dutch telecom market. It is for their benefit and for the benefit of their advisers that this book has been published. It contains the full text of the Dutch Telecommunications Act and of the most important decrees adopted thereunder, concurrently in Dutch and English. In addition, it contains a practical introduction to the telecommunications laws of the Netherlands described by leading practitioners in the field.

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.

The first edition of this book in 2002 was the first UK text to examine digital copyright together with related areas such as performers' rights, moral rights, database rights and competition law as a subject in its own right. Now in its fifth edition, the book has been substantially updated and revised to take account of legal and policy developments in copyright law and related areas, the new UK copyright exceptions, recent CJEU cases, the regulation of Collective Management Organisations, orphan works, and developments in EU copyright legislation and the EU's Digital Single Market Strategy. It also contains new sections on big data and data mining, the impact of artificial intelligence and blockchain on copyright, and the future for UK copyright after Brexit. The book helps put digital copyright law and policy into perspective and provides practical guidance for those creating or exploiting digital content or technology, whether in academia, the software, information, publishing and creative industries, or other areas of the economy. The focus of Digital Copyright is on the specifics of the law in this area together with practical aspects. Both academics and practitioners will find the book an invaluable guide to this ever-expanding field of law. Review of Previous Edition: 'Overall, Digital Copyright is well worth the relatively modest price for a book that will be stimulating for anyone who has to think about copyright in the digital realm.' Francis Davey, Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice

This is a research and reference guide to the telecommunications industry in the United States, providing an account of legislative and policy changes up until the publication of the work. Contributions by scholars in telecommunications law and policy survey the post-1996 legislative field, giving overviews of the 1996 Act itself, the impact of the legislation on national and international competition, regulation of the industry and the MCI/FCC cases in California, mergers and acquisitions, taxation and FCC reform.

When a case involves 50,000 or 100,000 documents it is very difficult to manage the paper and produce necessary lists using entirely manual methods. Computerization is the answer. Once the information about the documents is held in a computer database, a team of lawyers can search for incriminating patterns, locate a letter that contradicts direct testimony previous given, find the smoking gun. So runs a powerful argument in favour of computerized litigation systems. The fact that so many firms are going ahead with pilots or operational systems perhaps indicates more of a desire to be seen to be abreast of technology, rather than the calculated expectation of direct return.

On May 14 1991 the Council of the European Communities adopted the directive on the legal protection of computer programs. Pursuant to this directive the Member States "shall bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this directive before 1 January 1993". Article 1 of the directive states that the Member States shall protect computer programs by copyright, as literary works. At the time of publication, not all the Member States had complied with the directive, although they did have bills pending. Specialists from each Member State of the EC describe the copyright provisions of their country, both in general and with respect to software, and then provide detailed descriptions of the way in which their country has enacted or intends to enact the directive. Most of the contributions contain a translation of the relevant statutory provisions. Chapter 1 of the book desrcibes the provisions of the directive in detail. Thus the reader should be able to obtain an overview of the protection of computer programs in the EC.

"Automation of Legal Reasoning" explores the development which has lead up to the formation of a joint field of artificial intelligence (AI) and law. In this undertaking, the basic foundations of AI and the methodological approaches found in jurisprudence are related to each other in a historical perspective. The book also addresses the future prospects of the discipline. In this part of the study an elaborated jurisprudential model of legal reasoning is introduced, reflecting different sub-processes and various types of legal knowledge exercising influence over them. In addition, a critical analysis of various AI-approaches that have been suggested for the field of law is provided. In this context, also two AI-system development projects carried out at The Swedish Law and Informatics Research Institute are described. The investigation leads up to the formulation of a design approach for advanced AI-systems for law, based on a functional decomposition of legal knowledge, the integration of various computational techniques and the structural integration of different types of small-scale AI-systems. The study concludes with a discussion of potentialities and consequences of a future development.

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.