Cyberspace law for non lawyers

What is Cyberspace Law for Non-Lawyers?

Cyberspace is a new and exciting frontier, and presents a host of new and difficult legal questions in many areas. The development of legal rules that will govern activity in this new environment is likely to be a complex, and at times a controversial, process.

What are some examples of infringements?

• If you download an article from a newspaper Web site and forward it to a news group, you've made copies, which might be infringements.
• If someone saves your e-mail in an archive, he's made copies, which might be infringements.
• If you quote someone's newsgroup post in your response to the post, you've made copies, which might be infringements.

Who are the authors of Cyberspace Law for Non-Lawyers?

Larry Lessig
David Post
Eugene Volokh

What are some examples that implicate copyright law?

• You buy a piece of software and e-mail it to five friends.
• You download an article from a newspaper's Web page and post in on an electronic bulletin board.
• You take a post from one news group and forward it to another news group.
• You respond to someone's discussion list post, and quote part of his post in yours

What are the two basic limitations of the "whatever is written down is copyrighted" premise?

1. Extremely short writings - for instance, several words or shorter - or extremely simple drawings are generally not copyrighted.
2. If you simply copy what someone else has done, without adding anything new of your own, your copy is generally not copyrighted.

What are things that aren't "copying" for copyright purposes?

Copying the FACTS from someone else's work isn't considered copying. If a physicist discovers a law of nature, or a historian uncovers some facts about the past, everyone will be free to copy this information. And this is true even if they've invested years of effort into their discoveries - facts are in the public domain. But copying the *words* someone uses to express the facts, and often the *selection* and *arrangement*;of the facts, still isn't allowed.

Copying an IDEA from someone else's work isn't considered copying for copyright purposes (though in some situations it might violate rights under the *patent* laws). Thus, even if I'm the first person to think about writing a courtroom drama set in a virtual cybercourt, everyone is free to copy this idea.

What does "copy" mean?

It covers copies of LESS THAN THE WHOLE thing: If you write an article and I make a copy of five pages, that might violate your copyright.

It covers PARAPHRASES, so long as they're close enough: If I translate your article into a foreign language, or make a movie based on your book, that will probably violate your copyright.

It covers MANUAL copies as well as mechanical copies: It doesn't matter whether you make an electronic copy of an electronic document, scan in a print document, or hand-enter a document into the computer. All of this is copying.

It covers PERSONAL copying as well as BUSINESS copying.

What is an implied license?

When a copyright owner acts in such a way that "reasonable people would assume that he's allowing them to make copies", the law interprets his conduct as creating an "implied license."

What are the questions in Fair Use?

1. Is your use noncommercial?
2. Is your use for purposes of criticism, comment, parody, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research?
3. Is the original work mostly fact (as opposed to mostly fiction or opinion)?
4. Has the original work been published (as opposed to sent out only to one or a few people)?
5. Are you copying only a small part of the original work?
6. Are you copying only a relatively insignificant part of the original work (as opposed to the most important part)?
7. Are you adding a lot new to the work (as opposed to just quoting parts of the original)?
8. Does your conduct leave unaffected any profits that the copyright owner can make (as opposed to displacing some potential sales OR potential licenses of reprint rights)?

What are the few basic rules of thumb on when a use is fair?

1. If you're copying only a LITTLE BIT - for text, this generally means no more than a couple of paragraphs here or there, but it could be less if you're copying from a work that's already quite short - your use is probably FAIR.
We wish we could tell you how much is "a little bit," but we can't - there's no bright line. If someone tells you something like "It's OK to copy 20% of a newspaper article or 10% of a scholarly article," that's a COPYRIGHT MYTH.
2. If you're copying more than a little bit, but you're doing it for (a) SYSTEMATIC NEWS REPORTING, (b) CRITICAL COMMENTARY (whether positive or negative), or (c) PARODY, your use is probably FAIR.
Note that it's not enough just to say "I'm reporting the news to the list" or "I'm commenting on this article just by quoting it." A little test: If pretty much any copier can make the same claim of "news reporting" or "commentary" that you're making, your claim is probably too ambitious.
3. If you're copying UNPUBLISHED work - work that the copyright owner h

Is it fair to copy unpublished works?

No, it is unfair to copy unpublished works.

How do you test if noncommercial copying is unfair?

If this noncommercial copying became WIDESPREAD, would it *displace some sales* (or some advertising revenues)? If it will, it's unfair.

What is the topic in Lesson 12 in Cyberspace Law for Non-Lawyers?

The liability of service providers

What is the topic in Lesson 13 in Cyberspace Law for Non-Lawyers?

Privacy Law in Cyberspace

What is the topic in Lesson 14 in Cyberspace Law for Non-Lawyers?

Informational Privacy

When can a service provider be held liable for copyright infringement done by someone else who posted copyrighted material via their service?

1. if it knew,
2. OR had reason to know of the infringement. This means that
3. if someone complains about an infringing post, the service provider must take reasonable steps to determine whether the post is actually an infringement - whether it actually copies someone else's work, whether it's a fair use, and so on -
4. but until someone complains, the provider generally has no duty to look for potential infringements.

What are two kinds of truths that the law might try to protect?

1. truths about you that have revealed to the public, either by giving some information over to someone else, or by being observed in public; or
2. Truths about you that you have kept private.

What is the main problem concerning informational privacy on the internet?

American law does not expressly protect people from having websites gather information about them while they are accessed.

What was the deciding premise that forced lawmakers to rethink how the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution was supposed to be interpreted?

It was the statement, "the constitution protects people, not places."

What is the topic in Lesson 17 in Cyberspace Law for Non-Lawyers?

Privacy and the Fourth Amendment, Part 2

What is the topic in Lesson 18 in Cyberspace Law for Non-Lawyers?

Privacy and the Fourth Amendment, Part 3

What is the topic in Lesson 19 in Cyberspace Law for Non-Lawyers?

Statutory Protections for Privacy

What is the topic in Lesson 20 in Cyberspace Law for Non-Lawyers?

Exceptions to ECPA Protection

What are some exceptions to the ECPA?

1. There are other parts of ECPA that explicitly give the sysop powers to intercept electronic communications - we discuss some of these below. These are obvious exceptions to the general protection ECPA gives.
2. If the sysop gets the consent either of the sender, or any of the intended recipients, then the sysop can disclose the content of the message.
3. If the sysop must look at the content to forward the message, then the interception is permitted.
And finally,
4. If the message appears to pertain to the commission of a crime, then the sysop can disclose it, but only to law enforcement officials.

What is Sysop?

Specific exceptions to the protections against the "interception" of electronic communications that the Electronic Communication Privacy Act (ECPA) provides.

What is encryption?

Encryption is a technique for turning your message into gibberish, readable only by the person intended to read the message -- someone else who has the proper key. The most powerful forms of encryption have two keys: one public, the other private.

What is Anonymity?

Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation at the hand of an intolerant society.

What is a trademark?

1. It must be in actual *use* as an identifier of particular goods or services: you can't get a trademark in some great new name you've come up with for your new product until you actually start using that name to identify that product.

2. It has to be in some way distinctive, not what courts call "ordinary" or "merely descriptive" or "generic": you can't use trademark to protect the common name of your product - say, the name "Modems" for the modems you are selling (because that is a generic term) nor the phrase "Tasty donuts" (which merely describes the donuts).

3. Finally, the mark must not be "confusingly similar" to anyone else's trademark that is already in use.

Are domain names on the Internet protected by trademark laws?

Probably not, seeing as the law is inadequate when dealing issues regarding new technologies.

What is the topic in Lesson 30 in Cyberspace Law for Non-Lawyers?

Are Domain Names trademarks