This is a site that will always be under construction. Law
relating to the digital environment is changing rapidly in an
attempt
to "catch up", and the situation internationally will be fluid for
some time to come. Feel free to visit this page often. I'll be
doing
my best to keep adding up-to-date resources. I'm Michael
Lean the Copyright Officer
at the Queensland University of
Technology in Brisbane, Australia. Email me with questions or
comments about the site.
INTERNET SOCIETY STATEMENT ON WEB CACHING BAN
Washington, D.C. - 1 March 1999 -- The Internet Society expresses concern regarding the reported European Parliament proposed copyright directive that would ban caching of web content by Internet Service Providers serving customers in Europe.
The major residual Internet service cost today is the phenomenal amount of repeated transmission of the same information. Up to one third of content in the Internet today is a precise copy of content sent within the preceding few minutes. Caching allows this content to be stored in a local cache server which then fulfills additional requests for the same information. This reduces absolute transmission capacity requirements. Automated content caching offers significant potential in driving Internet service costs down, and in so doing makes the Internet more efficient and affordable to a far larger user population.
The Internet Society urges the European Parliament to reconsider its proposal to outlaw caching. Otherwise, inefficiencies would be introduced into the Internet, resulting in increased costs to consumers. "The Internet does not need laws that slow its performance, clog its arteries, and reduce value received," said Don Heath, president and CEO of the Internet Society.
The Internet Society recognizes that the world of electronic publication offers challenges to owners of artistic and intellectual property. We advocate addressing copyright concerns in a manner that does not impose barriers to the electronic trade of ideas, information, content and entertainment, rather than attempting to impose artificial and regressive restrictions which do not, in fact, address the core problem in intellectual property protection in the first place.
Banning all caching would go far beyond merely solving a copyright problem. The basic Internet HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP) has a well-defined method by which a content owner can specify restrictions on web caches. Where no restriction is specified, caching should be allowed. The area of copyright protection in an electronic world is a subject of vigorous study today and we are confident additional non- destructive solutions can be found.
There is a great opportunity for Europe to be a major player in a radically different global information economy. To attempt to ban the use of the very technologies that underpin this dramatic change is most damaging for all Europeans. We understand that the European Commission is interested in taking steps to protect the status of caching. We strongly support all such efforts, and urge the European Internet community and European legislatures to recognize and embrace the opportunities created by the wave of Internet-inspired technologies.
Exposure drafts of Victoria's
proposed data protection and electronic
commerce legislation are now available on-line - look under
publications.
ONLINE ALIASES NO SHIELD FROM LAW
Yes, people on the Internet can grumble in the anonymity of chat
rooms or electronic message boards.
And one of their favorite targets is the boss.The courts take a
different view of your right to remain safely
behind analias or screen name if they feel what is being said
could be illegal or a violation of a contract.
In a current breach of contract case Yahoo had to provide Raytheon
Co. with all the personal information it
had on 21 defendants for a case alleging they disclosed "certain
Raytheon proprietaryand confidential
information on the Internet" via anonymous postings on aYahoo
electronic message board. Two Raytheon
employees have alreadyresigned. Experts say the requirement to
give up information is not that unusual.
America Online did much the same when it gave law enforcement
officials evidence to track suspected "Melissa"
virus authorDavid L. Smith. The Raytheon case, however, offers a
clear lesson to users of electronic messaging
systems and other online services: It is important to examine
carefully the rules under which online pseudonyms
can berevealed. Yahoo, for one, requires users to read and agree
to its policybefore they can use the free service.
SOURCE:
San Jose Mercury News , AUTHOR: Deborah Claymon
Sunrise Research Labs have put together a website containing
most of the resources from a CD about
designing
universally accessible websites
Resources available free online include a description of the
problem andwhat can be done about it,
examples of what happens when web sites are not designed for
accessibility,guidelines and tutorials
for the technical and not so technical, andpointers to more
materials and help lines.
The Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department has put up a new
website
called "The AGD
e-Commerce Homepage". The website provides information about
the national uniform electroniccommerce legislation that the
Commonwealth has been developing. It outlinesthe content of the
legislation and provides updates
on the legislation'sprogress. The Commonwealth's Electronic
Transactions Bill will form thebackbone of
the national uniform legislative scheme and is being developed in
consultation with the States and Territories.
S. 505: Copyright Term Extension Act. At present, the general
term of protection for most works is the life of the
author plus fifty years. This bill adds twenty more years of
protection to all existing copyrights. Copyright will now
last for the life of the author plus seventy years. The bill is
retroactive. In the USA, older publications are already
protected for seventy-five years. Now it must be assumed that
pre-1978 publications are protected for ninety-five years.
H.R. 2281: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This long and
complex bill holds the prospect of fundamentally
changing many of the ways that we work with copyright material. In
particular, the law allows copyright owners to
impose "technological protection measures" to regulate access to
and use of protected works. The bill also
creates a new federal offense for anyone who circumvents those
technological measures. The bills allows
copyright owners to put "copyright management information" on
their worksto specify to the users the conditions
under which uses may be allowed, and it creates a new federal
offense against removing or altering that information.
The bill makes many other changes in federal copyright law. The
law allows libraries to make digital copies of
deteriorating works in digital formats. The new law also charges
the U.S. Copyright Office with the duty of
reporting back to Congress within six months with a proposal for
the revision of the statute governing the uses
of copyrighted works in distance education. The bill establishes a
possibility for limiting the liability of online
service providers -- including universities that run networks
and web servers -- from infringements committed by users.
That benefit, however, is available only if the provider complies
with a long series of rigorous conditions and
establishes elaborate procedures.
The best news for higher education is that the bill did not go
further and do more. Some of the new restrictions in
this bill will not take effect for two years, and the final
version of the bill dropped the provisions that would have
given new protection to databases and other collection of factual
data. That new protection was strongly opposed
by researchers who saw it as a direct constraint on their ability
to obtain and share factual information.
The full text of these two bills is available at the
ThomasWebsite at the Library of Congress.
There has been strong opposition and support for the bills from
various stakeholders. The following websites
present various opinion and comment:
Association
of American Publishers
Association
of Research Libraries
A
History of Copyright in the U.S - from the Association of
Research Libraries.
Outlined here are copyright milestones, especially those of
interest in particular to libraries and
information service providers. Summaries are included for major
court cases and revisions to the
U.S. Copyright Act. Included also are recent activities undertaken
by the U.S.Commerce Department
in its efforts to develop the National InformationInfrastructure.
This timeline is considered a work in
progress and suggestions for additions are welcome. Send comments
to Patricia Brennan
The United States
Copyright Office provides information on new legislation in
that country.
"The freedoms of people to originate, to publish, to
experience and to copy works of various kinds are subject to a
variety of legal limitations. Electronic publishing has changed
the patterns of all of these activities. In doing so, it has
drawn into question not only the enforceability of existing
laws, but also the appropriateness of those laws in the new
context. Considerable confusion and inconsistency is evident in
the reactions of governments ... Note that the list makes no
claims about being complete (which is lucky, because it omits
patents, trademarks and registered designs!):
* Copyright
* Confidentiality and Trade Secrets
* Negligence, Negligent Misstatement, and Misleading or
Deceptive Conduct
* Contempt of Court
* Defamation
* Censorship Laws
* Netethiquette
The
Digital Technology Law Journal is an on-line periodical
from
Murdoch University in Western Australia that publishes refereed
articles, comments and reviews on intellectual property law
issues concerning the digital environment. A Recent table of
contents:
Ivan Hoffman
is a lawyer in the United States who maintains an
extensive website whcih contains
a lot of useful information; for instance he has a page
ARTICLES
FOR WEB SITE DESIGNERS AND SITE OWNERS
which is a useful reference.