Cyberspace and the Law: Your Rights and Duties in the On-Line World

by Edward Cavazos, Gavino Morin

Overview

What legal recourse do you have if someone has read your private e-mail without your consent? Who owns the copyright to the message you just posted on a bulletin board? Can you get into trouble for downloading a sexually explicit file? These are among the many questions that the authors, both practicing attorneys, address in Cyberspace and the Law. Without resorting to confusing legalese, they present a clear and concise analysis of legal issues in the anarchic world of cyberspace for members of the on-line world who have little or no legal background. The introduction provides a quick tour of cyberspace (on-line services, bulletin board systems, private systems, and networks) and activities (e-mail, public messaging systems, software exchange, electronic publishing, entertainment, chat, educational and research services, and commercial applications). Cavazos and Morin then take up electronic privacy issues including anonymity and both statutory and common law approaches to protecting private communications (featuring a discussion of Steve Jackson Games v. United States Secret Service); the virtual marketplace of electronic contracts and credit card transactions; copyright law in an uncharted new world; freedom of speech; adult material (digitized images, animated sequences, sexually explicit text, "hot chat"); and cyber-crimes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262531238
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	10/04/1994
Series:	The MIT Press
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	230
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Edward Cavazos is Managing Partner of at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP in Austin, focusing on Intellectual Property. Cavazos is also Adjunct Professor at Texas Law at the University of Texas at Austin.


Gavino Morin is Director of Business and Legal Affairs at Bluepoint Games, Inc., and on the faculty at the Practising Law Institute.

What People are Saying About This

Steve Jackson

Cyberspace and the Law is clear, comprehensive and up-to-date. Any user of the Internet, or of smaller bulletin board systems, will find it fascinating. Any administrator or system operator will find it invaluable.

Bruce Sterling

The ever-growing world on on-line communications is strange and sometimes hazardous. This clear and lucid little book will teach you to recognize trouble in cyberspace. If you're a sysop, cybercop, or just a venturesome sould with a modem,
you need this book. You may be closer to trouble than you think.

Endorsement

Cyberspace and the Law is clear, comprehensive and up-to-date. Any user of the Internet, or of smaller bulletin board systems, will find it fascinating. Any administrator or system operator will find it invaluable.

—Steve Jackson, Founder of Illuminati Online

From the Publisher

Cavazos and Morin have provided a much-needed primer for nonlawyers trying to navigate their way through this unchartered territory. This book provides answers to many of the legal questions sysops and users ask on aregular basis.

—Shari Steele, Director of Legal Services, Electroinc Frontier Foundation

The ever-growing world on on-line communications is strange and sometimes hazardous. This clear and lucid little book will teach you to recognize trouble in cyberspace. If you're a sysop, cybercop, or just a venturesome sould with a modem, you need this book. You may be closer to trouble than you think.

—Bruce Sterling, author of The Hacker Crackdown: Law and disorder on the Electronic Frontier

Cyberspace and the Law is clear, comprehensive and up-to-date. Any user of the Internet, or of smaller bulletin board systems, will find it fascinating. Any administrator or system operator will find it invaluable.

—Steve Jackson, Founder of Illuminati Online

Shari Steele

Cavazos and Morin have provided a much-needed primer for nonlawyers trying to navigate their way through this unchartered territory. This book provides answers to many of the legal questions sysops and users ask on aregular basis.

Editorial Reviews

A comprehensive and jargon-free guide to the legal issues associated with on-line communications, suitable for even inexperienced on-line users. Includes an introduction to cyberspace itself. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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