Computer law regulates intellectual property, liability of internet service providers for their customers’ illegal actions, and domain name disputes. Early cases involved copyright infringement, with some courts holding that installing a program on a hard drive was equivalent to reproducing a copyrighted work. ISPs are required to take reasonable steps to prevent violations they become aware of. Domain name ownership disputes arose in the early days of the internet, with laws enacted to prevent bad faith purchases for resale at a high price.
With the advent of the Internet, governments have been faced with all kinds of legal challenges, including how to regulate matters that had never previously been envisaged and jurisdictional issues. Computer law is the body of law that has been set up to regulate such matters. It regulates intellectual property considerations, determines the liability of providers of services that facilitate Internet access when their consumers violate those laws, and regulates domain name disputes.
Intellectual property issues, especially copyright, were among the first computer law issues to arise, both on and off the Internet. In early computer law cases, some courts held that installing a program on your hard drive was equivalent to reproducing a copyrighted work. The same courts have also held that purchasing such a program grants the user an implied license to do so since such an act is necessary to use the program. However, installing an illegal copy of a program onto a hard drive is, in fact, copyright infringement.
In the early days of the Internet, when copyright infringements were completely out of control and unchecked, copyright holders began to sue Internet Service Providers (ISPs) for the infringements of people using their service. Those lawsuits claimed that ISPs were facilitating copyright infringements and therefore should be held accountable for their customers’ illegal actions. In response to the lack of established cyber law in this area, many jurisdictions have enacted statutes requiring ISPs to take reasonable steps to prevent any violations they become aware of, although they cannot be held liable for violations unknown to them. Additionally, ISPs are generally required to provide a contact used specifically to receive reports of copyright infringement from their particular customers.
Many of the earliest computer law disputes occurred over ownership of domain names. Few people truly understood the power behind a domain name when the Internet was in its infancy. As a result, forward thinkers were able to purchase domain names that they expected would become sought after and attempted to sell them to an interested party for a high price once they realized the value of the domain. Most jurisdictions frown upon this activity and have enacted laws making it illegal for a person to purchase a domain name in bad faith with the sole purpose of selling it for more than a certain price.
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