Cyberspace and the Law Your Rights and Duties in the On-Line World [Paperback]

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.

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.

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.

Cyberspace and the Law is cleal"