Information technology law (cyberlaw)

Overview

Information technology law (cyberlaw) is a branch of law concerning computers and the Internet. While this branch of law was not needed in the past, in the twenty-first century, the use of computers, wireless technology, and the Internet brought new legal challenges that previous branches of law could not address.

When the Internet first became available to the public, slow data transfer speeds and physical access points significantly limited its usefulness. However, despite these drawbacks, access to the Internet enabled people to communicate through text across the world in real-time. Experts at the time realized that in the future people would be able to access the Internet more easily—and they were right. Broadband Internet allowed users to stream video and quickly access data online. When wireless technology and smartphones became commonplace, people were able to easily access the Internet from different locations. By the twenty-first century, most individuals could fully access the Internet using their phones.

As technology improved, people were able to use the Internet for additional tasks. They could stream entertainment in real-time, do their banking from their phones, and video chat with those on the other side of the world. However, such technology had its drawbacks. People who struggled to use this new technology, such as many older people, found themselves significantly disadvantaged. Additionally, users who constantly used the Internet were sending more and more of their personal information through the digital world. Not every digital channel was safe or secure, and data theft was extremely harmful to its victims. This all affected informational technology law, which had to stretch over numerous important topics.

Jurisdiction became problematic because the law had to determine which court had the right to handle a particular case. For example, if a person who commits online fraud lives in one part of the country and a victim lives in another area, which court has jurisdiction over the case? Subject matter jurisdiction was also an important consideration. This refers to jurisdiction over the nature of a particular case.

The field of law needed new rulings and had to re-interpret its current rules to adapt to an ever-growing digital space. In this instance, courts examined Internet users’ personal dealings to decide if they had sufficient minimum contacts within a state to grant that state’s courts personal jurisdiction over them. However, every state has also written and enacted “long-arm” statutes, which allow a state to exercise personal jurisdiction against anyone who directly commits a crime against the people of this state.

A significant portion of information technology law has involved the adaptation of existing laws to a digital space. Most of the concepts involved in information technology law, such as jurisdiction, existed prior to the world’s adaptation to digital spaces. However, legal experts had to quickly re-assess their existing definitions to decide how these laws applied to digital content.

This was true of intellectual property rights, which allow someone to retain ownership of a creative work. This includes images, videos, music, writing, and, in the twenty-first century, computer code. The Internet has made protecting intellectual property rights significantly more difficult than ever before. Concepts such as media piracy, meaning the unauthorized sale or distribution of work owned by others, quickly became problems in the digital world. In the past, media piracy did not pose widespread problems for artists, distributors, and companies. When physical media was required for the creation of pirated works, the process was much more difficult. For example, if someone sought to reproduce a book or an article without the consent or knowledge of the original author, he or she would have to create physical copies of that work.

It is far easier for criminals to intentionally violate the intellectual property rights of the owners of digital works than it was for physical works. Once a file is released into the Internet, it is often impossible to have it removed. Files might be downloaded millions of times in a short timeframe, and experts have no efficient means of stopping that distribution. The development of peer-to-peer networks, which did not use any central servers for the widespread transferring of files, made the process of intellectual data theft even more difficult to stop. While those who perpetrate the infringement of intellectual property rights by illegally downloading or viewing media without compensating its owners may face stiff legal penalties, most will never be charged with a crime.

The Internet has allowed various new types of crime to emerge, many of which are similar to those that take place in the physical world. However, they utilize new tools to harm their victims. Though various types of fraud and theft took place before the invention of the Internet, the legal code of the pre-Internet world was unprepared for crimes like the development of ransomware. This type of malicious software locks down someone else’s computer, heavily restricting their access to their own data. It promises to release the data only if the computer user pays a large sum of money. As the malware installs itself, it encrypts the files so that they are difficult or impossible for even computer information professionals to recover.

Many criminals use the Internet to steal others’ personal information. They may execute phishing campaigns, meaning that they send out large numbers of unsolicited emails containing fake links. These links encourage users to log in to important websites, such as banks, but track any information that the users submit. If users fall for a phishing scam, they often give their important log in information to the scammers, allowing them to sell the information to other criminals. Other types of common digital crimes include credit card fraud and data theft.

While most people use the communication tools made possibly by information technology legitimately, some use them to harm others, which caused information technology law to evolve. For example, information technology enables online harassment, later called cyberbullying, in which criminals can torment victims across various digital platforms with just a smartphone. Whereas many children could escape traditional bullying by leaving school or avoiding bullies, children who fell victim to cyberbullying were at the mercy of online bullies any time they interacted with digital spaces. The legal concepts of slander, libel, and talking were quickly updated to account for the use of this new technology.

Applications

Information technology law is relevant to anyone who regularly interacts with the digital world. It is possible for people to break the law through the Internet without being aware that they have committed a crime. This is especially relevant in the field of intellectual property rights. Some people may download and share an image, a text, or another form of media without the consent of the original author. However, they may not be aware that the original author does not allow for the distribution of the work. Though most people who commit such violations do not face significant consequences, a rare few have faced stiff penalties.

The most famous cases of digital intellectual property theft occurred in the music industry. Many music artists made their living by selling physical and digital copies of their work, and most record labels used media sales to generate most of their profits. However, as people began using the Internet, they realized that they could easily upload their music for others to copy. This process circumvented the artists and record labels, cutting into their profits. One of the most infamous services, Napster, attracted millions of users. Napster declared bankruptcy in 2002 after losing many lawsuits.

In many instances, computer users were not just attracted by free music. They shared online content by illegally streaming and downloading it. It was more convenient for computer users to quickly download the content than to purchase media through reputable means. Additionally, most of the services allowing users to do this used peer-to-peer networks. These networks shared files by directly connecting users’ computers instead of using a centralized server. Decentralized networks, such as peer-to-peer networks, are significantly more difficult for authorities to shut down. To stop users from sharing content over the network, authorities must find a way to prohibit them from accessing it in the first place.

Some artists and record labels were frustrated with their sudden loss of profits and decided to track down and sue individual users for exorbitant sums. The artists and record labels thought that if they harshly punished a few users for downloading music, it would deter others from doing so. Some of the most famous artists to actively fight against music piracy included Metallica and Dr. Dre.

In 1999, the Recording Industry of America filed a lawsuit against Napster. However, though their lawsuit represented the intellectual property rights of many artists, some musicians felt personally victimized by the music sharing service. When members of Metallica discovered that Napster had leaked an early release of one of their tracks and found that their entire catalog was available for free on Napster, they also decided to sue the service. Metallica sought damages of one-hundred-thousand dollars per instance of copyright infringement, totaling a minimum of ten million dollars. In 2001, a district judge released a preliminary injunction in favor of Metallica, ordering Napster to temporarily remove all Metallica songs from its service. Though Napster and Metallica eventually reached a settlement, it was blocked by a judge. Due to penalties from the lawsuit, Napster was forced to file for bankruptcy.

Other efforts at stopping piracy were more successful. The invention of convenient, affordable, and legal media streaming services significantly reduced the need for piracy. With convenient legal alternatives widely available, instances of digital media intellectual property theft and copyright infringement declined.

Viewpoints

In the twenty-first century, legal experts acknowledge the importance of keeping track of digital trends and the legal issues such trends may cause. However, most acknowledge that the legal world moves more slowly than the modern technological world. As technologies advance and new means of collecting and utilizing digital data are discovered, digital users will find more ways to circumvent the existing legal code. This forces legislatures to adapt to problems that are already occurring, ensuring that modern laws are one step behind emerging technological trends.

Experts have proposed several solutions for helping the law keep pace with new technologies. Some proposals have included the development of specialized governance coordinating committees to track the means by which most data is collected and used. Others have proposed the advancement of soft-law mechanisms, which allow for quasi-binding legal agreements between various parties. However, for difficulties that cannot be easily overcome, legislatures will be forced to continue to rely on existing laws at least temporarily.

Beginning with the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, many forms of digital information were intentionally crafted, or illegally obtained, to influence its outcome. Some of this information is known to have originated by criminal actors outside of the United States. Other false content creators were home-grown. This trend continued in the 2020 national elections as well as in 2024. The potential negative impacts of falsified, inaccurate, or misleading information can have very detrimental effects on a healthy functioning democracy. Most harmful is that a fundamental pillar of democracy, perceptions of free and fair elections, is undermined. As much as this situation needed rectification, most preferably through the courts, there are many obstacles to doing so. In addition to the difficulties with prosecuting both non-state and state-sponsored criminal efforts, many in the United States are conflicted whether legal actions should be overshadowed by free speech concerns.

In March 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments impacting whether government efforts to combat false internet-based content violated First Amendment. Previously, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had issued a judgment preventing the U.S. government from soliciting assistance from social media companies and organizations. The underlying issue was whether individuals who proliferated false and damaging information concerning the COVID-19 pandemic could be prosecuted. A second question was whether social media companies, which are private businesses that host the opinions of users, are entitled to First Amendment protections.

About the Author

Tyler Biscontini is a writer from Northeastern Pennsylvania. He graduated from King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, with a bachelor’s degree in professional writing and has worked in educational publishing for more than ten years.

Bibliography

9 Most Common Computer and Internet Cyber Crimes. (2021). EN Kanter. www.enkanter.com/article/9-most-common-computer-and-internet-cyber-crimes

Cyberlaw and Cybercrimes. (2021). Lawshelf.com. lawshelf.com/videocoursesmoduleview/cyberlaw-and-cybercrimes--module-3-of-5-

Introduction to Cyberlaw. (2021). Lawshelf.com.lawshelf.com/videocoursesmoduleview/introduction-to-cyberlaw--module-1-of-5

McIntyre, Hugh. (2018, March 21). The Piracy Sites That Nearly Destroyed the Music Industry: What Happened to Napster. Forbes. www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2018/03/21/what-happened-to-the-piracy-sites-that-nearly-destroyed-the-music-industry-part-1-napster/?sh=2e723f602293

Murphy, Ashley. (2021). What Is Technology Law and Why Should You Study It? Keystone Lawstudies. www.lawstudies.com/article/what-is-technology-law-and-why-should-you-study-it

Pazzanese. C. (2021, August 11.) How the government can support a free press and cut disinformation. The Harvard Gazette. news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/08/martha-minow-looks-at-ways-government-can-stop-disinformation

The Different Types of IP Protection and Why They Are Important. (2020, February 6) InQuartik.www.inquartik.com/blog/basic-intellectual-property-rights

The Effects of the Internet on Intellectual Property Rights. (2017). Peterson Watts Law Group. www.petersonwatts.com/blog/2017/03/the-effects-of-the-internet-on-intellectual-property-rights

Totenberg, N. (2024, March 18). Supreme Court examines whether government can combat disinformation online. NPR. www.npr.org/2024/03/18/1238122337/supreme-court-social-media-disinformation-first-amendment

Tricoles, Robin. (2019, March 21). Smart Tech Sprints Forward, but the Law Lags Behind. Arizona State University. research.asu.edu/smart-tech-sprints-forward-law-lags-behind