where certain activities occur that might trigger the application of local laws, and the like, have yet to be settled.
This article focuses on five of these issues: Copyright law, liability of online service providers, database protection, obscenity on the Internet, and privacy.
Copyright
Many Internet proponents have expressed the view that copyright law simply will fade away in the digital environment because it will be unnecessary or obsolete. John Perry Barlow, co-founder and current Vice Chair of the Electronic Freedom Foundation, has been particularly eloquent in his statements that copyright law will have no relevance in the electronic environment. Largely, this claim is made because some believe that charging for access to digital information will be so easy and so inexpensive that there will be no need for copyright protection.
Copyright owners disagree with this position. They take the view that the Internet simply provides new ways of reproducing and plagiarizing copyrighted works. Plagiarism of digital works may be more difficult to detect when it occurs using works located on the Web rather than in print, but plagiarism is the same whether in the analog or the digital world. Users of copyrighted works who rely on fair use also disagree that copyright will disappear in the digital environment.
Copyright law in the United States developed in order to balance the rights of the creators of copyrighted works and the users of those works. This balance is critical to our society. Paying even nominal amounts for access to information that currently is available free in public libraries all over the world is the antithesis of this balance mandated in the U.S. Constitution. (U.S. Constitution, article I, section 8, clause 8). Copyright owners may indeed begin to rely increasingly on licensing to create a pay-for-view system for access to copyrighted works over the Internet, however, access is not all that fair use permits. Even after one obtains access to a work, fair use affects what that individual do with the work. May a user place a copy of a copyrighted work on a homepage? Reproduce the work in printed copies? May a user upload