Authors: Yochai Benkler.
Paperback, 528 pages
Publisher: Yale University Press
Publication Date: 2007-10-23


Reviews :

   

With the radical changes in information production that the Internet has introduced, we stand at an important moment of transition, says Yochai Benkler in this thought-provoking book. The phenomenon he describes as social production is reshaping markets, while at the same time offering new opportunities to enhance individual freedom, cultural diversity, political discourse, and justice. But these results are by no means inevitable: a systematic campaign to protect the entrenched industrial information economy of the last century threatens the promise of today’s emerging networked information environment.

In this comprehensive social theory of the Internet and the networked information economy, Benkler describes how patterns of information, knowledge, and cultural production are changing—and shows that the way information and knowledge are made available can either limit or enlarge the ways people can create and express themselves. He describes the range of legal and policy choices that confront us and maintains that there is much to be gained—or lost—by the decisions we make today.

...

Authors: Lawrence Lessig.
Paperback, 432 pages
Publisher: Basic Books
Publication Date: 2006-12-04


Reviews :

    ...

Authors: Jessica Litman.
Paperback, 216 pages
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Publication Date: 2006-07-05
Edition: Pbk. Ed

Reviews :

    In 1998, copyright lobbyists succeeded in persuading Congress to enact laws greatly expanding copyright owners' control over individuals' private uses of their works. The efforts to enforce these new rights have resulted in highly publicized legal battles between established media, and new upstarts. In this enlightening and well-argued book, law professor Jessica Litman questions whether copyright laws crafted by lawyers and their lobbyists really make sense for the vast majority of us. Should every interaction between ordinary consumers and copyright-protected works be restricted by law? Is it practical to enforce such laws, or expect consumers to obey them? What are the effects of such laws on the exchange of information in a free society? Litman's critique exposes the 1998 copyright law as an incoherent patchwork. She argues for reforms that reflect common sense and the way people actually behave in their daily digital interactions. This paperback edition includes an afterword that comments on recent developments, such as the end of the Napster story, the rise of peer-to-peer file sharing, the escalation of a full-fledged copyright war, the filing of lawsuits against thousands of individuals, and the June 2005 Supreme Court decision in the Grokster case....

Authors: Richard A. Spinello.
Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Pub
Publication Date: 2006-03-01
Edition: 3

Reviews :

    CyberEthics: Morality and Law in Cyberspace, Third Edition takes an in-depth look at the social costs and moral problems that have arisen by the expanded use of the internet, and offers up-to-date legal and philosophical perspectives. The text focuses heavily on content control and free speech, intellectual property, privacy and security, and has added NEW coverage on Blogging. Case studies featured throughout the text offer real-life scenarios and include coverage of numerous hot topics, including the latest decisions on digital music and movie downloads, the latest legal developments on the Children's Internet Protection Act, and other internet governance and regulation updates. In the process of examining these issues, the text identifies some of the legal disputes that will likely become paradigm cases for more complex situations yet to come....

Authors: Daniel J. Solove.
Hardcover, 256 pages
Publisher: Yale University Press
Publication Date: 2007-10-24


Reviews :

    (20071101)...

Authors: Cliff Ennico.
Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: AMACOM
Publication Date: 2007-05-09


Reviews :

    Anyone running a wholesale or retail business must deal with legal and tax issues, and those who sell on eBay are no exception. Yet many eBay sellers remain ignorant of the consequences they may face if they disregard certain basic rules. Packed with stories of actual eBay sellers, this helpful guide takes readers through the most common eBay transactions, pointing out all the legal and tax issues they may encounter along the way. Readers will get practical advice on:

* whether their eBay selling qualifies as a "business"

* illegal practices to avoid

* what taxes must be paid and what they can and can't deduct

* spelling out a refund and return policy

* knowing when a bid becomes legally binding

* resolving seller-buyer disputes

* protecting themselves when buying inventory and hiring employees

* trademarking a business name and web address

* customs, duties, and other considerations when selling internationally.

Complete with sample contracts, forms, checklists, and disclaimers, this is a book no eBay seller should be without....

   

Anyone running a wholesale or retail business must deal with legal and tax issues, and those who sell on eBay are no exception. Yet many eBay sellers remain ignorant of the consequences they may face if they disregard certain basic rules. Packed with stories of actual eBay sellers, this helpful guide takes readers through the most common eBay transactions, pointing out all the legal and tax issues they may encounter along the way. Readers will get practical advice on:

* whether their eBay selling qualifies as a "business"

* illegal practices to avoid

* what taxes must be paid and what they can and can’t deduct

* spelling out a refund and return policy

* knowing when a bid becomes legally binding

* resolving seller-buyer disputes

* protecting themselves when buying inventory and hiring employees

* trademarking a business name and web address

* customs, duties, and other considerations when selling internationally.

Complete with sample contracts, forms, checklists, and disclaimers, this is a book no eBay seller should be without.

...

Authors: Jack Goldsmith. Tim Wu.
Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Publication Date: 2008-06-30


Reviews :

    Is the Internet erasing national borders? Who's really in control of what's happening on the Net--Internet engineers, rogue programmers, the United Nations, or powerful countries?
In this provocative new book, Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu tell the fascinating story of the Internet's challenge to governmental rule in the 1990s, and the ensuing battles with governments around the world. It's a book about the fate of one idea--that the Internet might liberate us forever from government, borders, and even our physical selves. We learn of Google's struggles with the French government and Yahoo's capitulation to the Chinese regime; of how the European Union sets privacy standards on the Net for the entire world; and of eBay's struggles with fraud and how it slowly learned to trust the FBI. In a decade of events, the original vision was uprooted, as governments time and time again asserted their power to direct the future of the Internet. The destiny of the Internet over the next decades, argue Goldsmith and Wu, will reflect the interests of powerful nations and the conflicts within and between them.
Well written and filled with fascinating examples, this is a work that is bound to stir heated debate in the cyberspace community.
"A timely look at the ways that governments make themselves felt in cyberspace. Goldsmith and Wu cover a range of controversies, from domain-name disputes to online poker and porn to political censorship. Their judgments are well worth attending."
--David Robinson, Wall Street Journal
"In the 1990s the Internet was greeted as the New New Thing: It would erase national borders, give rise to communal societies that invented their own rules, undermine the power of governments. In this splendidly argued book, Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu explain why these early assumptions were mostly wrong. By turns provocative and colorful...an essential read."
--Sebastian Mallaby, Editorial Writer and Columnist, The Washington Post...

Authors: Cass R. Sunstein.
Hardcover, 288 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Publication Date: 2006-08-24


Reviews :

    The rise of the "information society" offers not only considerable peril but also great promise. Beset from all sides by a never-ending barrage of media, how can we ensure that the most accurate information emerges and is heeded? In this book, Cass R. Sunstein develops a deeply optimistic understanding of the human potential to pool information, and to use that knowledge to improve our lives.
In an age of information overload, it is easy to fall back on our own prejudices and insulate ourselves with comforting opinions that reaffirm our core beliefs. Crowds quickly become mobs. The justification for the Iraq war, the collapse of Enron, the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia--all of these resulted from decisions made by leaders and groups trapped in "information cocoons," shielded from information at odds with their preconceptions. How can leaders and ordinary people challenge insular decision making and gain access to the sum of human knowledge?
Stunning new ways to share and aggregate information, many Internet-based, are helping companies, schools, governments, and individuals not only to acquire, but also to create, ever-growing bodies of accurate knowledge. Through a ceaseless flurry of self-correcting exchanges, wikis, covering everything from politics and business plans to sports and science fiction subcultures, amass--and refine--information. Open-source software enables large numbers of people to participate in technological development. Prediction markets aggregate information in a way that allows companies, ranging from computer manufacturers to Hollywood studios, to make better decisions about product launches and office openings. Sunstein shows how people can assimilate aggregated information without succumbing to the dangers of the herd mentality--and when and why the new aggregation techniques are so astoundingly accurate.
In a world where opinion and anecdote increasingly compete on equal footing with hard evidence, the on-line effort of many minds coming together might well provide the best path to infotopia....

Authors: Patricia L. Bellia. Paul Schiff Berman. David G. Post.
Hardcover, 836 pages
Publisher: West Group
Publication Date: 2006-11-29
Edition: 3

Reviews :

    This innovative casebookwhich has proved extremely popular with students and professors alikestarts from the premise that cyberlaw is not simply a set of legal rules governing online interaction, but a lens through which broader jurisprudential issues can be re-examined. Accordingly, this book goes beyond plugging Internet-related cases into a series of pre-existing doctrinal categoriesFirst Amendment, copyright, trademark, etc.and instead emphasizes the conceptual debates that cut across the areas of doctrine touched by cyberspace. Moreover, the casebook uses the rise of the Internet to encourage readers to reconsider various assumptions in traditional legal doctrine. This dual focus provides readers with broad-based and sophisticated training in Internet-related legal issues while also making the argument that cyberlaw is a coherent and useful field of study. Thus, instead of compiling a list of topic areas, the book seeks to define a set of conceptual issues that extend across the spectrum of Internet legal dilemmas. While all of the traditional subject matter areas of cyberlaw are addressed, they are placed in a new framework one that asks both students and professors to consider what it is that cyberlaw has to teach us about law more generally. The new edition retains the qualities that have made the book so successful in law schools across the country. It is compact, serves a variety of course formats, builds new cases on top of a foundation of non internet legal doctrine, and fosters lively and provocative class discussions. The third edition will, of course, provide updated case and statutory coverage, but in addition, the casebook has undergone a major revision to provide even greater conceptual clarity and respond to user feedback Treatment of subjects has been adjusted throughout to reflect new thinking in the field, each chapter now includes greater framing to highlight the issues to be explored, materials have been reordered to make more intuitive conne...

Authors: Gerald R. Ferrera. Stephen D. Lichtenstein. Margo E. K. Reder. Robert Bird. William T. Schiano.
Hardcover, 552 pages
Publisher: South-Western College/West
Publication Date: 2003-07-07
Edition: 2

Reviews :

    This exciting text assists aspiring business managers in recognizing the legal issues relevant to maintaining and doing business in an e-commerce world. It covers relevant legal issues, applicable court decisions, federal and state statutes, administrative rulings, legal literature, and ethical considerations relating to Internet law....