And those are just a few of the highlights from a year in which technology and the law saw their biggest clashes yet.
Congress passes antispam law
After years of trying without success, the U.S. Congress finally passed an antispam bill, though the impact of this new law is at best uncertain. The
While lawmakers were busy crafting the Can-Spam Act, software developers were busy in 2003 developing new technologies to block spam.
However, critics point out that the new federal law is less restrictive than some of the state laws and does not outright ban the sending of unsolicited commercial e-mail (an approach many people favor but that certainly would lead to First Amendment challenges). Instead, the law mandates the use of accurate headers in e-mail messages, requires procedures for recipients to opt out of future e-mails and forbids the practice of e-mail address harvesting.
In addition, the law creates a process to study the feasibility of a "do not e-mail" registry, which would be similar to the immensely popular Do Not Call Registry the Federal Trade Commission manages. However, many people, including FTC chairman Timothy J. Muris, have said the e-mail registry would be ineffective and potentially counterproductive.
Even before Can-Spam, some Internet service providers and others successfully pursued a number spammers in courts, highlighted by the May
While lawmakers were busy crafting the Can-Spam Act, software developers were busy in 2003 developing new technologies to block spam. Many ISPs and e-mail providers now offer spam-blocking tools for free, and corporations have licensed similar products. While none of the tools is 100 percent effective--most of them still let some spam seep through or occasionally block legitimate e-mail--they're likely to prove to be a more effective way to deal with spam than the law will.
Pop-up advertising and the law
Despite the success of spam lawsuits, the other most annoying tactic online--pop-up advertising--seems to be avoiding the law. In at least three court decisions in 2003, judges ruled in favor of companies that provide software that delivers these advertisements.
Perhaps the most far-reaching high-tech legal issue in 2003 involves the surprise positioning by the SCO Group over rights to the Linux software.
But, as with spam, technology rather than the law soon may prove to be more important. With the proliferation of pop-up blocking tools--including free choices from ISPs,
Illegal music file sharing continues
The music industry ends 2003 on a down note,
In June, the RIAA announced that it would begin
Although the ruling says nothing about the substantive issue of file sharing, which overwhelmingly remains illegal, the Verizon case was the music industry's second big loss of the year. In April, a federal district court judge in California
Unlike in the earlier Napster litigation, where the music industry won every legal round, the court in this case saw a distinction between centralized and decentralized file-sharing services. Grokster and StreamCast escaped liability because, the court said, they did not actively facilitate and could not stop their users' infringing activity.
Despite these legal setbacks, the music industry can take some consolation in the fact that legal, fee-based online music services finally took off in 2003, led by
Domain names and the law
In the spring, Congress
Though the law may suffer from ambiguities and therefore be vulnerable to a First Amendment challenge, it proved essential in
Zuccarini reportedly had made millions by linking porn sites to domain names similar to popular trademarks (such as 15 variations of CartoonNetwork.com) and had evaded the law for years before being arrested in a Florida hotel room in September. In December, he pleaded guilty to 49 federal charges.
Meanwhile, the
U.S. Supreme Court and library filtering
Another Internet law designed to protect children, the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), was
CIPA requires that public libraries install software to block obscene or pornographic images and to prevent minors from accessing material harmful to them if the libraries want to receive two types of federal assistance for Internet access. "Especially because public libraries have traditionally excluded pornographic material from their other collections, Congress could reasonably impose a parallel limitation on its Internet assistance programs," Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote.
Taxes are still taxing
To the surprise of many, Congress let the Internet Tax Freedom Act
Similarly,
Other issues and a look ahead
Patent law continued to prove controversial in 2003, led by Microsoft's
Perhaps the most far-reaching high-technology legal issue in 2003 involves the surprise positioning of the SCO Group over rights to the Linux software. Led by lawyer David Boies of Napster fame, SCO in March
In addition to the ongoing legal debates over spam, file-sharing, patents and taxes, a few new Internet legal issues are likely to become prominent in 2004.
Get Up to Speed on...
VoIP
Get the latest headlines and
company-specific
news in our
expanded GUTS section.
The Federal Communications Commission
And, in 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court will revisit the Child Online Protection Act (
In its first ruling on COPA, a divided Court said that definition does not by itself render the statute substantially overbroad for purposes of the First Amendment, refused to lift an injunction against enforcement of the act and sent the case back to the lower appellate court, which in March 2003
In October, the Supreme Court said it will
Biography
Doug Isenberg, an attorney in Atlanta and founder of GigaLaw.com, is a domain name panelist for the World Intellectual Property Organization.
