Legal Question in Technology Law in California

Internet Law

I'm new to maintaining websites and have a few basic questions. What are the laws for using images, code, documents, PDFs, and links to other websites to be used on my websites?


Asked on 9/29/06, 8:37 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Bryan Whipple Bryan R. R. Whipple, Attorney at Law

Re: Internet Law

If you are doing this as a career, I strongly recommend acquiring and reading (at least skimming) a few basic books on the law of the Internet. Start by going to Amazon or Barnes & Noble's Web site(s) and searching for "Internet Law" - you'll hit titles such as Jonathan Rosenoer's "CyberLaw" and at least a dozen others. Look at the contents and the reviews and pick out several that seem to address the issues likely to be of greatest concern to you.

Other than that suggestion, I suppose I would have to say that identifying and discussing all the laws, or even the main laws, on a bulletin board is impossible. There are 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Feds, and about 160 foreign nations that have laws that might affect an Internet operator. Not that each jurisdiction has written a lot of statutes, necessarily, but there is an increasing body of case law and administrative decisions applying traditional 19th-Century legal precepts to the 21st-Century functioning of the 'net.

One gets a feel for how it all plays out by reading the books and treatises, not by getting lists oflaws.

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Answered on 9/29/06, 9:49 pm


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