Below is an outline of the legal building blocks for our legal architecture and a summary of the legal rules we have developed so far. This is a very rough draft, but it does point out where I see we're going. If I have left something out or if anyone has any comments (including you can't figure out what I'm talking about), please post. -Kris

Legal building blocks *liability *property *contract - allows users to change the default rule ex ante if they desire *inalienability - some minimum level of an entitlement is ensured to all (see Calabresis and Melamed article source for the above) *setting boundaries at various levels (individual or system) or setting no boundaries in order to protect different interests in cyberspace (Reeves article)

Our Legal Regime - Legal rules *"tagging" of private space required issues: what is sufficient for tagging? can tagging be done only once or must users periodically re-tag a space as private to ensure that users don't blindly overuse the 'private' designation?

*default rule is 'public unless marked as private' *circumvention of 'container' architecture is illegal issues: does this mean that unauthorized access without damage to data is illegal? *if access is possible only after actively and knowingly evading an access barrier (i.e. it's hard to get in), obtaining access through these measures is illegal

*allow individual determination of what is private to yield to legimate needs of law enforcement (direct regulation)

*liability rules apply to those who access private space; thus if there is no damage caused, there is no remedy for the violation

*privacy is a property right which can be bought and sold by users and ISPs; there is no right to a minimum level of privacy (i.e. there is no inalienability of a certain amount of privacy which all users are assured); the privacy you get on the Net is only the privacy for which you are willing to pay

*commercial email issue

*hackers v. crackers issue

*some public spaces are allowed in cyberspace and the right to public spaces is not alterable by contract (inalienability) issue: how will public spaces on private networks by enforced? does this conflict with user's right to designate space as private? if so, how much infringement on individual rights is permitted?

-- Anonymous, November 24, 1998

Answers

Sorry about problems reading my earlier post, but the posting software reformatted my writing so text that I intended to be placed on a different line ended up on the same line (I guess I didn't use enough hard returns).

So. . . anything with an '*' should be a new paragraph and text after 'issue(s):' should be indented and on a separate line.

-- Anonymous, November 24, 1998