LEGAL-ASPECTS OF THE INFORMATION-SOCIETY

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the significance of certain legal aspects of a developing information society. Such a society is founded on the representation of information as strings of binary digits. Representation in this most basic of forms makes possible new methods of transmitting and processing information which amount to a revolution in communications. Strings of binary digits may be conveyed at high speed and high volume to any point on the earth by terrestrial or satellite carriers; they may be reproduced without error any number of times at minimal cost; they may be transferred as ciphers using advanced cryptographic methods; they may constitute vast databases which can be searched simultaneously by many users at remote terminals; they may be disseminated over networks which are themselves interconnected; and above all these bit strings may be processed by digital computers in an immense variety of ways. So powerful and pervasive is this technology that it is inevitably accompanied by noteworthy legal consequences. One distinctive feature of the information society is the emphasis it gives to proprietary rights in intellectual products. These intangible goods are the new wealth. The information society entails a market place for these products and the essence of a market is the transfer of property rights. Patents for novel circuit designs, copyrights in computer programs and compilations of data, and claims to trade secrets are examples of proprietary rights that may be exchanged in these markets to enable purchasers to express their choices in a way that guides further developments by suppliers. This paper affirms the view that well-defined rights to intellectual property are necessary for the effective development of a global information society. Whilst property rights have been successfully created for computer products, both tangible and intangible, few proprietary interests exist in the heavily regulated telecommunications industry. This may well be the reason why the power of processing modes in digital networks is so much greater than the capacity of communication links to feed those nodes. This paper suggests that a new industry of digital interface design and manufacture is