17. Electronic payments and cryptocurrency

This chapter examines online payment methods, including the use of tokens, in electronic commerce. It first provides an overview of token payments before looking at alternative electronic payment systems including debt substitution, payment by credit cards, and fund transfer. The chapter reviews the failure of the European Commission’s Electronic Money Directive 2000 and examines whether the current law, found in the 2009 Electronic Money Directive, is likely to provide a better legal environment for electronic money to flourish. It spends considerable time looking at the development of cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and how blockchain is used to establish trust in cryptocurrency transactions, before concluding with an analysis of the law in relation to cryptocurrency.

13. Databases

This chapter examines database right, a sui generis form of intellectual property protection, the roots of which are to be found in copyright law. It first compares copyright and database rights before turning to cases in which the UK’s Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 was applied to listings of information in the form of a simple database. The chapter then considers the European Union’s Database Directive and analyses the Fixtures Marketing, British Horseracing Board Ltd v William Hill, and Football Dataco v Yahoo! cases. Finally, it looks at databases, along with the intellectual property issues that they generate, within the framework of the information society.

11. Copyright in the digital environment

This chapter examines copyright issues from copying and distributing information from the internet. It considers the discussion focuses on how the internet has challenged the application and development of copyright law, considering web-copyright concerns such as linking, caching, and aggregating, citing Google Inc. v Copiepresse SCRL. It spends considerable time discussing the operation of the temporary eproduction right though key cases Infopaq International, and Public Relations Consultants Association v Newspaper Licensing Agency. The analysis then moves on to examine the communication to the public right created by the Copyright and Related Rights in the Information Society Directive, examining the application of the right through key cases such as Nils Svensson v Retriever Sverige, GS Media v Sanoma Media, and Stichting Brein v Ziggo BV.

7. Defamation

This chapter examines defamation cases arising from traditional media sites and user-generated media entries. It first provides an overview of the tort of defamation, and the issue of who is responsible and potentially liable for an online defamatory statement. It then looks at the Defamation Act 2013, considering when defences may be raised to a claim in defamation, and how online publication and republication may result in defamation. Four cases are analysed: Dow Jones v Gutnick, Loutchansky v Times Newspapers, King v Lewis, and Jameel v Dow Jones. The chapter explores intermediary liability, particularly the liability of UK internet service providers, by citing recent decisions on intermediary liability such as Tamiz v Google, Delfi v Estonia, and MTE v Hungary, as well as specific intermediary defences found in the Defamation Act 2013. The chapter concludes by discussing key social media cases such as McAlpine v Bercow and Monroe v Hopkins.

4. Regulating the information society

This chapter examines whether the actions of individuals in the digital environment could be regulated. It first considers John Perry Barlow’s 1996 publication of his Declaration of Independence for Cyberspace, in which he asserts that cyberspace was a separate sovereign space where real-world laws and real-world governments were of little or no effect. Barlow’s forceful challenge to lawmakers and law enforcement bodies gave rise to a school of thought known as cyberlibertarianism. The chapter compares cyberlibertarianism with another school of thought called cyberpaternalism, which rejected the notion that cyberspace was immune from regulatory intervention by real-world regulators. It also explains Lawrence Lessig’s modalities of internet regulation, network communitarianism, private regulators of cyberspace, and states’ supranational regulation of cyberspace. The chapter goes on to examine contemporary theories of internet governance and regulation including libertarian paternalism, platform and intermediary regulation, and algorithmic regulation.

20. Obscenity in the information society

This chapter, which examines pornography and obscenity on the internet, first provides an overview of the UK common law standard known as the Hicklin principle and the Obscene Publications Acts. It then discusses the UK standard and US statutory interventions on pornography, the impact of the case ACLU v Reno on the regulation of sexually explicit content on the internet, pseudo-images, and images depicting child abuse as the most extreme form of pornographic image, and the policing of pseudo-images in the UK and internationally. The chapter also considers the law on non-photographic pornographic images of children, along with private regulation of pornographic imagery and the new Age-verification code for adult websites.

18. Consumer protection

This chapter examines how consumers are protected when they go online. It examines the extensive protections offered by the Consumer Rights Directive to distance agreements (including online agreements). The rules on jurisdiction, choice of law, and enforcement are examined alongside what rights the consumer has to receive information and to cancel contracts agreed at a distance. In addition, this chapter examines the suite of rights created by the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and, in particular, the new provisions therein which digital content (including software, apps, and in-game content among others). The chapter continues with a discussion of the regulation of unsolicited commercial communications or spam, including a discussion of the Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications, GDPr, and the proposed ePrivacy Regulation. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the proposed online sales and Digital Content Directives.

15. Brand identities, search engines, and secondary markets

This chapter examines brand identities, search engines, and secondary markets and their operation in the information society. It considers jurisdiction and online trademark disputes, as well as search engine optimization and the role of Google and the impact of its search engine services on brand profile and market presence. The chapter goes on to examine secondary markets and the liability of sellers of counterfeit products for the abuse of trademarks. The chapter concludes with a summary of the changing nature of online branding and the diminishing impact of domain names to cement brand identity, as well as the growing influence of developments to web browser functionality on consumer behaviour.

10. Digital creatives and copyright law

This new chapter examines the sometimes fraught relationship between authors, publishers and distributors, and fans. While copyright law protects authors and creators, and while publishers and distributors benefit from either assigned copyright or specific copyright protection of distribution and transmission of content, fans are sometimes ‘shut out’. A flourishing online community of fan creators who produce written fanfiction, remixed music, and fan videos sometimes feel copyright law is designed to keep them at a distance from the creators and characters they love. This chapter examines where the balance should be drawn between copyright protection for original content and the interests of fans and other users in creating non-commercial derivative works. It concludes with a short discussion of computer-generated works as a form of original creation.

2. The network of networks

This chapter traces the history of the internet, sometimes called the network of networks. It first looks at the origins of computer networks, beginning with the introduction of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network or ARPANET, followed by the ALOHANET and the SATNET. The chapter then outlines the development of the internet that began when Bob Kahn built an Internetwork Protocol and also explains how the modern internet functions, along with net neutrality. Finally, it considers the third network layer, the applications layer where higher-level protocols such as Hypertext Transfer Protocol make it possible to carry out operations such as web surfing.