Rethinking Rights and Regulations: Institutional Responses to New Communications Technologies (Hardcover)

Description:

The contributors to this volume examine issues raised by the intersection of new communications technologies and public policy in this post-boom, post-bust era. Originally presented at the 30th Research Conference on Communication, Information, and Internet Policy (TPRC 2002)--traditionally a showcase for the best academic research on this topic--their work combines hard data and deep analysis to explore the dynamic interplay between technological development and society.

The chapters in the first section consider the ways society conceptualizes new information technologies and their implications for law and policy, examining the common metaphor of "cyberspace as place," alternative definitions of the Internet, the concept of a namespace, and measures of diffusion. The chapters in the second section discuss how technological change may force the rethinking of legal rights; topics considered include spectrum rights, intellectual property, copyright and "paracopyright," and the abridgement of constitutional rights by commercial rights in ISP rules. Chapters in the third and final section examine the constant adjustment and reinterpretation of regulations in response to technological change, considering, among other subjects, liability regimes for common carriers and the 1996 detariffing rule, privacy and enhanced 911, and the residual effect of state ownership on privatized telecommunication carriers. The policy implications of Rethinking Rights and Regulations are clear: major institutional changes may be the necessary response to major advances in telecommunications technology.

Lorrie Faith Cranor is a Principal Technical Staff Member in the Secure Systems Research Department at AT&T Labs-Research.

Steven S. Wildman is James H. Quello Professor of Telecommunication Studies and Director of the James H. and Mary B. Quello Center for Telecommunication Management and Law at Michigan State University.

 

Table of Contents:

Contributors	vii
	Foreword Robert Cannon	ix
	Introduction Lorrie Faith Cranor and Steven S. Wildman	xi
I	Evolving Conceptualizations of the New Communications Arena	1
1	Cyberspace as Place Dan Hunter	3
2	Place and Cyberspace Mark A. Lemley	29
3	Will the Real Internet Please Stand Up? An Attorney's Quest to Define the Internet Robert Cannon	55
4	Governance in Namespaces Stefan Bechtold	81
5	The Geographic Dispersion of Commercial Internet Use Chris Forman, Avi Goldfarb and Shane Greenstein	113
II	The Evolution of Legal Rights	147
6	Some Economics of Wireless Communications Yochai Benkler	149
7	Spectrum Management: Property Rights, Markets, and the Commons Gerald R. Faulhaber and David J. Farber	193
8	"Functionality" as the Distinction between Patent and Copyright Subject Matter Dennis S. Karjala	227
9	Advantage ISP: Terms of Service as Media Law Sandra Braman and Stephanie Lynch	249
10	Anticircumvention Misuse Dan L. Burk	279
III	Regulatory Innovation and Responses to Technological Change	307
11	Improving Network Reliability — Liability Rules Must Recognize Investor Risk/Reward Strategies Barbara A. Cherry	309
12	Emergent Locations: Implementing Wireless 9-1-1 in Texas, Virginia, and Ontario David J. Phillips, Priscilla M. Regan and Colin J. Bennett	335
13	Creative Destruction in Emerging Markets: Privatizing Telecoms and the State Lee W. McKnight, Paul M. Vaaler, Burkhard N. Schrage and Raul L. Katz	367
14	The Potential Relevance to the United States of the European Union's Newly Adopted Regulatory Framework for Telecommunications J. Scott Marcus	397
	Index	429