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Do Internet Laws Work?The internet used to be known as the Wild West when it came to legal issues. Well, the government has been passing a lot of laws, but do internet laws work? Do Internet Laws Work? With a question like this, you will probably not be surprised to learn the answer is “sometimes.” The internet is a beast of a problem for the legal community for a variety of reasons, but one of the bigger ones is jurisdiction. By its very definition, the internet is a world wide phenomenon. This is where the nickname of the World Wide Web came from. Legally, this causes a lot of headaches. Why? Well, there is the theoretical issue of what laws apply to a situation and the more practical issue of how to enforce them. So, what laws apply to a legal issue on the net? This can be a very difficult question. Let’s assume you live in San Diego and have a site posting your writings. Now, assume a person in Spain copies your stuff and posts it on their site without your permission. Does the law of the United States, California or Spain apply when resolving the dispute? There is no clear answer, so you pretty much have to argue your point. From a practical standpoint, internet laws can be muted as well. Let’s take our previous example again. Assume you sue the person in Spain and get a judgment. How do you enforce it in Spain? If you are person or business with a lot of resources, aka money, you can file for enforcement in that country. Most people are not in this position. As a result, their best option it to try to get the host to take down the site. It can be done, but you end up spending money and getting nothing tangible out of it. If you are really unlucky, the person in Spain may simply load the site on a new host. From the above examples, you might think internet laws simply don’t work. This is also incorrect. Laws like copyright and trademark are enforced daily on the web, particularly when both parties involved are in the same country. At the end of the day, the question of whether internet laws work depends on the specific situation you are facing. |
