Some legal issues for electronic information

Electronic information has a legal and regulatory framework. This framework is often not well understood, either by information users or information providers. The problem is that there are the electronic publishers, keen to maximize income; there are the information users, frustrated by what they regard as onerous clauses imposed upon them and worried as to whether they are breaking tile law or their contracts or not, and also wondering how anyone can possibly police them anyway; finally, there are the people who draft laws, who frequently do not understand the electronic information industry and new technology. Lawyers do not help by being very reluctant to give clear cut advice. The law is very unfair to information users and information providers; they are being asked to second guess the Courts as to whether the terms imposed are fair or not or whether what a user does is fair or not. In this paper, I will briefly cover three areas of legal interest: copyright; data protection; and liability for information provision.