Intellectual property in Cyberspace - What technological/legislative tools are necessary for building a sturdy global information infrastructure?

In order to accommodate the increased Internet traffic of the past several years, the infrastructure of the Internet has grown, and has subsequently become more and more complex. The technological subtleties of expanding the Internet are not the only nor even the greatest problems associated with the growing Cyberspace population, however. More troubling (to the Internet pioneers and purists) are the different visions these new Internet users have for the building of the Global Information Infrastructure of the future. Businessmen, politicians, and entrepreneurs see in the Internet the potential for a rapid-fire global marketplace; but in this digital world, content would have to be tightly controlled. This is a world far different from the highly unregulated infant Internet, in which the free-flow of information was of fundamental importance, There is now a palpable tension, therefore, between the users and the providers of information on the Internet. The providers require measures to protect their property and users desire, at the very minimum, "fair use" of the content they download from the Internet. Aside from a few militant Internet aficionados. most people agree that some regulatory devices should he implemented in order to protect intellectual property on the Internet to some extent. How then, can intellectual property owners assert some control over their property in the digital world without impinging upon users' basic rights? There are two main ways by which owners can hope to exert some control over their property on the Internet. On the one hand, owners can lobby for new, tighter, intellectual property legislation; on the other, they can protect their property with technological devices. Both types of protection have assets and flaws.