The 21st century truly is the “high tech age.” As a consequence, computers and technology law is of crucial importance. In point of fact there are an ever growing number of issues relating to computers and technology law at this juncture in history. With that in mind, this overview of computers and technology law is presented.
One of the more active areas in regard to computers and technology law involves issues stemming from copyright. When it comes to computers, the Internet and technology law, copyright issues have become very commonplace. Protecting copyright interests with the growth of the Internet has become particularly problematic. In point of fact, with the growth of the Internet, and with the increasing incidence and complexity of copyright issues associated with the Net, there is a whole new legal specialty including attorneys that focus their practices on these issues.
Copyright issues extend beyond the Internet as well into the arena of software and hardware development as well. In regard to computers and technology law, the protection of intellectual property associated with software and hardware is extremely important. Once again, this is an area which has given rise to a whole new legal specialty consisting of attorneys who are focusing their energy and efforts on protection the intellectual property interests of those men, women and companies involved in the design and development of software applications and computer related hardware.
Of course, some of the most important developments that have occurred in regard to computers and technology law are related to music and the downloading of music off of the Internet and World Wide Web. Through both litigation in courts and statutes and regulations that have gone into effect, there continues to be a great deal of activity in the arena of protecting the copyright interest of people involved in the music industry on different levels.
Although it has not become as prevalent as many industry analysts predicted, there has been a slow but nonetheless fairly steady increase in the number of people who are using ebooks at the present point in time. (Many experts predicted about five years ago that there would be a significant number of people using and reading ebooks by this point in time. While this significant increase that was contemplated in the past has not occurred, the number of eBook users is higher than it was five years ago.)
With the increase in eBook usage -again, which is expected to expand at least to some degree in the next few years – there has been a growing concern associated with protecting the copyright interest of authors who are finding their work in eBook form. On a number of levels, it is a more complicated task to protect written materials that are included in ebooks that is the case with traditional, “brick and mortar world” publications. Therefore, in regard to computers and technology law, there is a growing interest amongst attorneys in developing more effective avenues through which the content of ebooks can be protected in this high tech age.