Cyberspace considered a distinct place (Was: Re: Internet Community)

[Jean-Francois Groff <jfg@infodesign.ch>]

Aveek Datta wrote:
> My friend and I were discussing the creation of a new country, the
> Internet country, with its own set of laws and government. Though this
> is the extreme and hopefully will not happen, to some extent this is
> what we are trying to do. Create laws for a land with no laws..!

  On that subject, it might be enlightening for the community to read  
the excellent paper by David R. Johnson and David Post in _First Monday_  
"Law and Borders -- the Rise of Law in Cyberspace", where they argue for  
the recognition of a border between the "Real World (TM)" and the  
Internet considered as a distinct place, where local laws should be  
created and enforced by its inhabitants, thus adapting the famous  
"self-regulation" of the Internet to a world comprised of millions of  
"Net citizens" which could be run through classical democratic processes  
and handle correctly the exchanges across its boundaries with  
territory-based nations.
  The point of view they advocate shades some light on a path out of the  
current discussions on the conundrum of applying territorial trademarks  
to Internet entities, which are often unrelated to a physical territory.

  The article is at http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue1/law/index.html

    Jean-Francois Groff <jfg@infodesign.net>  (NeXT-Mail & MIME OK)
    Founder, InfoDesign Ltd.                   Tel: +41-22-771.0440
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