Legal aspects of the Internet

Legal aspects of the Internet are becoming increasingly important. This site offers various articles on the most common legal issues around the Internet. A selected overview is given below. For a more complete list, see the sitemap.

Copyright

The rise of the Internet has really put copyright on the map for many people. Digital distribution invalidates many of the assumptions that underlie copyright laws (which often were first adopted over one hundred years ago). In other words, it is now extremely easy to copy and publish copyrighted works over the Internet. What is and is not allowed?

Creating Websites

Because of its importance and technical complexity, there are many legal issues regarding the World-Wide Web (WWW) that have become very important in the past five to ten years.

File sharing

Distribution of music, movies and other copyright-protected material through file sharing networks is getting more and more popular. But a large amount of material shared this way is shared without permission of the copyright holder.

Computer crime and hacking

Although the word "hacking" originally refers to acts requiring great skill and knowledge of computer systems, it has by now become almost synonymous with illegal activities like breaking into protected computer systems, releasing viruses, stealing passwords or other sensitive data, denial of service and so on.