Internet Laws

            During class this week, our main topic of discussion was the laws and jurisdiction of the Internet and how it is difficult to actually govern and have set laws. One reading in particular stuck out more to me. Written by David Johnson and David Post, Laws and Borders: the Rise of Law in Cyberspace touched on many subjects that are quite relevant to today. They mainly touch on subject of the “new rules [that] will emerge, in a variety of online spaces, to govern a wide range of new phenomena that have no clear parallel in the non-virtual world.” Basically, cyberspace is an entirely new place that cannot abide by all of the rules of every country or nation that uses the Internet. Post and Johnson claim that these new rules “will play the role of law by defining legal personhood and property, resolving disputes, and crystallizing a collective conversation about core values.” They claim that cyberspace should be considered to be it’s own place and therefore should have it’s own rules.

            I cannot really think of many examples that I ran into/experienced while playing LOTRO that would be considered relevant to our readings. I have not run into players breaking rules, exploiting or attempting to use cheats. I didn’t even run into any trolls while playing the game. This may be because I have not reached a highly populated part of the game quite yet. But there is an issue that is relevant both to our readings and to some current events. These “current events” would be the attempt made by the House of Representatives and the Senate to pass both the SOPA and PIPA bills. They were created in an attempt to “eliminate” copyright infringement on the Internet. In short, SOPA (aka Stop Online Piracy Act) allows companies to remove websites if they contain anything that is copyrighted or hyperlinked to copyrighted material. PIPA (aka Protect Intellectual Property Act) is very similar to SOPA, but it deals with foreign websites and attempts to stop them from hosting things like television shows, movies or anything else that would be considered copyrighted material. If these bills were to pass and eventually become laws, many websites would be shut down. Not only would websites be affected, but also many companies would most likely be destroyed in the process.

            The House of Representatives and the Senate honestly has no business meddling in laws and matters that deal with the Internet. There are multiple, logical reasons why they have no business in dealing with anything Internet related. Some of these reasons include but are not limited to the basic fact that the House of Representatives and the Senate are in no way experts on the Internet and do not know how or why it works the way it does. Both Johnson and Post would agree with me on this topic. Because the United States government attempted to treat the Internet as a something under its jurisdiction rather than a new place, their actions went the exact opposite direction of what Johnson and Post were trying to promote. Johnson and Post explain that “Internet has created jurisdictional problems” due to its lack of boundaries. This supports the idea that the Internet should be considered it’s own place. Too many problems arise when multiple different governments (including both state and country) have different ideas about how the Internet should be run. No two governments would have the same ideas and standards. Like Johnson and Post said, it would be much easier to consider cyberspaces its own, separate jurisdiction. Because PIPA and SOPA are an attempt to regulate the Internet, Johnson and Post would never support either bill.

             Many things could (and more than likely would) go wrong if the government was allowed to interfere with creating and enforcing Internet law. Recently, a “blackout” was held Wednesday, January 18^th, in protest of both SOPA and PIPA. Sites such as Reddit and Wikipedia (along with multiple other websites) went dark for 24 hours. For one day, many Americans struggled to complete many simple tasks that only took seconds to complete the day before. The blackout attempted to mimic what the Internet would be like if SOPA and PIPA were passed. This is why the House of Representatives and the Senate needs to become more educated on both the Internet and how cyberspace should be considered a new place. And because it would be a new place, laws created in cyberspace should be treated as valid and the United States government should respect cyberspaces jurisdictional authority.