Copyright in cyberspace

A U.S. district court has ruled that an on-line provider can be held liable for violating copyright law in cyberspace.

Authors, photographers, software writers and other creative people should be compensated for their published works. In the world of paper, normally they are. But in cyberspace, copyright material is easily duplicated and distributed illegally.

Rooting out cyberpirates is difficult in the vast reaches of the computer universe, which includes tens of thousands of networks accessed by tens of millions of readers. That complexity has the courts and legislators playing catch-up.

-- The Los Angeles Times