Law in the Information Society

Law and technology engage in a dialectic dance each responding to the other in sometimes highly creative ways. Often, we focus on how law responds to technology, but it is sometimes worth reflecting on the processes or occasions when technology responds to law. This story, With cable at MIT, who needs Napster? | CNET News.com, describing the attempt to establish a music sharing system on university campuses that operates within the legal limits permitted by copyright law, provides one example. I doubt that this development is likely to end the legal debates raging around file sharing through peer to peer networks, but it does point out that innovation can provide solutions to legal roadblocks, even if those innovations are not particularly elegant.