Law Commons^™

Crafting A License To Know From A Privilege To Access, Jane K. Winn

Articles

Should the doctrine of trespass to chattels apply to unauthorized access to Internet facilities? If it does, then the property rights of the owners of computers connected to the Internet may be vindicated, but at a cost of diminished public access to information posted on the Internet. If it does not, then incentives to invest in the kind of commercial facilities that now largely constitute the Internet may be undermined, but the public interest in knowledge gleaned from information posted on the Internet will be protected.

Although trespass to chattels has been derided as an anachronism ill-suited to the Internet, …