Session 4: Legal Issues in Media Society

• Telecommunication regulation
  - When this is no longer a public service, must think how to maintain this level of service at an affordable price.
• Copy right/intellectual property rights
  - With new technology it is easier to make high quality copies.
• Encryption
  - The issue is that whether encryption technology should be free or not . EU seems to be reluctant to step in. Probably any attempt in this issue will be a symbolic one.
• Data protection/privacy protection
  
• Access to government information
  - There are economic side to this problem.
• Internet regulation
  - Looking for a alternative method for solving problems. Useful to recall that international problems were always around. International rule differ by country. We are now watching a change of nature of the law caused by the impact of technology.
• check out latest updates
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• Who owns the Internet??
  - some people think federal government owns it
• Who controls Internet?
  - the Internet is an unmanaged entity
  - life got complicated when money got in.
  It causes many problems across country boarders. We have to sought out some method.
• Legal cultural issues
  - It is very hard make a definition what pornograpy is world wide. What is perfectly accessable in one country may not be accessable in another country.
• Cryptography
  - Government makes it uncomfortable enough so companies like Microsoft will not put good cryptography into their products. It is very damaging to the security that the network needs, but cannot be made available.
• A very active discussion of NII.
• Electrical Currency
  - Money is no good when nobody backs it. And must be able to use outside cyberspace.
• Anonymity
  - It can effect many people easily. It is valuable but is dangerous also. Network is growing too fast, but the law is not.

• In the Asian side "Lack of democracy" is a big problem. The triangle of "business = legislature = bureaucracy" has power (information + law). The power can be shifted to the people using multimedia.
• Law's weakness in the media society
  - (de)regulation & antimonopoly law - intellectual property law (copyright)
  - constitutional law
  - criminal law
  - contract law
  - international law
  
• Jurisdiction problem
  - MOF, MITI, MOPT, MOE -> they all say "digital media business" is is their problem. One idea is to have an independent commission to handle these problems such as administrative commission (JFTC)
• Flexible Administration
  - Judiciary (Law & Enforcement)
• New Enforcement
  - Need to be flexible, understand the difficulty of governing by law. voluntary organization from people, user , business may be neccessary

• Q: Why is there a need of law? Suppose that there is a system that will enforce payment ...
• A: The area that you have mentioned may be good but, some areas such as criminal issues cannot be solved in that way.
• A: When we talk about law -> must realize the difference in power You should not underestimate law. Law helps to create a social environment.
• A: Law in some sense is a set of rules that the community agrees to live with. In the net we have a rule too.
• C: Media may be a trouble maker but, using media in a country like Japan , having the information sources come to your hand may be one revolution to change our society...