Future Issues - What is the Viability of the Present Copyright System?

For businesses planning to go online, three issues stand out as likely to have the most impact on the development of online systems. The first is electronic payment systems, discussed earlier. The second is development of the Internet itself, and the third is the adequacy of copyright. This section looks at the latter two issues.

Future of the Internet. As everyone now knows, the Internet is not a unitary system but a conglomeration of networks and computers joined together by a glue of, on one hand, common standards and protocols and, on the other, an altruistic willingness to interconnect and transport other people's traffic. Unlike telephone networks, where national and international interconnection are backed by substantial legal documents (each agreement typically preceded by substantial amounts of lawyering), the non-commercial origins of the Internet have traditionally resulted in interconnection agreements which are based on not much more than a single sheet of A4 and a