The Group looked at what other countries around the world had done, and particularly looked at those jurisdictions that had decided to do something different from the Model Law. The review revealed that although many States in the USA had enacted digital signature recognition legislation, for instance, it was almost universally regarded as ineffective and, more importantly, was too technology specific. In fact, most of them assumed the use of asymmetric cryptography for electronic signature mechanisms. This is an important point and one that the discussion throughout the book reinforces. Hence, the focus of the presenters is always on bringing their specialist knowledge to bear on practical problems that people were facing in the everyday world.
Confidence comes from knowledge that comes from the availability of information.
Going Digital provides information to lawyers and students alike so that they can develop confidence in advising the Australian community in this exploding area, and not approach anything remotely technological with the trepidation of their forebears. In my view the reproduction in RAM of a substantial part of a computer program must be a reproduction requiring the copyright owner's permission, however transient its storage time. If it does not, then much of the legal basis for current software and information licensing regimes will collapse. It is a very important issue and, having stated that Going Digital is a valuable contribution to the literature, I am bound to make an exception for what I regard as a most unhelpful contribution from Mr Christie in the early part of his paper. Anne Fitzgerald and Cristina Cifuentes discuss the special features of digital multimedia works, the various alternatives for according them protection under the Copyright Act , and recent court decisions that have clarified how copyright applies to such works.