The first was a copy of the book under review. Despite the fact that I had a good course in probability and statistics, I saw no way at the moment to compute by rational means the value of the IDP, so I turned my attention to the book. A light preliminary scanning created instant vertigo and mental derangement. My confusion was not caused by the deficiencies of the author. The source of my confusion, rather, was the realization, driven home in chapter after chapter, and in case after case, that information technology is running decades ahead of our ability as a society to judge its status with respect to traditional norms.
Legal codes are probably as old as civilization itself.
The Code of King Hammurabi, carved in stone in the 18th century B.C., summed up what had been painfully arrived at in a certain part of the world from the time the primitives walked out of the cave and began to consider themselves superior to the lions and the crocodiles. If it is a fact, it cannot be copyrighted. While the courts are clogged with cybersuits, the existing laws are confused, vague, inadequate. The slow, traditional processes of establishing precedents and arguing from them seem inappropriate in a technosociety that is hell-bent on putting into place whatever is possible and making a buck on it. As an author, I would like my wonderful words protected in perpetuity.