Rights and Responsibilities of Participants in Networked Communities (1994) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 6-16
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From page 6... ...
They give rise to new communities of people with shared interests and concerns, and they generate new interest areas and new concerns. Although electronic networks share many of the properties of other communications media (e.g., postal mail, telephones, radio, and television)
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From page 7... ...
quite often involves multiple entities that may have different operating policies and procedures; in this regard, networking is unlike using more traditional media that tend to operate under more uniform and centrally formulated policy guidelines. Using electronic networks, people share experiences and activities that bind them together (Box 1.1~.
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From page 9... ...
The concept of a community whose existence is enabled by electronic networks is a useful departure point for the main topic of discussion of this report: the rights and responsibilities of the members of networked communities. Such matters inhere in how various communities of people use network technologies, and not in the particular technologies themselves, a point that is all too often lost in such discussions.
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From page 10... ...
This is a market that telephone companies and cable television companies hope to tap. Start-up companies, with backing from major consumer electronics companies, are trying to bring messaging and information services to the general public, as are a number of larger, more-established companies such as the Prodigy Services Company and CompuServe.
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From page 11... ...
health care system and respond to other important social needs could be available on-line, without waiting in line, when and where they are needed. See Information Infrastructure Task Force, The National Information Infrastructure: Agenda for Action, Washington, D.C., 1993.
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From page 12... ...
, the planning of a public forum to obtain input on security issues (held in July 1994) , the release in July 1994 of a report on how copyright law should be updated in the age of ubiquitous electronic networks, and the planning of a conference to address how fair-use provisions of copyright law may be applied to the electronic realm.
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From page 13... ...
Three metaphors have emerged for characterizing the new medium and the functions it enables: cyberspace, the information superhighway, and the electronic marketplace. Each of these metaphors emphasizes a particular use of electronic networks and, in so doing, facilitates our understanding of the new medium by illuminating its salient features and the social and legal issues they raise.
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From page 14... ...
The Information Superhighway The "information superhighway" metaphor emphasizes the use of electronic networks to access and distribute information. It suggests that the primary purpose of the networks is to carry information and that that information travels over the information highway much as cars and trucks travel over physical highways.
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From page 15... ...
A second important aspect is that many proponents of the information superhighway argue for a bottom-up, grass-roots character to its development and deployment, while the construction of the interstate highway system was undertaken top-down with intimate government direction. A third aspect is that major government involvement suggests the possibility that federal, state, and local governments will be working together to provide the network of connecting streets, on-ramps, off-ramps, and the like to every community on the main "superhighway." Whether such partnerships will in fact be feasible remains to be seen, and the nature of appropriate government involvement in the National Information Infrastructure remains the subject of considerable argument and debate.
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From page 16... ...
For example, the information superhighway metaphor suggests that it is sufficient to give everyone access to the electronic highway in order to close the gap between the information "haves" and "have note." The marketplace metaphor shows that simple access may not make much difference if the information available through the technology must be purchased. The marketplace metaphor also shows that information privacy relates to the use of information in transactions (e.g., selling mailing lists)
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