Against Cyberlaw

There has been tremendous attention given to the Internet over the last five years. Many groups and commentators now speak about cyberlaw as a revolution that will sweep the legal landscape. These groups also argue that new information technologies pose new and difficult problems that traditional law is unable to solve. The author first argues that cyberlaw is not a body of law in and of itself as technologies generally do not define bodies of law. Next, the author argues that it is dangerous to consider cyberlaw as its own body of law and that to do so will lead to the development of bad law. Then, the author examines whether any legal issues posed by new informatics technologies are novel. The author concludes that most legal issues posed by these technologies are not new at all and that existing law is flexible enough to deal with such issues.