New Technologies Abound: Can the Law Keep Up?
Posted: November 7th, 2007
By: Zach Heller
Category: Technology Corner

The world is full of new and exciting technologies that are changing the way we interact with each other and our machines.  They are making the laws of time and space almost insignificant.  We are able to communicate instantly across the world or keep track of the smallest details in the palm of our hand.  All of the sudden, our entire lives are shifting to the web and web accessories.  This is all happening so rapidly that no one seems to have a grip on all the new opportunities out there, especially the law.

The way we practice law in this country is all based on case law, precedent.  And that has worked in every aspect through the years.  But now, as more and more technologies become tangible and available, the law must act fast to keep up.  Already we have seen the issue of peer to peer file sharing come under scrutiny.  The first decision in a national file sharing case came two weeks ago when the music industry (a few recording studios) were awarded a large sum of money from an individual responsible for uploading numerous songs online.  But there is so much more out there, and new things to come, that the law will be forced to test soon.

A few examples of this are the many new ways we have of communicating with each other.  Online tools and services such as VoIP, blogs, wikis, and social networking communities have given a new voice to every single person.  Now anyone with an opinion has a venue and a medium to be heard by thousands, even millions on a day to day basis.  Certainly this calls into question the limitations of free speech.  There is a bill in congress right now to ban certain topics from online dialogue.  Is this constitutional?  Only time will tell.

The one thing I know for sure is that the world is moving faster now than it ever has before.  And that means our legal system has to move faster to keep up.  This will lead to newer areas of law previously unheard of, with practices that have not even been developed yet.  This is an exciting challenge that the law and our legal system will face in the not so distant future.  Can we handle it?

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