Internet and the Law: Legal Fundamentals for the Internet User

If you want just the basics of intellectual property and defamation law with no additional flourishes, Internet and the Law, by Raymond A. Kurz, provides them. The book's strongest sections are the chapters pertaining to licensing, assignments, and defamation. Kurz uses the necessary context and real world examples to explain the legal points involved. However, this level of detail is missing in the preceding chapters on copyright, trademark, unfair competition, trade secret, and patent law.

Also notable in Internet and the Law are the appendices, which either reprint or show examples of forms and contracts used to acquire a copyright or make a trademark licensing agreement. Getting a feel for the forms and contracts involved when traversing this area of the law is valuable to businesspeople.

Internet and the Law's weaknesses are that the prose veers towards the legalese and that the book does not provide much context for some of the harder legal issues confronting the Internet community. It also does not offer much guidance for the layperson on legal matters.