The Footprint of Regulation: How Information Systems are Affecting the Sources of Control in a Global Economy

Whilst the issue of jurisdiction - the question of how far control extends - has always been controversial, the introduction of information and communications technologies only exacerbates the problem. The first generation of scholars to consider this question tended to see technology creating a separate space - cyberspace - with its own legal boundaries. A second generation of scholars, however, has argued that there is nothing new with cyberspace and that conflicts over boundaries have always existed in the law; as a result, they argue that technology is not as remarkable a factor as the first generation believe. By considering the case of copyright and peer-ta-peer technologies together with the regulatory environments surrounding their development, use and control, this paper proposes a further refinement in the dialectics of control through technology that refines our notions of jurisdiction in an era of globalisation enabled by new technologies.