Vol 7 No 1 - Roger Williams University School of Law

Digital Property: The UltimateBoundary? *Brian F. Fitzgerald **INTRODUCTIONIn a world where information is increasingly relevant to oursocial, cultural and economic existence it is vitally important tounderstand the legal boundary of digital property.1 To this endthis article presents a preliminary framework for understanding*This article was given impetus by an invitation to deliver a Special Lecture at theUniversity of Western Ontario Law School in London Ontario, Canada in October 2000.It was further developed through Spring 2001 while teaching at Santa ClaraUniversity Law School and was further refined through a conference presentation atRoger Williams University School of Law, Bristol, Rhode Island, in April 2001. I owethanks to David Rice, Mark Perry, Margaret Ann Wilkinson, Richard Gold, NicholasPengelley, Michael Lehmann and Anne Fitzgerald.**Brian Fitzgerald is a Professor and Head of the School of Law and Justice atSouthern Cross University in New South Wales, Australia. He is co-editor of one ofAustralia’s leading texts on e-commerce and has published articles on Law and theInternet, Technology Law and Intellectual Property Law in Australia, the UnitedStates, Europe and Japan. Over the past two years, Brian has delivered seminars oninformation technology and intellectual property law in Australia, New Zealand,China, the United States, Canada, Norway and The Netherlands.1. See generally Carl Shapiro & Hal R. Varian, Information Rules: A StrategicGuide to the Network Economy 2 (1999) (explaining strategies for success in networkeconomy); Lester C. Thurow, Building Wealth: New Rules for Individuals, Companiesand Nations in a Knowledge-Based Economy 116-25 (Harper Business ed., 2000)(explaining the importance of intellectual property to modern company’s success orfailure); Frank Webster, Theories of the Information Society (John Urry ed., 1995)(announcing the predominance of information in modern societies); Bernadette E.Lynn, Intellectual Capital: Unearthing Hidden Value by Managing Intellectual Assets,Ivey Bus. J., Jan.-Feb. 2000, at 48 (recognizing the importance of Intellectual Capital);see also Don Tapscott et al., Digital Capital: Harnessing the Power of Business Webs(2000) (discussing the business models used to create wealth in the digital economy);Stephan Bernhut, Measuring the Value of Intellectual Capital, Ivey Bus. J., Mar.-Apr.2001, at 16 (pointing out the vital importance of intellectual capital in the neweconomy).237