Cyberlaw in the Netherlands

The area of Cyber Law is one of the most dynamic in the field of the legal profession. Scholars and lawyers alike have their hands full of interesting case materials and the opportunities within this field are enormous. However, it has to be said that the area of Cyber Law and Information Technology and Law are not the so-called usual suspects from a legal perspective. Therefore, it has taken some time before both academics and practitioners fully embraced the challenges of these fields. With technology continually changing and progressing over time, this brings forth interesting questions from a legal perspective.
Should legal norms be as technology neutral as possible or is the technological nature of many issues a clear signal that legal norms should be relatively flexible and susceptible to change when new technologies shine a different light over what before seemed like a clear and unambiguous rule. Take for example, ownership of digital materials, an issue fiercely debated in the Netherlands. The traditional conception was that ownership should only apply to tangible objects. This changed in 1921 when the notion of economic value was introduced in the ‘Elektriciteits-arrest’ when the Supreme Court was faced with the question whether or not electricity could be stolen. More than 90 years later the Supreme Court decided that virtual objects could also be stolen. This development shows that legal change can take a great deal of time and that courts and legislators both can be reluctant to apply traditional laws to typically non-traditional technical situations.
Nowadays the relation between everything cyber and law is being more and more embraced. The increasing importance of the ICT market, the amount of specialized lawyers and specific disciplines of law that focus specifically on internet, intellectual property and ICT, all show that the area of Cyber Law is continuously growing in importance.
This book provides a relevant source of Cyber Law in the Netherlands. The European and international influences on many subjects discussed in this book are briefly mentioned but not analyzed. Rather, this book specifically deals with the areas of Cyber Law in the context of Dutch legislation and Dutch case law without having to be familiar with Dutch law. Furthermore, the authors aimed for relative independence of each chapter of the book. Therefore in general most parts can be used without dependence on the previous part(s).