As described in previous chapters, the most significant effect of the "computer revolution has been to free information from the physical ties that were previously required to afford it practical utility and financial value. The societal impact may well be as profound as that following from the invention of pottery or, more recently, the steam engine. Possession of information becomes a matter of little significance with the key determinant of wealth and power being concerned with the extent of access to information.
Up to the present, the law has tended to focus on the vessel rather than the contents. Even in areas such as copyright, the requirement for a linkage between information and a storage medium is to be seen with protection commencing only when the information is recorded in some material form. In other areas, containment of an intangible serves to confer a new and more extensive legal status. The air cannot be owned, but when it is contained in a car tyre any deliberate release may be prosecuted as a form of damage to property.
It would, of course, be misleading to suggest that electronic information is freed totally from physical confines. There will always remain need for information to be recorded initially in some place and on some storage device. From there, however, it may be "delivered" anywhere in the world without the need for any tangible container. An increasing number of books are now available for "downloading" via the Internet. Software may also be supplied in the same manner. In such a situation, there would appear no role for the Sale of Goods Act as presently constituted.
When the word "revolution" is used in its social and political sense, the image is normally of tumult and chaos and tumbrils rumbling towards the guillotine. The imagery of the industrial revolution is of smoke and steam and noise. The information revolution is both quieter and yet more pervasive. Information and knowledge have been regarded as exclusively human qualities and it is a mark of the impact of the information technology revolution that machines are now performing the tasks that used to be associated with the human mind. It is machines rather than humans which are responsible for adding value to information, with "expert" systems operating in domains which were previously the exclusive province of professionals such as lawyers, engineers and accountants. From both a social and a legal perspective, the change is at a qualitatively greater level than that produced by the industrial revolution. That served to increase, albeit dramatically, physical capabilities and the value of physical assets such as coal and iron ore. Transport remained transport, however, and the increase in value of the raw materials posed no conceptual problems for legal structures used to fluctuations in commodity values. The information age has fewer precedents and many traditional legal models are ill suited to serve as the basis for lasting regulation. Fault lines are most apparent in respect of the concepts of property and ownership. Whilst flexibility is a virtue in enabling to law to accommodate change, excessive flexibility deprives its subject of any coherent structure or form. The adaptability of legal concepts such as copyright and sale has provided valuable breathing space. Ad hoc legislation epitomised by measures such as the Data Protection and Computer Misuse Acts has proved of limited value. The urgent legal task as we approach the millennium is to devote time and effort in order to devise structures and concepts that will afford due recognition to the realities of the information age.
This work began with a study of the impact of the computer revolution upon concepts of individual privacy. It may be appropriate to give the last word to the first holder of the Office of Data Protection Registrar, Mr Eric Howe. In his final report before retiring from the position he surveyed developments in computing and concluded:
So, whither the dream and whither the nightmare? The dream is racing towards reality ... the present world of computing - with its sophisticated data collection devices, its massive data banks and its burgeoning computer facilities - shows the dream taking place all around us. The nightmare increasingly disturbs our sleep. (Tenth Report of the Data Protection Registrar, June 1994)
The challenge may be as much for the concept of national sovereignty as for individual rights. Much is written today about the Internet. Originally devised in the 1970's as a means of distributing the United States military's computing facilities to guard against the risk of nuclear attack, the system is now accessed by some 16 million people world-wide. Using the general telecommunications infrastructure use of the system is virtually uncontrollable. Definition of the Internet and other computer based networks is a difficult task. Convergence of technologies means that the differences between telecommunications, broadcasting and even the press have become so blurred as to be almost invisible. As has been discussed extensively in the context of computer pornography, moving images of a technical quality at least equal to that of a television broadcast may be transmitted over a computer network. No national system of control can have more than a marginal effect. The urgent need is for a vastly increased degree of international consensus in all areas of the law. Like the corner shop faced with the competition of the superstore, the day of the national legal system may be approaching its end.