What is Cyberlaw?

If you have heard about cybercrime, that you would have heard about the cyber laws also. As these laws are made to handle or prevent such cybercrimes only. The cyber laws are the legal laws which help deal with cyberspace, internet, and the issues related to the same. In another language, the Cyber laws are also called as the Internet Laws. This is because they control how people will make use of the internet. There is both type of cyber laws; one is the civil laws and the other is the criminal laws.

In the world of digitalization, cyber laws have got another name as well, that is Digital Laws. If there is any law that controls or checks on how you make use of the internet, smartphones, computers, laptops, or such other device or technology, they are termed as cyber laws. Cyber laws help monitor all the digital ways to communicate with each other and to share things on the internet through different mediums.

What is the need for Cyber Laws?

In this modern era, it is very important to have cyber laws to safeguard people from different types of frauds happening over the internet. Be it any organization or any person, cyber laws cover everyone who is there on the internet. It helps in saving and protecting one from malicious crime and people who are there on the internet and are trying to harm others. Any kind of fraud with any organization or a person that happens on the internet can be recorded under cyber law. And strict actions should be taken against the person according to the cybercrime they have committed. If cyber laws will not be there, people will easily commit the crime on the internet and will indulge in fraud activities.

What actions can be taken if someone commits the cybercrime?

We cannot define or tell what actual actions can be taken against a person or organization who is indulged into the cybercrime or who breaks the cyber laws. Because there are different types of punishments which one gets on committing a cybercrime. It will depend on the situation of the cybercrime. Like how the person broke the cyber law, which place or country the law was broken, how many people were indulged, and how big the cybercrime is. Like if someone is running a website which breaks the cyber laws, then the website will get suspended. And the IP Address and account will also get blocked. Proper reviewing is done in order to check how serious and how big or small the crime is.

What kind of issues are dealt with using Cyber Laws?

There is not a single issue that comes under cyber laws. As cyber law is quite big and it covers many areas. Some of them are mentioned below.

  • Copyright – The copyright issue is not a new issue, as it is there for a long time. Be it any picture, any music or any videos which have copyright, cannot be used by someone else without taking proper permission. In the cyber laws, copy infringement defends the rights of any business or an individual to make use of or to get profit from their work that is available on the internet.
  • Fraud – There can be different types of frauds like credit card theft, bank details hacking, identity theft, etc. One may have to face state criminal charges also if such types of frauds are done. Cyber laws protect the consumers and the users from these internet frauds. Any types of financial crime that have been committed online are monitored by cyber laws. Cyber criminals exploit different avenues to illegally obtain information by hacking a hook up site, adult dating apps, and email accounts.
  • Stalking and Harassment – Anyone can make the use of the internet with a smartphone and an internet pack. This has increased crimes like stalking and harassment also. Sometimes these crimes lead to worst situations like threatening someone, or people committing suicide, or murders, etc. Stalking someone over the internet and making some online comments or statements which are harassing a person, also leads to the violation of the cyber laws and criminal laws.

There are a few other areas as well which are covered under the cyber laws like freedom of speech, contracts and employment law, trade secrets, and a few others.…

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Schools That Offer Cyber Law Programs

Cyber law is an umbrella term that deals with several issues related to technology, internet, communication, electronic equipment like software, hardware, and computer and other information system.

Cyber law helps to handle the case of any cyber crime. These crimes are some illegal activities that are committed by the frauds over internet. Cyber lawyers operate the cases of cyber crimes that are made against government, property and persons.

The work scope of cyber lawyer is to examine and advocate the case for their clients who are involved in the cyber crime cases. Therefore adequate legal training as well as corporate management are required to handle such cases.

One of the most popular cyber crimes is to hack the personal accounts of people and spread of virus and other cyber terrorism.

The scope and future of cyber law is quite wide nowadays due to the rapid advancement in the cyber crime field. This creates a great potential for the cyber lawyers and lead to the evolution of a new genre of law: cyber law.

Cyber Law Studies

Cyber crimes can include several criminal activities like defamation, fraud, theft, forgery and mischief.

Before studying cyber law you need to know the adequate steps so that you don’t fall into any trap. After completing graduation in LLB, you will be considered as eligible in pursuing LLM course in this cyber law.

Other than LLM course, several short and long term courses are available both in online and offline platforms in cyber law. These include post graduate certificate in cyber law or PGCCL. The min duration for this course is 6 months and the max duration for the course is 2 years.

You can also pursue B.S. Tech in Computer science and engineering combined with LLB Hons with a special course in Cyber laws. Its duration is 6 years.

LLM in Cyber law will take you 2 years to complete the course.

You can also seek to pursue diploma in cyber law.

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility criteria are another important factor to get admitted into the top law schools. National Law University is one of the best institutions to study cyber law. It conducts the entrance exam known as CLAT to offer admission to the bachelors and masters courses of law. Admission to the course is also available by cracking AILET exam conducted by NLU Delhi.

There are several other universities spread across the country to offer top notch study programs in cyber law. These include the following:

  • All National Law University or NLU – This is based in Delhi.
  • National Law School of India University – This is based in Bangalore.
  • NALSAR University of Law – This is based in Hyderabad.
  • ILS Law College – This is based in Pune.
  • Indian Institute of Information and Technology – This is based in Allahabad.

On becoming a lawyer specialized in cyber law, you can find multiple career prospects such as:

  • A lawyer working in IT companies
  • A specialist in IT based arbitration
  • Security computer auditors
  • Techno legal professional in the computer security.

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What Is Digital Citizenship?

In the modern world today, technology reigns. It is with this technological advancement that the world has seen a tremendous change in how people approach just about everything. There is always an emerging trend every other day. As such, almost everything is now being handled through technology. This has since driven the topic digital citizenship to the table. The following are the three basic points that bring out an overview on what digital citizenship means.

What Is It About?

Digital citizenship is all about acquiring digital literacy. It however does not stop there it extends to involve issues such as online safety and courtesy. This encompasses being able to protect oneself and other internet users from dangers such as theft of information and data, protection of oneself or others from cyber bullying and the proper way of addressing such instances. It also touches on respecting the copyright laws, respecting other peoples’ privacy and so on and so forth. Digital citizenship simply sums up to learning how to use technology and the etiquette that ought to accompany such use.

How Is It Learned?

The task of incorporating digital citizenship skills especially on the children which includes students’ falls on all parties entrusted with the role of watching over them. This includes the teachers, parents and guardians as well as mentors. In other words, impacting digital citizenship is a collective role. For instance, anytime a student or a child needs to search from the internet, then they require guidance on the right way to do it. For instance, they need to be guided as to which sites are likely to give them reliable information, how to determine whether the information is useful to their search or not. Guiding them on how to deal with sites or information that may be misleading to them is also a vital part of digital citizenship.

Why It Is Important?

The use of internet cannot be separated from the lifestyle of the people in our century. As such it becomes crucial for the students as well as other internet users to know how to reap the most from the use of the internet. When it comes to students, they need to know how to conduct proper research for their educational purposes as well as their social well being. Today employers will dig into the social profiles of their prospective employees just to see who they are. How to stay safe while still using the internet makes digital citizenship a vital tool for all internet users too.

Conclusion

If well impacted on the internet users, digital citizenship could restore sanity to the internet world in our century. This is beneficial to all the internet users. Let’s face it, more and more people are embracing the use of technology. This only points towards the fact that digital citizenship is of great benefit to all. Everyone would love to be able to use the internet safely without the fear of being bullied or attacked maliciously or even loosing data from their use. …

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Understanding the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

If you are associated with any kind of online business, or you are an owner of the online business, you must be aware of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But how many of you exactly know what the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is in reality? If you are not aware of it yet, just read below, as we are here to share with you the details related to it. We buy and sell things on the internet; we share different pictures and videos with each other over the internet. And we even use graphics or content posted by others over the internet. But you should know that whether it is a content, it is a video, it is a picture, or it is any object, they all have an owner. The owner of the content or the objects or other such things owns the copyright to that particular content. Anyone using the copyright content without seeking permission is not permissible and it is said to be copyright infringement.

Many of us without thinking makes use of the copyright content. We sometimes post it on our social media account or our website. This is very commonly found with different social media sites as well as adult sites. Hookup apps that are bait and switch will often use content that is not original in hopes of enticing visitors. Even others may also make use of our content by posting it on their account or website. All these copyright-related problems are handled by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Let’s know in detail about this act.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act

The DMCA or the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed in the year 1998 in the month of October in the United States. This act was signed by then-President Bill Clinton. The act was made in favor of e-commerce so that it can grow and develop easily while protecting intellectual property rights. The existing copyright laws were expanded by the DMCA in 1988 to address all the issues that are associated with digital media and the internet. To understand it better you should also know about the five different sections of the DMCA which we have mentioned below. The five titles are:

Title I – This title leads to the implementation of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) 1996 treaties. It mentions that it is unlawful to produce or distribute any kind of products, any services, or any technologies which are used to put the technological measure aside. And are which are made to control or gain access to any kind of copyrighted work, for examples encryptions or passwords.

Title II – It provides safe harbors to all the internet service providers who have limited liability towards any type of copyright infringement. This helps in saving the internet service providers from paying damage in case of a copyright infringement lawsuit.

Title III – Under this title, a person or organization is exempted from the copyright infringement liability for copying the computer programs for different purposes like repairing, troubleshooting, or diagnosis. It allows one to reinstall the computer software copy in their computer system if they legally own the software or the application.

Title IV – This title covers different topics or you can miscellaneous provisions. Like granting an exception to make recordings for the transmissions by the radio broadcasters, ephemeral recordings, for libraries which have kept sound recording which uses sound recordings, and for transferring the rights to motion pictures.

Title V – This title covers the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act which means creating new or improvise protection laws for the Vessel Hull Designs.

What to do to defend the copyrighted content?

In case, if you have posted any design or any products or any written content on your website or any other e-commerce websites. And if one sudden day, you find that someone else is using your content like it, they are making use of your design, or written content without any changes, in that case, you can file a DMCA Takedown. By filing the DMCA Takedown, you will be able to defend your copyrighted content, especially, when someone is making money or profit out of it. To file the DMCA takedown, there are a few details which you may require. The information or details required are:

  • Contact Information – Your contact information should be there in your takedown notice so that the OSP’s DMCA Agent can contact you or can follow up easily. You need to mention your name, your mailing address, your email address, your contact number, or any other such thing which they may require to contact you.
  • Identifying the Infringed Work – You should be able to provide the details about the infringed work to the OSP. So, first of all, check and identify the infringed work for which you are filing this takedown notice. Mention the web address or the location of the infringed work in the notice, so that you can notify the OSP. If you find your work on different sites which means multiple infringements, in that case, mention the details about all the infringed work in the same list including their locations.
  • Good-Faith Statement – Write a good-faith statement in your notice stating that you believe that the work or the material or the design which you have recognized is infringed on your owner’s copyright.
  • Affirmation – Also, write an affirmation statement, stating that your claim is right and accurate. And you are the owner of the infringed work.
  • Signature – Either sign this takedown notice by yourself or get it signed from the authorized agent who is representing you.

Penalties under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

If a person or an organization is found violating the DMCA rules, they have to bear the consequences of it. The consequences include both penalties that are civil penalties and criminal penalties. In the civil penalty, one need to pay for the damages. Whereas in the criminal penalty, one need to pay fine or have to face imprisonment. In the case of a criminal penalty, one may have to face imprisonment for around 5 years also. And may have to pay the fine of around $500,000 also.

It is not necessary that one has to face criminal charges or penalty. As criminal penalty is charged in case of wilful infringement. This means that the person has committed it on purpose or the person has the intent to commit it. With the help of the DMCA, the registered copyright owners are allowed to file the copyright infringement lawsuit. The infringement lawsuit is filed in Federal Court. The copyright owner can receive both the statutory and actual damages if they are successful at trial.…

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