Trespass To Chattels in The Electronic Age
The antiquated common law tort of trespass to chattels has been invoked in the modern context of electronic communications to combat the proliferation of unsolicited bulk email, commonly known as spam. In addition, several companies have successfully used the tort to block certain people, usually competitors, from accessing their servers. Though courts initially endorsed a broad application of this legal theory in the electronic context, more recently other jurists have narrowed its scope. As trespass to chattels is extended further to computer networks, some fear that plaintiffs are using this cause of action to quash fair competition and to deter the exercise of free speech; consequently, critics call for the limitation of the tort to instances where the plaintiff can demonstrate actual damages.
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Famous quotes containing the words trespass, chattels, electronic and/or age:
“If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.”
—Bible: New Testament Luke 17:3-4.
“... with autumn falling over everything;
The plush leaves the chattels in barrels
Of an obscure family being evicted
Into the way it was, and is.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“The war was won on both sides: by the Vietnamese on the ground, by the Americans in the electronic mental space. And if the one side won an ideological and political victory, the other made Apocalypse Now and that has gone right around the world.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.”
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 18:29,30.