In this case too the court resorted to well-known and accepted contract principles of informed consent. and noted cases in which contracts on the internet have been recognized when notice of its existence and location of its full terms were reasonably available 24 In all these cases no groundbreaking new rules have developed. The courts resorted to precedents and usually analogized the facts of the precedents with the facts in the internet context a danger in analogies lies when facts in cyberspace are analyzed inappropriately. One commentator analogizes the Internet to the paintings of the French artist Georges Seurat, showing the streets of Paris by thousands of color points Closely, the points look the same, like the components of a code. At a of the code. When the courts compare the close view of the Internet the code osed distance, they form the image of Paris streets, like a particular software compe they design an overbroad rule that does not take into account the effect of the rule on the more relevant, broader impact. For example encryption was held to be brech, protected by the First Amendment. Another case could be interpreted to that every computer program with certain characteristics is patentable, without exceptions, offering a broader protection than the protections afforded inventions in real space. That approach may be explained by the close view the courts take of code as similar to Seurat's points. Whether this criticism is warranted is open to debate. What is important is the need for caution and the requirement that courts view the Internets impact as well as its functional aspects C THE LIMIITS OF THE COMMON LAW ENTER CONGRESS 1. Congress overrules strict interpretation The courts in the United States have taken different attitudes towards precedents. Some courts tend to address novel issues and even overrule precedents more readily than others. Others invite Congress to make the changes In the following cases Congress overruled decisions in which the courts have strictly followed precedents on fairly narrow points In United States v LaMacchia. a student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge"set up an electronic bulletin board" that allowed people to uploadpopular software applications . and computer games He transferred the applications to a second address where people with a password Specht v Netscape Communications Corp 150 F Supp 2d 585 (S.D.N.Y. 2001) Orin S Kerr, Are We Overprotecting Code? Thoughts on First-Generation Internet Law, 57 WASH. LEE L REv. 1287, 1287-88, 1293(2000)(citing Junger v. Daley, 209 F 3d 481(6Cir 2000) 26a.at1290-91 27lat1294-96 2871F.Sup.535(D.Mass.1994 88 In this case too the court resorted to well-known and accepted contract principles of informed consent, and noted cases in which contracts on the Internet have been recognized when notice of its existence and location of its full terms were reasonably available.24 In all these cases no groundbreaking new rules have developed. The courts resorted to precedents and usually analogized the facts of the precedents with the facts in the Internet context. A danger in analogies lies when facts in cyberspace are analyzed inappropriately. One commentator analogizes the Internet to the paintings of the French artist Georges Seurat, showing the streets of Paris by thousands of color points. Closely, the points look the same, like the components of a code. At a distance, they form the image of Paris streets, like a particular software composed of the code. When the courts compare the close view of the Internet, the code, they design an overbroad rule that does not take into account the effect of the rule on the more relevant, broader impact.25 For example encryption was held to be speech, protected by the First Amendment.26 Another case could be interpreted to hold that every computer program with certain characteristics is patentable, without exceptions,27 offering a broader protection than the protections afforded inventions in real space. That approach may be explained by the close view the courts take of code as similar to Seurat’s points. Whether this criticism is warranted is open to debate. What is important is the need for caution and the requirement that courts view the Internet’s impact as well as its functional aspects. C. THE LIMITS OF THE COMMON LAW. ENTER CONGRESS 1.Congress overrules strict interpretation The courts in the United States have taken different attitudes towards precedents. Some courts tend to address novel issues and even overrule precedents more readily than others. Others invite Congress to make the changes. In the following cases Congress overruled decisions in which the courts have strictly followed precedents on fairly narrow points. In United States v. LaMacchia, 28 a student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge “set up an electronic bulletin board” that allowed people to upload “popular software applications . . . and computer games . . . .” He transferred the applications to a second address where people with a password 24 Specht v. Netscape Communications Corp. 150 F. Supp. 2d 585 (S.D.N.Y. 2001). 25 Orin S. Kerr, Are We Overprotecting Code? Thoughts on First-Generation Internet Law, 57 WASH. & LEE L. REV. 1287, 1287-88, 1293 (2000) (citing Junger v. Daley, 209 F.3d 481 (6th Cir. 2000)). 26 Id. at 1290-91. 27 Id. at 1294-96. 28 871 F. Supp. 535 (D. Mass. 1994)