Law for IT Professionals

Citation

Hannabuss, S. (2005), "Law for IT Professionals", Library Review, Vol. 54 No. 9, pp. 534-535. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530510629579

Legal works for IT professionals, librarians and information specialists have grown in numbers in recent years. It is a sign that law is moving more to the centre ground in information work. Many say that this trend has been driven by digitization, technology, and liability, and they are probably right. IT law is an area with established writers like David Bainbridge on computer law, the journal JILT ( Journal of Information Law and Technology), Ian Lloyd (on IT law), Charles Oppenheim (on the legal and regulatory environment of electronic information), J.H.G. Smith (internet law), Steven Stokes (digital copyright), and Ian Walden (telecoms law).

For librarians and information specialists there are works by Sandy Norman (copyright for information professionals), Ian Pedley (essential law for information professionals), Paul Marrett (information law and practice), Paul Sturges (internet and public library access), Graham Cornish (copyright for librarians and archivists), Tim Padfield (copyright for archivists), and Kelvin Smith (freedom of information). A well‐populated field, then.

Paul Brennan's concise and lively book is for practitioners with heavy and direct involvement with IT – as managers, network developers, software purchasers, licensees and data protection specialists. He acts as legal adviser for FAST, the Federation Against Software Theft, so an industry angle is evident and a no‐nonsense commercial flavour pervades the book. Emis Publishing has produced other legal works, such as Bainbridge's Intellectual Property and IT Law, Morgan's Legal Protection of Software, and Kevan's E‐Mail, the Internet and the Law (details on website at emispp.com). He rightly argues that there has never been a time when IT professionals need to know the law more.

In this short book he covers a great deal. It deals with applicable (English) law up to 2002, and is a good handbook to have on your desk. A good index helps pin down topics like types of software licence, data protection procedures, monitoring employee emails, and confidentiality agreements. Two useful overviews start things off – first on intellectual property rights (IPR), a good snapshot of fundamentals for the busy practitioner and for the student, and second on other forms of law, covering obscenity, liability, defamation and contract. These are good for in‐house training and in education where IT law is taught, as pre‐ and on‐course reading. Brennan then teases the reader into internet law, employee monitoring and RIPA (the well‐known Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and its implications), and data protection.

IT practitioners will know of the importance of contracts and licences. Literature and guidance on this has rightly grown in recent years as procurement and strategic decision‐making has moved in that direction, and as more and more people in the organization have got directly involved in them. Brennan is excellent on confidentiality agreements, and a sound starting point for further investigation into law and procedures. There is, as we might expect from a practitioner approach, a strong emphasis on policies and procedures: this is not merely an academic subject, and Brennan draws on his substantial experience to make this clear. He picks up on FAQs asked by IT managers, protecting software, conducting investigations, ensuring your company does not get sued, and the growing internationalization of IT. A useful end user licence appears as an appendix. He is pragmatic enough to say that going to law is time‐consuming and expensive, so know as much as you can about the law up front! His comments about IT industry self‐regulation will be of interest to insiders.

The work undersells itself by not including case‐studies, which would have greatly enhanced its use for training, and provided a way of testing out how well readers really knew how to apply legal knowledge. Perhaps this might come in a later edition, possibly on an associated website. To be really up‐to‐date, readers should take on board the place of services as well as products in IT contracting, extending what Brennan says. Its focus on English law will restrict its use but such works rarely need to travel, and where they do and can, IT professionals will pick up on IT law which crosses frontiers, like internet law, safe harbour issues in data protection, confidentiality and liability/negligence. The work, then, is worth the money, has a sound practical focus, provides basic legal advice for IT professionals, and drives this through to policies and practice. For the right person and IT environment, money well spent.