This book is a survey of legal issues arising from the Internet, structured into parts that deal with intellectual property, cybercrimes, privacy, free speech, Web contracts, and Web 2.0. Within each part, there are several chapters discussing particular issues. For example, in the part on intellectual property, there are chapters on copyright basics, copyright infringement, trademark and domain names, and patents and trade secrets. All of the issues are discussed at the most current level of knowledge. Darrell makes use of extensive bibliographic references and notes, most of them very recent.

The well-designed book is meant to straightforwardly provide information on Internet law, for the nonlawyer. For each topic, the author first explains, in a simple way, advances in technology and the related legal concepts; the largest portion is devoted to describing and discussing cases. I find this form of treatment very effective.

For example, chapter 4 is devoted to copyright infringement by file sharing. The chapter begins with a brief introduction to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The author guides readers immediately to the core of the Act, explaining how an online service provider qualifies for the so-called safe harbor provision. We learn about takedown notice and its role in qualifying for safe harbor. The author gives a few examples of actual applications of the notice, and explains the concept of counter notification, again supplementing it with a few examples. Then, he evaluates the overall effect of this law. All of this information is provided in just the first one-and-a-half pages of this chapter. The chapter returns to describing other kinds of copyright infringement. Several pages are devoted to this issue and many cases are discussed. Nearly three full pages of bibliographic notes complete this chapter. The author covers a remarkable number of concepts in just 15 pages.

All in all, the concepts and issues are presented in a way that is sufficiently rigorous but very easy to read, making the book one I can recommend.