High Court of Australia

Rules should be technology-neutral: Whilst the Internet does indeed present many novel technological features, it also shares many characteristics with earlier technologies that have rapidly expanded the speed and quantity of information distribution throughout the world. I refer to newspapers distributed (and sometimes printed) internationally; syndicated telegraph and wire reports of news and opinion; newsreels and film distributed internationally; newspaper articles and photographs reproduced instantaneously by international telefacsimile; radio, including shortwave radio; syndicated television programmes; motion pictures; videos and digitalised images; television transmission; and cable television and satellite broadcasting. Generally speaking, it is undesirable to express a rule of the common law in terms of a particular technology. Doing so presents problems where that technology is itself overtaken by fresh developments. It can scarcely be supposed that the full potential of the Internet has yet been realised. The next phase in the global distribution of information cannot be predicted. A legal rule expressed in terms of the Internet might very soon be out of date.