The Internet's breakthrough to primetime usage beginning in the mid-1990s evolved in an era of openness. Unfettered access seemed key to Internet development. An important foundation for the 1996 Telecommunications Act was the theory that the telecom industry would work best if it were free of government regulation, a guiding principle that has…

For years, recording companies have been waging a losing war against millions of Net-savvy college students who download and copy digital music or videos and sell or swap them. Many students make illegal use of high-speed computer links owned by universities as administrators catch the flak. Meanwhile, the recording industry and artists claim…