Chronology of Events - 1990s

The following is a chronological listing of significant events in the development of the field of Information Technology law during the 1990s.

1990
1990 &mdash; Archie, an archive of FTP sites, which is the first effort to index the Internet, is launched.

1990 &mdash; The Federal Trade Commission begins its investigation of Microsoft.

July 10, 1990 &mdash; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is announced by Mitchell Kapor and John Perry Barlow.

November 12, 1990 &mdash; Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web; publishes a report titled "WorldWideWeb: Proposal for the HyperText Project."

December 1, 1990 &mdash; The Computer Software Rental Amendments Act of 1990, title VIII of the Judicial Improvements Act of 1990, Pub. L. 101-650, 104 Stat. 5089, 5134 (Dec. 1, 1990) (codified at 17 U.S.C. §109) goes into effect. The Act grants the owner of the copyright in a computer program the exclusive right to authorize or prohibit the rental, lease, or lending of the program for direct or indirect commercial purposes.

1991
1991 &mdash; Gopher, which provides point-and-click navigation, is created.

1991 &mdash; WAIS (Wide Area Information Server) is developed by Brewster Kahle of Thinking Machines Corp.

1991 &mdash; Linux is introduced by Linus Torvald. Based on Minix, an open source Unix clone, Linux is released with full source code under the terms of the GNU Public License, guaranteeing that future developments would be accessible to all Linux users.

1991 &mdash; The Semiconductor International Protection Extension Act of 1991, Pub. L. 102-64, 105 Stat. 320 is enacted.

1991 &mdash; PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), the popular encryption program, is released by Philip Zimmerman.

March 27, 1991 &mdash; U.S. Supreme Court decides Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991), where the Court rejected the "sweat of the brow" doctrine under U.S. copyright law.

August 6, 1991 &mdash; The World Wide Web is launched to the public.

1992
October 28, 1992 &mdash; The Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) becomes effective. The Act requires serial copy management systems in digital audio recorders and imposes royalties on the sale of digital audio recording devices and media. The royalties are collected, invested, and distributed among the owners of sound recordings and musical compositions, certain performing artists, and/or their representatives. The Act clarified legality of home taping of analog and digital sound recordings for private noncommercial use.

Nov. 1992 &mdash; President George H.W. Bush signs into law an act requiring the National Science Foundation to allow commercial activity on the network that became the Internet.

1993
1993 &mdash; The North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, Pub. L. No. 103-182, 107 Stat. 2057, 2114 and 2115 is enacted.

Jan. 1993 &mdash; Network Solutions, Inc., signs a 5-year cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation to manage public registration of new, nonmilitary domain names, including those ending in .com, .net, or .org.

April 22, 1993 &mdash; The graphics-friendly Mosaic browser, developed at the University of Illinois, is released.

May 1993 &mdash; The NSF awards Network Solutions the InterNIC contract worth $5.9 million a year until March 31, 1998.

1994
1994 &mdash; Vice President Al Gore makes a speech in which he coins the term "Information Superhighway".

1994 &mdash; The World Wide Web Consortium is founded by Tim Bernes-Lee.

1994 &mdash; The Uruguay Round Agreements Act, Pub. L. 103-465, 108 Stat. 4809, 4973 is enacted.

1994 &mdash; A National Research Council report entitled "Realizing The Information Future: The Internet and Beyond" is released. Commissioned by NSF, the report provides a blueprint for the evolution of the information superhighway It anticipates a number of critical issues including intellectual property rights and regulation of the Internet.

February 1994 &mdash; Yahoo! is launched.

March 5, 1994 &mdash; The Arizona law firm of Canter & Siegel "spams" the Internet with an email advertising green card lottery services.

October 1994 &mdash; The first banner ads appear on hotwired.com.

December 1994 &mdash; The Netscape Navigator browser is released.

December 1994 &mdash; Netscape releases the Secure Sockets Layer Protocol (SSL) to provide security for web browser and server communications.

December 8, 1994 &mdash; Congress repeals the sunset provisions of the Software Rental Amendments Act of 1990; and creates legal measures to prohibit the unauthorized fixation and trafficking in sound recordings of live musical performances and music videos.

1995
1995 &mdash; The Federal Trademark Dilution Act of 1995, Pub. L. No. 104-98, 109 Stat. 985 (eff. Jan. 16, 1996) (codified at 15 U.S.C. §1125) is enacted.

1995 &mdash; Internet Explorer 1.0 is distributed.

1995 &mdash; NSFNET shuts down completely and the U.S. Internet backbone is totally privatized.

February 1995 &mdash; An Israeli company called VocalTec releases the "Internet Phone" &mdash; the first commercial VoIP application for a desktop computer.

February 1995 &mdash; The first Internet radio station (Radio HK) is launched with a trial license from ASCAP.

March 24, 1995 &mdash; The Well is launched. It starts life as a BBS, but later migrates to the Web.

April 1995 &mdash; The Apache open-source HTTP server software is released.

April 1995 &mdash; RealAudio 1.0 is released.

July 1995 &mdash; Amazon.com launches.

September 1995 &mdash; eBay launches as AuctionWeb.

November 1, 1995 &mdash; The Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995, Pub. L. 104-39, 109 Stat. 336 (Nov. 1, 1995) (amending 17 U.S.C. §§114-15) is enacted.

December 1995 &mdash; President Clinton announces creation of the Electronic Commerce Working Group.

1996
1996 &mdash; Internet phones catch the attention of U.S. telecommunication companies, which ask Congress to ban the technology.

February 8, 1996 &mdash; The Communications Decency Act (CDA) goes into effect. The law is intended to protect children from obscenity on the Internet, but many critics argued that its language was too vague and that it violated the rights of free speech. A few months later a three-judge panel enjoins its enforcement.

April 1996 &mdash; The Internet Archive is established to archive the entire content of the Internet, and to make it freely available.

June 1996 &mdash; ICQ, the first global, GUI-based instant messaging client, is launched.

June 12, 1996 &mdash; The Communications Decency Act (CDA) is declared unconstitutional.

October 1996 &mdash; The National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996 is enacted.

October 1, 1996 &mdash; The Internet2 is formed.

1997
1997 &mdash; The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is established to handle administration and registration of IP numbers to the geographical areas currently handled by Network Solutions (InterNIC) starting in March 1998.

April 12, 1997 &mdash; The WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) is enacted. The treaty extends traditional copyright protection to computer programs and "compilations of data or other material (databases) in any form, which by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents constitute intellectual creations."

April 12, 1997 &mdash; The WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT) is enacted. The treaty deals with intellectual property rights of performers (e.g., actors, singers and instrumentalists) and producers of phonograms ("the persons or legal entities who or which take the initiative and have the responsibility for the fixation of the sounds").

June 26, 1997 &mdash; The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down as unconstitutional those provisions of the Communications Decency Act that sought to protect minors from harmful material on the Internet in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U.S. 844 (1997).

July 1997 &mdash; President Clinton issues a presidential directive on electronic commerce, making the Department of Commerce the agency responsible for managing the U.S. government’s role in the domain name system.

July 1997 &mdash; President Clinton issues A Framework for Global Electronic Commerce.

July 1997 &mdash; The |Global Information Networks Ministerial Conference in Bonn issues the |Bonn Declaration on Electronic Commerce.

October 21, 1997 &mdash; The U.S. and the Netherlands sign a Joint Statement on the Development of the Internet and the Promotion of Global Electronic Commerce.

November 1997 &mdash; The TABD issues a Communique at Rome Meeting regarding electronic commerce.

November 1997 &mdash; The APEC Economic Leaders issue a Declaration on electronic commerce.

November 1997 &mdash; the Ninth APEC Ministerial Meeting issues a Joint Statement on Electronic Commerce.

December 16, 1997 &mdash; The No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 (“NET”), Pub. L. 105-147, 111 Stat. 2678 (Dec. 16, 1997) (amending 17 U.S.C. §506(a)) becomes effective. The Act defines “financial gain” in relation to copyright infringement and sets penalties for willfully infringing a copyright either for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain or by reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, of phonorecords of a certain value.

December 1997 &mdash; The U.S. and EU issue a Statement on Electronic Commerce.

December 22, 1997 &mdash; The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) begins operation.

1998
January 1998 &mdash; Microsoft reaches a partial settlement with the U.S. Justice Department that allows personal computer makers to remove or hide its Internet software on new versions of Windows 95.

January 1998 &mdash; Netscape announces plans to give its browser away for free.

January 30, 1998 &mdash; The U.S. Department of Commerce releases the Green Paper, which is a proposal to improve technical management of Internet names and addresses through privatization. Specifically, the Green Paper proposes a variety of issues for discussion, including the creation of a new nonprofit corporation to manage the domain name system.

March 1998 &mdash; The FTAA issues a Ministerial Declaration on Electronic Commerce.

May 1998 &mdash; The WTO issues a Declaration on Global Electronic Commerce.

May 1998 &mdash; The U.S. and Japan sign a Joint Statement of Electronic Commerce.

June 1998 &mdash; The U.S. and France collaborate to issue a French-American Background Paper on the Challenges of the Information Society and the Digital Economy.

June 5, 1998 &mdash; The U.S. Department of Commerce releases its White Paper, which states that the U.S. government is prepared to transition domain name system management to a private, nonprofit corporation. The paper includes the four guiding principles of privatization: stability; competition; representation; and private, bottom-up coordination.

September 1998 &mdash; The U.S. and Ireland sign a Joint Communique on Electronic Commerce using digital signatures.

October 1998 &mdash; The OECD issues the Ministerial declaration on authentication for electronic commerce and on taxation.

October 21, 1998 &mdash; A new version of the Communication Decency Act (CDA II) and a ban on Internet taxes are signed into law.

October 27, 1998  &mdash;  The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act becomes effective. The Act extends the term of copyright protection for most works to the life of the author plus 70 years after the author's death.

October 27, 1998 &mdash; The Fairness in Music Licensing Act of 1998, Pub. L. 105-298, Title II, 112 Stat. 2827, 2830 (Oct. 27, 1998) is enacted.

October 28, 1998 &mdash; The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998,  Pub. L. 105-304, 112 Stat. 2860 (Oct. 28, 1998) (17 U.S.C. §§512, 1201-05, 1301-22; 28 U.S.C. §4001) (DMCA) becomes effective. The Act provides for the implementation of the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty; limits certain online infringement liability for Internet service providers; creates an exemption permitting a temporary reproduction of a computer program made by activating a computer in the course of maintenance or repair; clarifies the policy role of the Copyright Office; and creates a form of protection for vessel hulls.

November 1998 &mdash; The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) incorporates in California. ICANN’s by-laws call for a 19-member Board with 9 members elected “at-large.”

November 1998 &mdash; The U.S. and South Korea sign a Joint Statement on Electronic Commerce.

November 25, 1998 &mdash; Department of Commerce enters into an agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to establish a process for transitioning the Domain Name System from U.S. Government to industry management.

1999
1999 &mdash; The wireless standard 802.11b, more commonly referred to as Wi-Fi, is issued.

1999 &mdash; The European Parliament proposes banning the caching of Web pages by ISPs.

1999 &mdash; A U.S. state court rules that domain names are property that may be garnished.

March 26, 1999 &mdash; The Melissa virus quickly spreads across the Internet by infecting Microsoft Word documents.

June 1999 &mdash; ICANN issues its first status report, which lists ICANN’s progress to date and states that there are important issues that still must be addressed. June 1999 &mdash; ICANN and the Department of Commerce enter into a cooperative research and development agreement to study root server stability and security. The study is intended to result in a final report by September 2000.

June 1, 1999 &mdash; Napster begins operations.

Nov. 1999 &mdash; ICANN and the Department of Commerce approve MOU amendment 1 to reflect the roles of ICANN and Network Solutions, Inc.

November 29, 1999 &mdash; The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), Title III of the Intellectual Property and Communications Omnibus Reform Act of 1999, Pub. L. 106-113, 113 Stat. 1501, app. I 1501A-521 (Nov. 29, 1999) (codified at 15 U.S.C. §1125) is enacted.

December 7, 1999 &mdash; The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sues Napster for copyright infringement.