IT law (information technology law) includes all legal provisions that deal with the law of electronic data processing, essentially with the legal context in the area of computers and the Internet.

Information technology systems and especially the Internet have become an integral part of our society today. Accordingly, the importance of IT law is constantly increasing. The rapid development of new media raises new legal questions in IT law every day.

The subject areas in IT law are very diverse. In addition to the drafting of hardware and software contracts, copyright issues or data protection issues play a major role in IT law. Areas such as public telecommunications law, public procurement law and internet criminal law can also be assigned to IT law.

Zu den wichtigsten Thematiken im IT-Recht gehören im Einzelnen:

  • General terms and conditions in IT law
  • Contract law, esp. Software and hardware contracts
  • Intellectual property rights (particularly of software)
  • Electronic commerce law (eCommerce, e.g. internet commerce, eBay…)
  • Domain law
  • Datenschutz
  • Domain law
  • Internet criminal law

Abschluss

There is no separate set of laws for IT law; rather, it is a cross-sectional matter that can be found in many regulations in a wide variety of laws. Many areas of IT law are based, for example, on the general civil law regulations in the Civil Code, e.g. contract law (§§ 241 ff., 433 ff. BGB), general terms and conditions (§§ 305 ff. BGB) or eCommerce (§§ 312 b ff. BGB). Other relevant laws in IT law include the UrhG, BDatSchG, TKG and the StGB.

On the following pages we will try to provide you with as much information as possible about IT law.

We also recommend the following pages on the subject of IT law: