Study On The Information Storage Space Rights

This paper arms to construct the theoretical system in the civil law theory about the protection of Information Storage Warehouse, e.g. memory or hard disk or memory cards, in the cyberspace, namely Information Storage Space Right. We could view information as approximating (metaphorically) real-world cargo or goods and the storage space as a physical place. The user would be interrupted when, illegally, "access" is deemed to have taken place. The common law doctrine of trespass to chattels has recently been revived and applied by courts in the US to cover intrusions (in the form of electronic signals) to computer systems connected to the Internet, which reveal a property-based notion, though there are numerous potential difficulties with viewing "unauthorized access" from a pure property perspective. After the basic analysis, the author defines and classifies the rights in two parts according to the content of the rights, viz., Ownership of Information Storage Space and Right of Using the Information Storage Space. Right of Using the Information Storage Space is under the Usufructuary property rights system. And it is possible for the two rights, which are independent from each other, coexist in the same right target, on the basis of analysis the theories of "concept of property","concept of chattels","numerus clausus" under the traditional Property Law and "freedom of speech" in the cyberspace. After that the author presents the legal and economical grounds for the protection of the Information Storage Space and argues the limitation of the tort law which cannot support the transfer of property and the contract law cannot prevent the third party's intrusion. The Coase Theorem and property rights theory of Posner encourage the application of property rights strongly. Consequently, we can conclude that Computer resources including disk space, memory etc, would be protected more efficient and sufficient, according to the Usufructuary property rights system, comparing to the liability-rules, contract rules in China.