Legal Protection: Multilateral Agreements With the rise of a global economic system a desire to establish agreements, which protect works not only within national borders, but also within a "Union" of countries or on an international level, has been expressed. As a consequence a variety of multilateral treaties have been negotiated and adopted by governments. Those shall simplify practice through international standardization and mutual recognition of rights and duties among nations. |
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AOL Time Warner The largest media conglomerate in the world, Time Warner resulted from the merger of the publisher Time Inc. and the media company Turner Broadcasting Systems, Inc. in 1996. Time Inc. founded in 1922 primarily concentrated on magazines and books and in the 1950s moved into the broadcasting and entertainment industry, but in the 1970s announced that it was selling its broadcasting holdings and concentrating on cable television. In 1989 Time Inc. merged with Warner Communications Inc., which besides being a major motion-picture and television studio, was also one of the biggest U.S. music recordings producers and cable-television operators. In January 2000 Time Warner merged with AOL (America Online) in a US$ 243.3 billion deal. Although AOL so far generated far less profit and turnover than Time Warner its quotation on the stock exchange was clearly higher, making Time Warner the junior partner (45 percent) in the new company. Through its merger with AOL, which is a major player in the online-business and owns several Internet-services like Compuserve, Netscape and Netcenter, the new media conglomerate could significantly enlarge its online presence and also complement its traditional media activities. |
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Gerard J. Holzmann and Bjoern Pehrson, The Early History of Data Networks This book gives a fascinating glimpse of the many documented attempts throughout history to develop effective means for long distance communications. Large-scale communication networks are not a twentieth-century phenomenon. The oldest attempts date back to millennia before Christ and include ingenious uses of homing pigeons, mirrors, flags, torches, and beacons. The first true nationwide data networks, however, were being built almost two hundred years ago. At the turn of the 18th century, well before the electromagnetic telegraph was invented, many countries in Europe already had fully operational data communications systems with altogether close to one thousand network stations. The book shows how the so-called information revolution started in 1794, with the design and construction of the first true telegraph network in France, Chappe's fixed optical network. http://www.it.kth.se/docs/early_net/ |
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Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) DSL connections are high-speed data connections over copper wire telephone lines. As with cable connections, with DSL you can look up information on the Internet and make a phone call at the same time but you do not need to have a new or additional cable or line installed. One of the most prominent DSL services is ISDN (integrated services digital network, for more information click here ( |
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