There is no longer any doubt that, for the foreseeable future, public access to computer software and information is essential for the economic development of every country on earth, rich and poor. Yet it is precisely here, in this most forward-looking of technologies, that the ancient legal battle lines of private ownership versus public interest are being drawn again, with extreme intransigence, in the field of international law pertaining to intellectual property rights. In a situation bristling with ironies, it is particularly disturbing that the rampant software piracy in developing...