Ginevra Peruginelli, Mario Ragona

The contributions presented at the International Conference "Law via the Internet: Free Access, Quality of Information, Effectiveness of Rights" organised by the Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques of the Italian National Research Council - ITTIG/CNR (Florence, October 30-31 2008) provide a wide spectrum of reflections on free access to law drawn from different points of view and countries. The event is the 9th edition of the "Law via the Internet" Conferences gathering the Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) network's members. This volume focuses on digital legal information, analysing its aspects in the light of the free digital legal culture paradigm and of the actual technological development that is shaping law. It shows how the free access to law approach is fully accepted worldwide, deserving full analysis in all aspects and now enjoying a success in practice. The key issue that emerges is that the marketplace has changed and new models of legal information distribution through equal market opportunities are major objectives to be pursued so as to ensure equality, quality of justice and of legal services. In this context legal information is to be considered an absolutely public good on top of which everyone should be free to build.