Abstract
Everybody talks about Information Law, but nobody has theoretically constructed it well, for intangible goods such as information cannot be definitely owned or transferred like physical property. However, it is gradually becoming clearer how to legally protect or prohibit information, through comparison between copyright and personal data protection. It is a good time now to think about the object of information-related laws, as the first step toward the “Basic Theory for Information Law”. In this paper, I will discriminate between moral and property rights, and focus on the latter, which is a common approach in the US. Then, I will propose a distinction between intellectual-property type and secrecy type for protection, and between (negative) property type and tort type for prohibition. In addition, I will point out several basic frameworks for information law, such as the hybrid nature of attribution and usage, one-object multiple-rights as a normal status, and license contract as supplements to statutes.
