A Study of the Pillars of Actualization of Civil Liability in Cyberspace

The difference in nature of the cyberplace (virtual space) with the real world requires the change of concepts and elements of some legal topics and issues as well as the related terms of the field. Among such issues and topics is the field of civil liability. The actualization and imposition of civil liability is contingent upon existence of three pillars namely imposition of damage, existence of harmful act and existence of causal relationship. Each of the mentioned three pillars carry specific meaning and have specific characteristics in the real world. The purpose of this article is to investigate the necessity of existence and identification of these three pillars in the cyberspace and then try to explain the characteristics and boundary constraints as well as the ways of identification and determination of the same. The result is that the loss in the cyberspace has a narrower definition compared to that of the real world and the ability to predict the type and amount of loss is not a condition for realizing the liability the individual inflicting the loss. Harmful actions in this respect can be realized in the form of the four sources of the civil liability mentioned under Article 307 of the Civil Code. Furthermore, the Causality Relationship in cyberspace will lose its dependance to custom or tradition and the Causality Relationship and its realization and determination will depend on the technical characteristics of the field. In this regard, analysis and focus on the cause of the loss rather than the harmful act will be a better way for proving the causality.