LEA 2005

As electronic agents enter the information environment and electronic marketplaces, they engage in activities that matter to the law: accessing systems and networks, retrieving and spreading information, mediating personal and business relations, buying and selling material and immaterial goods. Through those activities they trigger consequences for their users, owners and developers and for the parties they deal with, reaching into contract, tort, criminal responsibility, intellectual property and data protection. LEA was the forum for investigating the law of electronic agents in the light of the state of the art in autonomous agents and multi-agent systems — and, in the other direction, for asking how electronic agents might be customised to support lawyers. The fourth workshop was held in Bologna on Friday 10 June 2005 as a workshop of the 9th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL 2005). Accepted papers were published in the workshop proceedings and on the LEA website.