The World Wide Web, a network of electronically produced and interconnected (or “linked”) sites, called pages, that are accessible via personal computer, raises legal issues about the rights of owners of intellectual property, notably those who create documents for inclusion on Web pages.
Central Topic
Intellectual property rights vs. Openness on the Internet
Purpose
To present and weigh in on a debate
Main Point
Linking to sites that display someone else's intellectual property is not a form of copyright infringement, especially given that the owner of the site can restrict access if they want to.
Passage Map
P1 - Framing the debate P2 - Zooming in on the origins of the debate P3 - Author resolves the central question from P2 and offers final thoughts
Other Commentry
This is from 2007, but it sounds like people in the 90's trying to figure out what "the interwebs" are. Also, they give a nicely anachronistic metaphor of "an answering machine".
Okay, cultural anachronisms aside, in terms of solving the big picture of this passage, we have a few key moments. By the end of the 1st paragraph, we can tell there's a debate because we had consecutive sentences saying, "Some of these owners claim" and "Web users, however".
The 2nd paragraph's topic sentence even refers to it as a debate and gives great guidance about the function of that paragraph. The 2nd paragraph ends with a question. Any time you see an LSAT author ask a question, it is almost sure to be integral to the main point/purpose of the passage.
The 3rd paragraph starts with a clear functional foreshadowing, letting us know that the 3rd paragraph will answer this question. We get "therefore" and "hence" telegraphing her conclusions. The last four sentences put the author's overall stamp on the debate, and we learn that she sides more with the "Web users" who want keep the web as open as possible.