Elgar Law, Technology and Society Series

The information revolution and the advent of digital technologies have ushered in new technological developments, social practices, business models, legal solutions, regulatory policies, governance structures, communication techniques, consumer preferences, and global concerns. This uniquely-designed book series provides an interdisciplinary forum for studying the complex interactions among law, technology and society. It examines the broader and deeper theoretical questions concerning information law and policy, explores its latest developments and social implications, and seeks to provide new ways of thinking about new media and changing technology.

Copyright Law and the Progress of Science and the Useful Arts

Alina Ng, Mississippi College School of Law

The American Constitution empowers Congress to enact copyright laws to 'promote the progress of science and the useful arts'. This book offers the first in-depth analysis of the connection between copyright law as a legal institution and the constitutional goal of promoting social and cultural advancement.

Focusing on the relationship between this explicit purpose and the normative uses and production of creative works, Alina Ng argues that a robust copyright system that embodies moral and ethical principles is necessary to protect the different values and expectations of authors, publishers and users of creative works. The author demonstrates that a more nuanced understanding of property rights and statutory privileges, as bearing different types of entitlements, is critical to the sustainable development of society and culture at both national and international levels. She posits that as communication technologies become ubiquitous and facilitate greater connectivity between authors and their readers, the notion of authorship as a creative endeavor producing works with significant influence upon society and culture must form the central tenet of the copyright system.

Transnational Culture in the Internet Age
Edited by

Sean A. Pager, Michigan State University College of Law

Adam Candeub, Michigan State University College of Law

Digital technology has transformed global culture, connecting and empowering users on a hitherto unknown scale. Existing paradigms from intellectual property rights to cultural diversity and telecommunications regulation seem increasingly obsolete, confounding policymakers and provoking wide-ranging debate. Transnational Culture in the Internet Age draws on a range of disciplines to examine new approaches to regulating communications and cultural production.

The insightful contributions shed new light on insufficiently examined issues and highlight connections that cut across the many different domains in which such regulations operate. Building upon the framework presented by David Post – one of the first and most prominent scholars of cyber law and a contributor to this volume – the authors address the implications and economics of the Internet's astronomical scale, jurisdiction and enforcement of the web as it relates to topics including libel tourism and threats to free speech, and the power of global communication to dissolve and recreate identities.

Environmental Technologies, Intellectual Property and Climate Change: Accessing, Obtaining and Protecting
Edited by Abbe E.L. Brown, School of Law, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom

Many disciplines are relevant to combating climate change. This challenging book draws together legal, regulatory, geographic, industrial and professional perspectives and explores the role of technologies in addressing climate change through mitigation, adaptation and information gathering. It explores some key issues. Is intellectual property part of the solution, an obstacle to change or peripheral? Are there more important questions? Do they receive the attention they deserve? And from whom? This innovative book will play an important role in stimulating holistic discussion and action on an issue of key importance to society.

Privacy and Legal Issues in Cloud Computing

Edited by

Anne S.Y. Cheung, Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong

Rolf H. Weber, Faculty of Law, University of Zurich, Switzerland

Using a multi-disciplinary and comparative approach, this study examines emerging and innovative attempts to tackle privacy and legal issues in cloud computing such as personal data privacy, security and intellectual property protection.

An international team of legal scholars, computer science researchers, regulators and practitioners present original and critical responses to the growing challenges posed by cloud computing. They analyse the specific legal implications pertaining to jurisdiction, biomedical practice and information ownership, as well as issues of regulatory control, competition and cross-border regulation.

Intellectual Property and Access to Im/material Goods

Edited by

Jessica C. Lai, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Antoinette Maget Dominicé, University of Lucerne, Switzerland

Traditionally, in order to be protected intellectual property goods have almost always needed to be embodied or materialized (and – to a certain extent – to be used and enjoyed), regardless of whether they were copyrighted works, patented inventions or trademarks. This book examines the relationship between intellectual property and its physical embodiments and materializations, with a focus on the issue of access and the challenges of new technologies. Expert contributors explore how these problems can re-shape our theoretical notion of the intangible and the tangible and how this can have serious consequences for access to intellectual property goods.

The Legal Challenges of Social Media

Edited by

David Mangan, City, University of London, United Kingdom

Lorna E. Gillies, University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom

Social media offers a platform for individual self-expression and the sharing of information. However, social media issues are boundless, permeating distinct legal disciplines. The law has struggled to adapt and for good reason: how does the law regulate this medium over the public/private law divide? This book engages with the legal implications of social media from both public and private law perspectives and outlines how the law has endeavoured to adapt the existing tools to social media.

The expert contributors explore a range of ideas to investigate the intersection between law and social media and they provide an insight into the challenges the legal community currently face. This collection explores key topics such as public and private law implications, the gap between the lay and legal understandings of social media, the conflict of laws regarding social media and the individual rights associated with social media.

Digital Democracy in a Globalized World

Edited by

Corien Prins, Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) and Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society, The Netherlands

Colette Cuijpers, Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society and Tilburg Law School, The Netherlands

Peter L. Lindseth, University of Connecticut School of Law

Mônica Rosina, Fundação Getulio Vargas Law School, Brazil

The transformative impacts of digitalization on society are visible both within nation states and across borders. Information and communication technologies are typically considered beneficial for democracy. Nevertheless, this book explores the challenges that technology brings to democracy, and in so doing advances our understanding of this crucial digital, social and political phenomenon. It contributes to the broader discussion of the relationship between international, national and sub-national norms, institutions and actors in an increasingly connected world.

Insightful and current, this book offers a wide variety of perspectives in an area where there is still not yet an extensive body of research. It considers, for example: the extent to which new forms of digital political engagement change traditional democratic decision-making; how receptive national governments and authorities are to digital democratic movements; how governments can uphold the values of democratic society while also ensuring flexibility with regard to the private sector; and how we should judge these developments in light of the cross-border effects of digitalization.

Privacy in Public Space: Conceptual and Regulatory Challenges

Edited by

Tjerk Timan, Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), The Netherlands

Bryce Clayton Newell, School of Information Science, University of Kentucky

Bert-Jaap Koops, Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society, The Netherlands

With ongoing technological innovations such as mobile cameras, WiFi tracking, drones, and augmented reality, aspects of citizens' lives are becoming increasingly vulnerable to intrusion. This book brings together authors from a variety of disciplines (philosophy, law, political science, economics, and media studies) to examine privacy in public space from both legal and regulatory perspectives.

The contributors explore the contemporary challenges to achieving privacy and anonymity in physical public space at a time when legal protection remains limited in comparison to 'private' space. To address this problem, the book clearly demonstrates why privacy in public space needs defending. Different ways of conceptualizing and shaping such protection are explored, for example through 'privacy bubbles', obfuscation and surveillance transparency, as well as by revising the assumptions underlying current privacy laws.

Autonomous Vehicles and the Law: Technology, Algorithms and Ethics

Hannah YeeFen Lim, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Autonomous vehicles have attracted a great deal of attention in the media, however there are some inconsistencies between the perception of autonomous vehicles' capabilities and their actual functions. This book provides an accessible explanation of how autonomous vehicles function, suggesting appropriate regulatory responses to the existing and emerging technology.

Hannah YeeFen Lim explores the current capabilities of autonomous vehicles and importantly, highlights their inherent limitations. Lim provides a concise and easy to follow overview of the technology behind autonomous vehicles which encompasses hardware and software aspects, including machine learning algorithms. Having laid the technical foundation, the following chapters assess the current legal standards in negligence law that are applicable to autonomous vehicles taking the current technical limitations of the vehicles into account. Lim concludes by exploring the ethical issues associated with autonomous vehicles and proposes appropriate regulatory approaches.

The State of Creativity: The Future of 3D Printing, 4D Printing and Augmented Reality

James Griffin, Law School, University of Exeter, United Kingdom

Creativity has been integral to the development of the modern State, and yet it is becoming increasingly sidelined, especially as a result of the development of new machinic technologies including 3D printing. Arguing that inner creativity has been endangered by the rise of administrative regulation, James Griffin explores a number of reforms to ensure that upcoming regulations do take creativity into account.

The State of Creativity examines how the State has become distanced from individual processes of creativity. This book investigates how the failure to incorporate creativity into administrative regulation is, in fact, adversely impacting the regulation of new technologies such as 3D and 4D printing and augmented reality, by focusing on issues concerning copyright and patents.

Law and Autonomous Machines: The Co-evolution of Legal Responsibility and Technology

Mark Chinen, Seattle University School of Law

This book sets out a possible trajectory for the co-development of legal responsibility on the one hand and artificial intelligence and the machines and systems driven by it on the other.

As autonomous technologies become more sophisticated it will be harder to attribute harms caused by them to the humans who design or work with them. This will put pressure on legal responsibility and autonomous technologies to co-evolve. Mark Chinen illustrates how these factors strengthen incentives to develop even more advanced systems, which in turn inspire nascent calls to grant legal and moral status to autonomous machines.

The Making Available Right: Realizing the Potential of Copyright's Dissemination Function in the Digital Age

Cheryl Foong, Curtin Law School, Australia

The right of copyright owners to make their content available to the public is crucial in an environment driven by access. The Making Available Right provides in-depth analysis of this exclusive right and offers insights on how we can approach the right in a more transparent and principled manner.

Cheryl Foong articulates a conceptual framework for understanding this right in a dynamic communications environment, critically examines the similarities and differences in its implementation across the United States, the European Union and Australia, and draws out underlying themes that serve as lessons for reform. The author builds an analytical framework for the making available right that addresses copyright's underappreciated dissemination function – i.e. encouraging the dissemination of content to the public – in conjunction with its authorship function.

The Regulation of Social Media Influencers

Edited by

Catalina Goanta, Faculty of Law, Maastricht University, The Netherlands

Sofia Ranchordás, Groningen Law School, The Netherlands

In today’s society, the power of someone’s reputation, or influence, has been turned into a job: that of being a social media influencer. This role comes with promises, such as aspirational work, but is rife with challenges, given the controversy that often surrounds influencers. This is the first book on the regulation of social media influencers, that brings together legal, economic and ethical angles to further unveil the implications of influencer marketing.

Thus far, influencers have been under scrutiny for not disclosing paid advertising, yet their activity has many more questionable implications. This edited volume combines insights from law, economics, ethics and communication science to reveal these implications and propose new ways in which public bodies, social media companies and citizens ought to relate to influencer marketing.

Fundamental Rights Protection Online: The Future Regulation of Intermediaries

Edited by

Bilyana Petkova, University of Graz, Austria

Tuomas Ojanen, University of Helsinki, Finland

Fundamental Rights Protection Online presents an in-depth analysis of national, supranational and international attempts at online speech regulation, illustrating how the law has been unsettled on how to treat intermediaries.

In this book, expert contributors explore how problems ranging from disinformation to hate speech to copyright violations are framed and tackled though legislation, codes of conduct and judicial interpretation. The chapters discuss positive law developments in the intersection of intermediary liability and rights, considering both the history and current intellectual debates surrounding European and US legislative initiatives. In addition to examining how the European Union and individual European nations regulate speech online, the book also analyses the e-Commerce Directive, the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and principles established under the United Nations. It concludes that content regulation online is best captured by the notion of 'speech curation', involving both private and public actors.

Judges, Technology and Artificial Intelligence: The Artificial Judge

Tania Sourdin, University of Newcastle, Australia

New and emerging technologies are reshaping justice systems and transforming the role of judges. The impacts vary according to how structural reforms take place and how courts adapt case management processes, online dispute resolution systems and justice apps. Significant shifts are also occurring with the development of more sophisticated forms of artificial intelligence that can support judicial work or even replace judges. These developments, together with shifts towards online court processes are explored in Judges, Technology and Artificial Intelligence.

By considering how different jurisdictions are approaching current and future technological shifts and in particular by focusing on the different approaches in the US, UK, Australia and China and elsewhere, the author draws a rich comparative exploration of justice technology trends. Judicial commentary is considered as well as the growing scholarly discourse about these trends. Ethical and user centred design options are examined in the context of how responsive judges engage with supportive, replacement and disruptive technologies in courts.

Regulating Online Behavioural Advertising Through Data Protection Law

Jiahong Chen, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

This insightful book provides a timely review of the potential threats of advertising technologies, or adtech. It highlights the need to protect internet users not only from privacy risks, but also as consumers and citizens online dealing with a highly complex technological setting.

Jiahong Chen illustrates a concise overview of the technical, economic and legal aspects of adtech together with coverage of other important areas. These include the ongoing debates around online advertising and data protection, an up-to-date analysis of the application of the GDPR, and insights into both the practices and theories of the regulation of data protection law. The book provides a clear picture of what is truly at stake with online advertising practices, concluding with a critical assessment of the current regime and a proposed approach to reform data protection laws.

The Future of Copyright in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Aviv H. Gaon, Harry Radzyner Law School, Reichman University (IDC Herzliya), Israel

The Future of Copyright in the Age of Artificial Intelligence offers an extensive analysis of intellectual property and authorship theories and explores the possible impact artificial intelligence (AI) might have on those theories. The author makes compelling arguments via the exploration of authorship, ownership and artificial intelligence.

First, the book advocates for a more holistic approach to authorship, arguing that there is no good reason to exclude computer-generated and AI creations from copyright. Second, it conducts an open search for the right "candidate" for ownership. In doing so, the book explores several possible legal frameworks, including assigning ownership to the programmer, the user, the AI itself and other alternatives such as the public domain or author-in-law approaches. Third, the book explores the concept of AI as it has developed through the years in various fields, seeking to reframe the AI legal concept.

Pandemic Surveillance: Privacy, Security, and Data Ethics

Edited by Margaret Hu, William & Mary Law School, College of William & Mary, United States

As the COVID-19 pandemic surged in 2020, questions of data privacy, cybersecurity, and the ethics of surveillance technologies centred an international conversation on the benefits and disadvantages of the appropriate uses and expansion of cyber surveillance and data tracking. This timely book examines and answers these important concerns.

Pandemic Surveillance frames and defines digital privacy and security in the context of emerging surveillance technologies, providing informed dialogue on international conversations regarding pandemic surveillance. The book examines the challenges of regulating pandemic surveillance technologies across diverse geographical settings, including Europe and Latin America, along with comparative analysis of social credit systems in China and the United States. Margaret Hu and her impressive selection of contributors explore the legal, scientific and ethical challenges in a world with a growing data surveillance architecture, providing policy recommendations and forward-looking solutions, including the importance of ethical frameworks, to minimise potential misuse and abuse of surveillance technologies.

Novel Beings: Regulatory Approaches for a Future of New Intelligent Life

Edited by

David R. Lawrence, Durham Law School, United Kingdom

Sarah Morley, Newcastle Law School, United Kingdom

Novel Beings is a forward-looking exploration into the divide between proactive and reactive regulatory approaches to the cross-section of biotechnology and artificial intelligence (AI) research. Addressing an innovative area of academic study, Novel Beings questions how this research, which has the potential to create new forms of morally valuable life, could be regulated.

This fascinating book examines the promises and perils of conflicting approaches to regulating emerging technologies in the unique context of this probable challenge for law and society. An impressive, and multidisciplinary, selection of expert contributors offer considerations vital to any attempt to address these issues before they become impossible to prevent or rectify. Chapters explore technologies such as genomics, synthetic biology and neurotechnologies, as well the profusion of ‘expert systems’ – algorithms and simple AI that interweave through everyday life, from smart assistants, to the financial markets, to social media. David Lawrence and Sarah Morley also discuss the global challenges for society and the laws regarding the status of these technological beings, their protections and obligations.

Regulating Social Network Sites: Data Protection, Copyright and Power

Asma Vranaki, School of Law, University of Bristol, United Kingdom

Drawing on rich, empirical case studies this innovative book provides a contemporary and comprehensive exploration of the plural, dynamic and precarious processes, materials, practices, interventions and relationships on social network sites, and their resultant power effects, when copyright and data privacy rights are at stake.

In pursuit of this objective, chapters develop a cutting-edge conceptual power lens that brings together Actor-Network theory and Foucauldian scholarship on power. Applying this analytical framework to the case studies of Facebook (data protection) and YouTube (copyright), Asma Vranaki draws critical attention to underexplored and novel matters in digital regulation. These matters include resistance; the materiality of regulation; complex, contingent, fragile and dynamic digital ‘regulatory spaces’; the contingency of power; law as a heterogenous ‘assemblage’; the unintended consequence of local orderings; and the links between power and spaces. Ultimately, the author demonstrates that power effects are highly localised, precarious and contingent outcomes of manifold, complex and fluid alliances between diverse humans and non-humans.

The State of Cultural Biology: Regulating Biological Computing

James Griffin, School of Law, University of Exeter, United Kingdom

Offering a novel and pragmatic perspective, this timely book critically examines the development of a culture of machinist regulation and questions whether this approach is appropriate in an era of rising biological technologies. Adopting an ontological approach, James Griffin considers how current regulatory frameworks favour digital technology and how this may change in the future.

The author adeptly investigates how regulation can impact the nature of new technologies, especially as biological computing is becoming more commonplace. Chapters provide a wealth of critical analysis, considering cutting-edge technologies such as AI, prosthesis, and biological computing. He outlines a proposed reformative system which focuses on the biological substrate in the creation of cultural works. The book serves to highlight the ever-increasing need for awareness of the importance of biological substrates and for a regulatory system which reflects this.

The Hashtag Hustle: Law and Policy Perspectives on Working in the Influencer Economy

Edited by Taylor Annabell, School of Journalism, Media and Culture, Cardiff University, United Kingdom

Christian Fieseler, Department of Communication and Culture, Norwegian Business School, Norway

Catalina Goanta, Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Isabelle Wildhaber, Institute for Work and Employment Research, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland

This timely open-access book sheds light on the cultural, economic and legal aspects of content creation as a form of labour, investigating concerns over working conditions, worker protection, and the status of the working relationship. Chapters written by leading experts in the field explore two opposing, yet complementary sides of work: labour as an invisible and underappreciated effort made by influencers, and labour as an economic enterprise.

Bringing together authors from different disciplinary backgrounds, the editors gather various threads of research from law, media studies and economics, to raise intriguing questions regarding working as an influencer and how to conceptualise, analyse and apply labour regimes to the broad entrepreneurial portfolio of volatile creative work within the 'hustle' of the creator economy. This book exposes the uncertainty around the qualification and characteristics of influencer labour.

Governance of Digital Single Market Actors

Edited by

Katja Weckström, UEF Law School, University of Eastern Finland

Maria Lillà Montagnani, Bocconi University, Italy

Katarzyna Klafkowska-Waśniowska, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland

This book explores the digital future of the European Union, critically analysing the governance of digital single market actors and the platform economy. It discusses notions of freedom, responsibility and accountability, examining the circulation of unlawful content through the broad lens of digital governance.

Chapters delve into the automation of content moderation and the rise of algorithmic enforcement, covering personal data protection in an age of artificial intelligence. They shed light on the measures put in place by video-sharing platforms for the protection of children, identifying landmark legislation, such as the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, and demonstrating the importance of consent, transparency and accountability. The book further introduces a normative structure for protecting users and core democratic values while supporting enforcement, striking a balance between the responsibility of platforms and freedom of innovation.

Law, the Sharing Economy, and Platform Technology Businesses

Juan Diaz-Granados, Thomas More Law School, Australian Catholic University

Benedict Sheehy, Canberra Law School, University of Canberra, Australia

In this innovative book, the authors offer a meticulous examination of the legal foundations, structures and challenges, as well as potential solutions for the legal and regulatory issues posed by the rise of platform-based businesses. With examples drawn from the Sharing Economy, such as Uber and Airbnb, the authors demonstrate how law facilitates and constrains the operation of these companies as they deliver convenient goods and services. They offer fresh insights into how and why these platforms disrupt existing legal norms, economic markets and social practices.

The authors’ analysis provides an innovative law-based model, the Platform Operator-User-Provider model (PUP), which forms a foundation for their evaluation. Using this model, they are able to identify and differentiate a variety of PUPs not previously understood, but which differentiation makes their analysis and regulation significantly clearer. They explore potential legal categorizations of the PUP’s actors and their relationships and propose a novel regulatory approach consistent with the PUP’s triangular structure. This novel approach balances private interests with the public good by addressing power imbalances in the Sharing Economy. It supports platform operators’ private interests while implementing publicly oriented regulations that favor consumers and workers in ways that see all of law's obligations fulfilled while delivering both the economic boon and the social promise of technology.