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Artificial intelligence and challenges for copyright law International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2021-04-10 Kariyawasam K.
AbstractThe question of who should own the copyright of a creative work by an artificial intelligence (Al) is as yet largely unanswered. Due to the author’s increased distance from the works being created, the granting of copyright protection to AI has not been forthcoming. This article assesses the prevalence of AI- and computer-generated works in which, beyond the initial input, the works produced
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The common EU approach to personal data and cybersecurity regulation International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2021-01-25 Alessandro Mantelero, Giuseppe Vaciago, Maria Samantha Esposito, Nicole Monte
Several sector-specific studies on EU data protection and cybersecurity frameworks can be found in the literature, but their differing legal domains has hindered the development of a common analysis of the different sets of provisions from a business perspective. This article sets out to bridge this gap, providing a systematic review and a cross-cutting operational analysis of the main legal instruments
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Work and works on digital platforms in capitalism: conceptual and regulatory challenges for labour and copyright law International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2020-10-16 Zoe Adams, Henning Grosse Ruse-Khan
This article explores the challenges associated with creative work in the digital economy at both a conceptual and practical level, through the conjoined lenses of labour law and copyright law. We begin by developing a conception of the capitalist work relation and the distinct struggles intrinsic to it. This allows us to better understand the functions of creative work in contemporary ‘digital’ capitalism
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A statutory right to explanation for decisions generated using artificial intelligence International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2020-08-25 Gacutan J, Selvadurai N.
AbstractAs artificial intelligence technologies are increasingly deployed by government and commercial entitles to generate automated and semi-automated decisions, the right to an explanation for such decisions has become a critical legal issue. As the internal logic of machine learning algorithms is typically opaque, the absence of a right to explanation can weaken an individual’s ability to challenge
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Smart contracts from the contract law perspective: outlining new regulative strategies International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2020-08-25 Filatova N.
AbstractSmart contracts nowadays start being widely used in various areas of economic and social life. In most cases smart contracts are somehow related to legal contracts: the former may constitute part of a legal contract, an entire contract, or be used to automate a contract performance. Meanwhile, a question whether modern contract law is applicable to smart contracts is rather debatable, since
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Restoring trust into the NHS: promoting data protection as an ‘architecture of custody’ for the sharing of data in direct care International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2020-08-20 Basu S, Guinchard A.
AbstractAiming to provide better, more personalized care, by harnessing the power of digitalization, the National Health Service (NHS) has employed a strategy of sharing its patients’ information with the private sector, raising questions as to whether it can be trusted as a custodian of its patients’ data. The development of the Streams application by DeepMind, a subsidiary of Google Health UK, illustrates
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New Media and Freedom of Expression: Rethinking the Constitutional Foundations of the Public Sphere, by András Koltay International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2020-07-28 Ződi Z.
New Media and Freedom of Expression: Rethinking the Constitutional Foundations of the Public Sphere, by András Koltay, Hart, 2019, ISBN: 978-1-50991-648-1, xx + 260 pp, £72.90.
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Beyond State v Loomis: artificial intelligence, government algorithmization and accountability International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2019-01-01 Han-Wei Liu, Ching-Fu Lin, Yu-Jie Chen
Developments in data analytics, computational power, and machine learning techniques have driven all branches of the government to outsource authority to machines in performing public functions — social welfare, law enforcement, and most importantly, courts. Complex statistical algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) tools are being used to automate decision-making and are having a significant
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Cyber Gremlin: social networking, machine learning and the global war on Al-Qaida-and IS-inspired terrorism International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2019-01-01 Jamil Ammar
Among our mundane and technical concepts, machine learning is currently one of the most important and widely used, but least understood. To date, legal scholars have conducted comparatively little work on its cognate concepts. This article critically examines the use of machine learning technologies to suppress or block access to al-Qaida and IS-inspired propaganda. It will: (i) demonstrate that, insofar
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Do algorithms rule the world? Algorithmic decision-making and data protection in the framework of the GDPR and beyond International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2019-01-01 Maja Brkan
The purpose of this article is to analyse the rules of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Directive on Data Protection in Criminal Matters on automated decision-making and to explore how to ensure transparency of such decisions, in particular those taken with the help of algorithms. Both legal acts impose limitations on automated individual decision-making, including profiling. While
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Does regulation of illegal content need reconsideration in light of blockchains? International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2019-01-01 Maurice Schellekens
Blockchains are increasingly being used for content distribution, sometimes as an unwanted side-effect of blockchain applications that have other primary purposes, sometimes as intended content distribution. The typical characteristics of a blockchain such as its claimed immutability raise new questions as to what preventive measures can reasonably be demanded from blockchain intermediaries, and administrators
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Copyright, online news publishing and aggregators: a law and economics analysis of the EU reform International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2019-01-01 Giuseppe Colangelo, Valerio Torti
On 12 September 2018 the European Parliament approved the new version of the proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market elaborated by the European Commission in 2016. In order to address problems in protecting content and improve the bargaining position of press publishers against information society service providers, the European Commission decided to intervene on rights,
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Demonstrably doing accountability in the Internet of Things International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2018-12-24 Lachlan Urquhart, Tom Lodge, Andy Crabtree
This paper explores the importance of accountability to data protection, and how it can be built into the Internet of Things (IoT). The need to build accountability into the IoT is motivated by the opaque nature of distributed data flows, inadequate consent mechanisms, and lack of interfaces enabling end-user control over the behaviours of internet-enabled devices. The lack of accountability precludes
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Intermediary publishers and European data protection: Delimiting the ambit of responsibility for third-party rights through a synthetic interpretation of the EU acquis International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2018-01-01 David Erdos
Some of research presented in this work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ES/M010236/1),
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Blockchain and smart contracts: the missing link in copyright licensing? International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2018-01-01 Balázs Bodó, Daniel Gervais, João Pedro Quintais
This article offers a normative analysis of key blockchain technology concepts from the perspective of copyright law. Some features of blockchain technologies—scarcity, trust, transparency, decentralized public records and smart contracts—seem to make this technology compatible with the fundamentals of copyright. Authors can publish works on blockchain creating a quasi-immutable record of initial ownership
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A risk-based approach towards infringement prevention on the internet: adopting the anti-money laundering framework to online platforms International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2018-01-01 Carsten Ullrich
This paper suggests a new approach towards online service provider liability which relies on duty of care. It proposes a concrete compliance framework for online platforms, borrowed from risk regulation, and modelled on anti-money laundering (AML) obligations in the financial sector. First, the prohibition on obliging platforms to monitor content in a general manner under the E-Commerce Directive will
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Beyond BitCoin—legal impurities and off-chain assets International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2018-01-01 Chris Reed, Uma M Sathyanarayan, Shuhui Ruan, Justine Collins
Blockchain technology allows the creation of distributed ledgers. These distribute control among the players rather than requiring a centralised database, and so can reduce costs and speed up transactions. However, when it is used for assets which exist outside the blockchain itself, an unmodified adoption of the technology would bypass legal and regulatory requirements which, for these kinds of assets
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ISPs’ copyright liability in the EU digital single market strategy International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2018-01-01 Giuseppe Colangelo, Mariateresa Maggiolino
The EU Commission is eager to reform the current rules governing Internet Service Providers’ copyright liability. According to the Commission, online services providing access to copyright protected content uploaded by their users without the involvement of right holders have become main sources of access to content online. This affects right holders’ possibilities to determine whether, and under which
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On domain registries and unlawful website content International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2018-01-01 Sebastian Felix Schwemer
The link of lawful domain names to unlawful content is a phenomenon that has not been very topical until recently. Traditionally, domain registries have been off the radar of content-related debates. Enforcement efforts, public discourse and academic research have focused on other intermediaries such as Internet access service providers, hosting platforms, and websites that link to content. This article
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Big data and the legal framework for data quality International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2017-01-08 Thomas Hoeren
Power has a lot to do with knowledge, access to, and utilization of data. But in the context of the debate about power, the question of data quality is hardly ever raised. This is because legal standards for data quality are lacking. The first attempts to regulate this question can be found hidden in Article 6 of the EU Data Protection Directive and in the regulation on scoring in section 28b of the
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Surveillance, Privacy and Trans-Atlantic Relations, by David D. Cole, Federico Fabbrini and Stephen Schulhofer International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Bernard Keenan
This edited collection of papers was developed from conference presentations delivered in March 2015 at the Institut d’Etudes Européen, as part of the International Association of Constitutional Law’s ‘Constitutional Responses to Terrorism’ research group. The papers have been updated and formatted in a fairly uniform four-part structure, each dealing with a particular aspect of recent dynamics in
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Private Power, Online Information Flows and EU Law: Mind the Gap, by Angela Daly International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Heiko Richter
1 This book, which is part of the Hart Studies in Competition Law series, may, at first glance, seem to fall outside the scope of the main areas of interest for many scholars in intellectual property, information technology, and e-commerce law. However, the European Commission’s issuance of a Statement of Objections to Google regarding comparative shopping services, the opening of a formal competition
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There is no silver bullet: solutions to Internet jurisdiction International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Saxon R Shaw
If the problem of Internet jurisdiction is not solved, the risk is two-fold: national and international legal systems will continue to produce uncertainty and instability, with the burden imposed upon commercial and civil society. The Internet will continue to spiral further into fragments. This outcome will deviate far from that of its initial conception, limiting the capacity for this communications
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The making of an ‘orphan’: cultural heritage digitization in the EU International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Maria Lillà Montagnani, Laura Zoboli
As the definition of accessibility of cultural heritage changes under the impact of new technologies, public and private actors seek new ways to enhance digital access. The digitisation of 20th Century cultural heritage, however, is severely restricted by the potential subsistence of copyright and related rights. Different solutions have been considered to deal with this problem and, in particular:
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The idea of ‘emergent properties’ in data privacy: towards a holistic approach International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Samson Y. Esayas
‘The whole is more than the sum of its parts.’ This article applies lessons from the concept of ‘emergent properties’ in systems thinking to data privacy law. This concept, rooted in the Aristotelian dictum ‘the whole is more than the sum of its parts’, where the ‘whole’ represents the ‘emergent property’, allows systems engineers to look beyond the properties of individual components of a system and
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Digital Revolution: Challenges for Contract Law in Practice, Edited by Reiner Schulze and Dirk Staudenmayer International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Michaela MacDonald
The book reflects a collection of papers presented at a workshop held in October 2015, at the Centre for European Private Law of the Westfälische WilhelmsUniversität Münster, edited by Reiner Schulze and Dirk Staudenmayer and published by Hart Publishing. As the title suggests, the workshop focused on the creation of the Digital Single Market, the changeover to digital economy, and the effects and
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African Data Privacy Laws, Edited by Alex B. MakuliloData Protection Law in Ireland: Sources and Issues (2nd edn), by Paul Lambert International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Jiahong Chen
The importance of studying data privacy law with a global, comparative perspective has been highlighted quite often in recent years. To enable further research with such a holistic approach, it is essential that we have sufficient literature on how regional, national and even local data protection laws are legislated and enforced. The publication of African Data Privacy Laws, edited by Alex B. Makulilo
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Beyond bitcoin: an early overview on smart contracts International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Pierluigi Cuccuru
The technology underpinning Bitcoin—the blockchain—is acknowledged to offer security, stability and efficiency to online transactions. After a brief introduction to Bitcoin system, I touch upon the most innovative implementation of blockchain technology: the so-called smart contracts, ie programmable computer protocols that are able to self-enforce the terms therein encoded upon certain triggering
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Lending e-books in libraries: is a technologically neutral approach the solution? International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Rita Matulionyte
This article examines the question of whether the public lending right (PLR) as harmonized under the EU Rental and Lending Directive 2006/115/EC should equally apply to both print books and e-books. This question has been answered in the affirmative by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the recent VOB case. The article argues that extending the PLR exception to e-book lending might
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How the Internet is making jurisdiction sexy (again) International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2017-01-01 David G Post
The world is in the midst of a seismic re-scaling, and the electronic communications revolution of the last several decades has made it both much larger and much smaller. Just as the re-scaling that accompanied deployment of the communications and transport technologies of the 19th Century held to issue in the Age of Territoriality, the current re-scaling will have profound effects on our law and governance
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The way the cookie crumbles: online tracking meets behavioural economics: Table A1: International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2016-10-26 Ignacio N. Cofone
Limitations on online tracking are object of a regulatory debate that has shifted to the use of default rules to enhance privacy. The European Union implemented this idea with the Cookies Directive. The Directive aims to change the default system for track ing and move to an opt-in system in which data subjects must agree to it beforehand. This article evaluates the Directive’s implementation across
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Technology neutral EU law: digital goods within the traditional goods/services distinction International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2016-09-07 Janja Hojnik
The article responds to a growing number of demands by governmental and non-governmental organisations that call upon the EU institutions to level the legal treatment of digital and physical goods. The article stems from the established criteria for distinguishing between goods and services in the marketing domain, and analyses on the importance attributed to the tangibility and tradability of products
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Engineering and lawyering privacy by design: understanding online privacy both as a technical and an international human rights issue International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2016-09-04 Adamantia Rachovitsa
There is already evidence that “governmental mass surveillance emerges as a dangerous habit”. Despite the serious interests at stake, we are far from fully comprehending the ramifications of the systematic and pervasive violation of privacy online. This article underscores the reasons that policy-makers and lawyers must comprehend and value privacy not only as a human rights issue, but also as a fundamental
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Remote search and seizure in domestic criminal procedure: Estonian case study International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2016-08-27 Anna-Maria Osula
Law enforcement all over the world is struggling with time-critical access to evidence stored in electronic devices. At times these devices may be located in foreign territories or in cloud service providers’ servers. Considering the decentralization of the Internet and the ubiquity and complexity of cloud computing, the exact location of the data in question may not always be possible to determine
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The enforcement of the Google Spain ruling International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2016-08-27 Emmanouil Bougiakiotis
Since the highly influential ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the Google Spain case was published, numerous practical issues on the way it will be enforced have arisen. Its effective enforcement makes it necessary to revisit the traditional data protection perceptions. This article first argues that the regulatory structure and the interpretation of the obligations regarding
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Privacy in public spaces: what expectations of privacy do we have in social media intelligence? International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2016-08-12 Lilian Edwards, Lachlan Urquhart
In this paper we give an introduction to the transition in contemporary surveillance from top down traditional police surveillance to profiling and “pre-crime” methods. We then review in more detail the rise of open source (OSINT) and social media (SOCMINT) intelligence and its use by law enforcement and security authorities. Following this we consider what if any privacy protection is currently given
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Policy, legal and regulatory implications of a Europe-only cloud International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2016-07-15 W. Kuan Hon, Christopher Millard, Jatinder Singh, Ian Walden, Jon Crowcroft
There has been on-going discussion regarding the alignment of cloud computing services to a range of European policy objectives. This paper provides an outline of key legal and regulatory aspects arising from recent calls for establishing a Europe-only cloud. After covering the background to such calls, it outlines the policy objectives that may underlie the Europe-only cloud proposals. It then considers
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Google, online search and consumer confusion in Australia International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2016-05-09 Amanda Scardamaglia, Angela Daly
The legality of the operation of Google’s search engine, and its liability as an Internet intermediary, has been tested in various jurisdictions on various grounds. In Australia, there was an ultimately unsuccessful case against Google under the Australian Consumer Law relating to how it presents results from its search engine. Despite this failed claim, several complex issues were not adequately addressed
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Rethinking admissibility of electronic evidence International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2016-05-09 Aradhya Sethia
The development of information technology has generated several legal debates. Most of these debates are concerned with substantive rights and obligations. However, the enforcement of these substantive rights and obligations, to a large extent, depends on the effectiveness of procedural laws. This article focuses on one of the most important procedural issues—admissibility of electronic evidence. The
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Making privacy by design operative International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2016-02-24 Dag Wiese Schartum
Many scholars and politicians believe privacy by design may turn out to be a strong contribution to improved privacy protection. However, what are the prerequisites and what guidelines should we adopt to make good privacy designs for information systems? The author of this article discusses the significance and potentials of regulatory design for implementing privacy in information systems. He also
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10 years for Google Books and Europeana: copyright law lessons that the EU could learn from the USA International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2016-01-09 Rita Matulionyte
Mass digitization projects that have been carried out by libraries and their commercial partners across the Atlantic, such as Google Books and Europeana, are celebrating their 10th birthdays. This article analyses what legal challenges they pose to the copyright law systems, and how the US and EU jurisdictions have responded to them. In particular, the article identifies certain elements in the US
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Lenz v Universal Music Corp: Much ado about nothing? International Journal of Law and Information Technology Pub Date : 2016-01-09 Michel José Reymond
In Lenz v Universal Music Corp, a decision rendered on the 14 September 2015, the Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit states that copyright holders are bound to examine fair use before trying to take down content under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. While this development might appear as a major shift in US copyright law towards a stricter tolerance of frivolous take-down attempts, this comment
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