ICTlogy

Communications on fundamental rights
Chairs: Miquel Peguera. Senior Lecturer, School of Law and Political Science (UOC).

Constitution 2.0 and Rule of Law: on the Iceland Constitution.
Pere Simón Castellano, Derecho Constitucional de la Universitat de Girona.

Even if everyone has to obey the law, it is also true that theory and practice of Law are somewhat different things. ICTs may have also helped in this dichotomy from theory to practice, affecting the rule of Law.

Transparency and participation have, on the other hand, also changed the landscape of law enforcement and its efficiency.

The case of the Iceland Constitution is a very good example of this change of paradigm. The whole process, all the debates and conversations were either streamed or published online.

But can the Iceland case be extrapolated to other places with more population? Does it scale? Is the citizenry ready for more doses of democracy? Will people be eager or able to participate more intensely?

Redefining the isegory: open data citizens.
Helena Nadal Sánchez, Departamento de Derecho Público de la Universidad de Burgos; Javier de la Cueva González-Cotera, Abogado.

Why isegory? Our actual challenges are very much like the challenges that had to face our ancestors. Technologies might be a little bit different, but they are technologies anyway. Open data is a new way of understanding freedom of expression, the capability to participate and engage in citizenship.

The initiative Adopt a Senator showed that citizens are usually more careful and efficient in providing good data on public issues. They work better for democracy through transparency.

The principle of demarcation: data traceability should be under certain criteria, like validity: that is, truth may not be necessary, but formal rigour is absolutely a must. Coherence of data. A heuristic in 4 stages has been drawn so that validity can be assessed depending on its traceability.

Isegory breaks with hierarchy and the deterministic approach to history. Citizenship is liquid and it is on a daily basis, on doing, that institutions are built. Permissions have to be dealt with under the light of freedom of expression, not intellectual property.

Data preservation and illicit actions in matters of intellectual property: a constitutional vision of the Directive 2006/24.
María Concepción Torres Díaz, Profesora de Derecho Constitucional, Universidad de Alicante.

What is the possibility and/or the impact on law that ISP reveal personal data in case of infraction of intellectual property rights? What are the rights affected? Privacy, data protection, secret of communications, intellectual property rights. Which is the priority? And in case where priorities were fixed on whether the crime is felony, how do we describe what constitutes felony?

In principle, personal date have to be available for research purposes, and detection and prosecution of serious crime.

Thus, depending on each specific case, it has to be accurately assessed the purpose of disclosing personal data. In any case, the Court of Justice of the European Union allows the disclosure of personal data if the national law (in this case in Sweden) also allows this disclosure.

The balance between intellectual property and data protection: on the changing weight of a new law.
Gloria González Fuster, Researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Research Group on Law Science Technology & Society (LSTS) (Belgium).

SABAM (the Belgian authors association) in Scarlett Extended vs. SABAM and SABAM vs. Netlog asked for content filtering because of copyright infringement. Both cases have been partly cited as good examples for voting against ACTA.

Historically, the Court of Justice of the European Union has been inconsistent and changing on the way it has approached data protection when the later has been confronted against intellectual property rights. The problem has always been finding the correct balance between data protection or privacy and intellectual property rights.

In the cases of Scarlett Extended and Netlog, the Court of Justice of the European Union states that imposing filtering systems does not respect the fair balance between intellectual property rights and the right of personal data protection.

The “Ley Sinde”: a lost opportunity to regulate online entertainment in Spain.
Ercilia García Álvarez, Catedrática Facultad de Economía y Empresa Universidad Rovira i Virgili; Jordi López Sintas, Profesor Titular de Universidad Facultad de Economía y Empresa Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona; Sheila Sánchez Bergara, Estudiante de Doctorado de la Universidad Rovira i Virgili.

Recently, there have been new practices in online entertainment that carry with them new legal tensions and legal answers to these tensions (both at the academic and legislator levels). But these answers have not really fit reality or practice. History has shown that there is an unbalance or bias towards intellectual property right holders, and users are usually last in line.

The Spanish “Ley Sinde” has not solved any of these problems. There are neither changes in consumption or practices nor in business models.

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