ICTlogy

Chairs: Raquel Xalabarder. Professor, School of Law and Political Science (UOC).

Ramon Casas Vallès. Professor of Intellectual Property at University of Barcelona.
Ten years of intellectual property on the Internet law reforms

The ancient Spanish Law of Intellectual Property (1979) was technologically neutral and thus could be applied in reality despite the many evolutions of technology.

But the new Law of 1987 had to face many issues: new technologies, European law, and the particularities of Spain.

The frontiers between what is public and private and between what is usage and what is delivering have blurred. What is now usage? What is now exploitation? Now, using can mean exploitation of affect those who are trying to benefit from exploitation.

On the other hand, the concept of reproduction has also changed. We now reproduce everytime we browse the Internet. Which does not mean it goes against intellectual property rights. But is there exploitation every time we distribute and/or communicate? Google Books is a good example of distribution without the aim of exploiting, as it is the information about the book what is exploited, despite the fact that the whole content is communicated.

The concept of distribution and public broadcasting are different in Europe and Spain.

There are several issues that relate to Spanish institutions and uses, such as piracy or “piracy”. The issue of piracy was addressed with the right to private copy and the right to compensation to the right holders.

As circumventing the former law became quite easy — both technically, both legally — the new (coming) law what directly does is trimming many user rights. On the other hand, the costs of exploitation or loss of benefits of exploitation of some intellectual property rights do not fall upon the users or potential users, but upon the costs of the whole citizenry, as they are supported by the State budgets.

In the new project of law, vicarious cooperation of induction to illegal use will also be punished, such as creating software to enable P2P file sharing.

Discussion

Francisco Jurado: how can we punish coding a technology that may enable illegal file sharing but also legal file sharing? Casas: there are two logics here. The technological one: if it can be done, so be it. And the legal one: if it can be done, let us think whether we want this to be. And the legal thinking on P2P file sharing should be whether we want that. And we want that depending on the majority use of such technology. If the 99% of uses is illegal, maybe we should ban a certain technology, despite its “it’s-possible-so-let’s-do-it” nature.

Q: intellectual property law is still focused on protection, and it seems that creation has been left aside. Is that it? Casas: intellectual property is not the origin, but the consequence of creation. And property is about the right to decide what the creator can do with her work. Do we need to foster creation because it is in the public benefit that there is more creation, etc, etc, etc? Right, but always respecting the particular decisions of the individual upon her creation.

Q: how long can we keep the regulation of copyright on a national basis, or we have to have an international (common) copyright law? Casas: It is impossible to protect intellectual property rights without international standards. It has always been so (the Bern agreement, the OMPI treatments, etc.) and we will see more of that.

Q: what happens with streaming? what happens with ebooks and used software? how can we compute the damage to right holders? Casas: it is very difficult to compute what is the damage to right holders. In the case of Spain, the calculations have been “how much am I (as the Government) willing to pay?”. Used software: does not apply in Spain. Streaming is public communication.

Chairs: Joan Balcells. Lecturer, School of Law and Political Science (UOC).

Helen Margetts. Director of the Oxford Internet Institute. Professor of Society and the Internet at the OII, University of Oxford.
Chaotic pluralism. Politics after a decade of social media

How has changing use of social media affected politics over the last decade? And what model of democracy, if any, has encapsulated what is going on?

Pluralism has surely been the winner in the bets: more competing elements in democracy, diversity of political institutions and policy-making, the existence a group for every interest, counter-mobilization undermining monopolistic exercise of power, etc.

In the last 10 years, more people have gone online, in the whole world. There has been a rapid growth of Internet penetration almost everywhere. And not only more people is online, but people is spending more and more time online too: especially on social media.

Tiny acts of action or collaboration on the Internet have been possible: micro-donations of money and time. The aggregation of these micro-donations are very important, but are causing a strong debate on whether this is politics, or clicktivism, slacktivism or what. But the think is that many people that would never participate in politics, now do. And this tiny participation can scale up to massive participation and engagement.

But these mobilizations are unstable, unpredictable. There is a new ecology of participation which we still do not know how it works. We know that much or e-petitions fail, but that it is not about the issue (which is not important), but about other aspects. On the other hand, we see many small changes and few large changes. We can see tipping points that, when reached, they position the petition above the threshold of success.

The dynamics of political participation:

• Exposition to social information, about the participation of others. On social media, you know, in real-time, what other people are doing, what are they voting or supporting.
• Visibility vs. anonymity. This duality influences the way you and/or your peers participate.
• Network effects.

Leadership without leaders: social media platforms provide ‘zero-touch’ co-ordination; rather thnn institutions, organizations; political action needs starters and followers to mobilize, but no necessarily leaders.

We are heading to chaotic pluralism: a pluralist pattern of competing interests, more disorganized but also much more active.

But chaotic pluralism offers us the means to understand it: every single act takes place in a digital environment, it leaves a trace, it generates big data, with natural science models, with experiments, etc.

Chaothic pluralism payoffs: social media provide a continuous flow of information between governors and government; social media as a barometer of public services, means of self improvement; government seeing like a citizen, rather than a state.

Chaotic pluralism challenges: natural science and social science having to work together, in multi-disciplinary teams; education and training to understand big data; reputational challenges of this research; new ethical frameworks.

Discussion

Q: to what extent can you trust people that there are no leaders? aren’t there leaders, even if there are informal ones? To what extent is it just rethorics that there are no leaders? Margetts: It is true that there is people that are at the core of mobilizations, or at organizing and promoting something. And it is true that these headless organizations have the risk of some people “taking over”, but there is too much chaos for the concept of “taking over” even applying to this kind of organization. Organizations are qualitatively different.

The proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Internet, Law & Politics (IDP 2013): Challenges and Opportunities of Online Entertainment are already available for download.

Content, besides some minor editing, has followed the originals, so the reader will find articles both in Spanish or English.

To cite this work we suggest using any of the following references:

Balcells, J., Cerrillo i Martínez, A., Peguera, M., Peña-López, I., Pifarré de Moner, M.J., & Vilasau Solana, M. (coords.) (2012). Big Data. Retos y Oportunidades. Actas del IX Congreso Internacional, Internet, Derecho y Política. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona 25-26 Junio, 2013. Barcelona: UOC-Huygens Editorial.

Balcells, J., Cerrillo i Martínez, A., Peguera, M., Peña-López, I., Pifarré de Moner, M.J., & Vilasau Solana, M. (coords.) (2012). Big Data. Challenges and Opportunities. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Internet, Law & Politics. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona 25-26 June, 2012. Barcelona: UOC-Huygens Editorial.

Balcells, J., Cerrillo i Martínez, A., Peguera, M., Peña-López, I., Pifarré de Moner, M.J., & Vilasau Solana, M. (coords.) (2012). Big Data. Retos y Oportunidades. Actas del IX Congreso Internacional, Internet, Derecho y Política. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona 25-26 Junio, 2013. Barcelona: UOC-Huygens Editorial.

Moderadora: Mònica Vilasau. Lecturer, School of Law and Political Science (UOC).

The use of Big Data to generate behaviours
Ramon Miralles, Coordinator of Auditing and Security of Information. Catalan Data Protection Authority

Service providers are often accused of lack of clear information, lack of specific usage of the data they are collecting, etc. Besides — or added to — this lack of clarity, data is increasingly becoming a source of wealth, and thus leads to changes of relationships of power and new behaviours.

A detailed analysis of big data, can it induce to changes in behaviour? e.g. the Obama team found that women aged 35-50 y.o. usually had many photos of George Clooney on Facebook. After realizing that, there was a sensible increase of the number of public appearances of Barack Obama besides George Clooney and the number of photos that they shared… and which of course were distributed on social networking sites.

But are there behaviours which there is a consensus that they are bad (xenophobia, racism) and which could/should be fought with the use of big data? Is there still room for free will? Should we change our regulatory framework to adapt it to these new realities/policies? Would it be, on the other hand, fair or legitimate?

Or maybe the terms of use could include new clauses (premium clauses?) in which the service provider would inform the user of the usage of their personal data?

Automated Journalism: Artificial Intelligence Transforms Data into Stories — When data protection principles and privacy protect the right to express opinions freely and to receive accurate information
Cédric Goblet. Lawyer at the Brussels Bar

Can a robot replace a journalist? Narrative Science’s Quill is able to write human-readable articles or pieces of news after a collection of specific data. A robot implies loss of all editorial autonomy, no verification of the sources, lack of analysis of the information with a critical eye and independence, or the mistaken belief that a machine will be neutral and objective. It is very likely that machine-made pieces of news will result in a tendency towards infotainment and fostering an echo chamber effect.

Big Data: A Challenge for Data Protection
Philipp E. Fischer, Ph.D. candidate (IN3 Research Institute, UOC Barcelona), LL.M. in intellectual property law (Queen Mary University of London / TU Dresden); Ricardo Morte Ferrer, Lawyer (Abogado), Master of Laws (UOC). Tutor for law studies (Grado en Derecho) at the UOC. Legal adviser for the TClouds Project at the ULD, Kiel

One of the main challenges in data protection is the high asymmetries in the relationships of power between service providers and end users: there may be no alternative to that service, there may be not all the information in the terms of service, there may even not be the whole information in these terms of service, etc.

The right to data protection in the public administration
Rosa Cernada Badía, Investigadora de la Universidad de Valencia

In the administration of Justice, communications usually publish data from the citizens. Before a law of public information reutilization and another law protecting personal data, it is obvious that a conflict arises.

But not only a technical or legal solution is needed, but also a political commitment that settles interoperability, responsibilities, allocation of resources to manage information and data, etc.

Moderator: Maria Àngels Barbarà i Fondevila. Director, Catalan Data Protection Authority

Internet social networks, non-contractual liability for infringements of data protection rights by the data controller and International Private Law
Alfonso Ortega Giménez, Profesor de Derecho internacional privado de la Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche (Alicante)

The dramatic growth of participation in social networking sites can be approached from the international private law.

Users normally accept all the terms of conditions of social networking sites. But what law is to be applied? It depends. In these terms it is normally stated what law and what jurisdiction is to be applied. Thus, the user is not protected by the law as there is a high degree of defencelessness as they have to deal with “foreign” laws most of the times.

Big Data and Social Control In The Perspective Of Proposed EU Reform On Data Protection
Alessandro Mantelero, Polytechnic University of Turin; Giuseppe Vaciago, University of Insubria.

There is an asymmetric distribution of the control over information. Interaction between the private and the public sector is mediated by these data and this imbalance of power.

There is a political and strategical value of the European regulation on data protection, as there is a predominance of US companies in the ICT sector, which implies an influence of the US administration on national companies.

Indeed, is not only about jurisdiction in terms of what law applies, but also the fact that most data of European citizens are stored overseas (usually in the US).

An added political/strategic/security issue, then, is that the US Administration can require the firms in US soil (e.g. most of all in cloud services) to access all the data in their silos.

Data portability reduces the risk of lock in as it allows for transferring data from one place to another. In this sense, it also reduces monopolistic practices, reduces the power of the service provider and eases establishing more balanced regulation.

E-Health in the Age of Big Data: The EU Proposed Regulation on Health Data Protection
Panagiotis Kitsos, LLM, PhD. IT Law Team, Dept. of Applied Informatics. University of Macedonia, Researcher; Aikaterini Yannoukakou, Librarian MSc. IT Law Team, Dept. of Applied Informatics. University of Macedonia, PhD candidate

What are the challenges that big data poses in the field of e-Health? Many uses so far: drug data extracted from prescription records, devide data collected from implantable cardiac devices, clinical data collected form medical records and medical images, claims and financial data, patient behaviour and sentiment data, etc. All these are already transforming healthcare.

But there are many privacy concerns, most of the related to the possibility to “re-identify” patients even if their respective data has been anonymised.

Another concern is the right to be forgotten in relationship with health records.

Maybe we have to move from what to protect to how to protect.

Discussion

Barbarà: is consent enough to protect the citizen? Is it informed enough to count as valid?

Ricardo Morte: if there are issues with jurisdiction, it is very likely that the citizen cannot appeal to the Constitutional Court. Is that this way? Is there any “equivalent” at the international/European level? Ortega: the problem comes not in what falls within the framework of the (commercial) agreement, which is quite well contemplated by the current regulation, but in what falls outside of the framework of the agreement, in what is extra-contractual.

Moderator: Rosa Borge. Lecturer, School of Law and Political Science (UOC).

Invited speaker: Techno-politics and 15M. Models, data, hypothesis and analysis of political action in the network society
Javier Toret, Researcher and activist. Author of Tecnopolítica: la potencia de las multitudes conectadas. El sistema red 15M, un nuevo paradigma de la política distribuida.

This research has a different approach from the usual one: there is no theory that aims at being validated by data, but lots of data, an event, that is being analysed to see whether a theory or an explanation can be inferred.

Hacking + activism + netstrike = hacktivism. Technopolitics.

The crisis is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the movement to take place. The narrative and the previous experiences on the net, the evolution of memes (memethics) and campaigns, etc. are very important to set up the movements. In this sense, there is a “migration” of hashtags across several movements. On the other hand, most of the people that participated were already users of social networking sites. And not only social networking sites, but social movements in general: there is a powerful online-offline hybridization of participation.

Technopolitics is not cyberactivism, because it also happens outside of the net; and it is not slacktivism, because there is much more than just uncommitted online politics.

Multilayer approach: the physical layer, the media layer, the technological layer, etc.

Technopolitics is becoming a pattern, and an important one, all over the world’s politics.

Again, there is a high correlation between the online and the offline world, between Facebook groups and local (physical/offline) groups.

A technologically structured contagion took place during the indignados movement. How does this contagion happens? Emotions play a major role, are central in the movement.

Emotions, vocabulary, etc. are really synced during the movement, especially during offline events (and their replica online).

It is important to note the different organizational structures between parties — hierarchic, isolated — and the movement — decentralized, networked.

Spanish Indignados and the evolution of 15M: towards networked para-institutions
Ismael Peña-López, Professor at the School of Law and Political Science of the Open University of Catalonia; Mariluz Congosto, Researcher at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid; Pablo Aragón, Researcher at Barcelona Media Foundation

The study of social mobilization in the age of Big Data
Jorge L Salcedo M, Investigador Grupo Democracia Elecciones y Ciudadanía UAB, Consultor Universitat Oberta de Catalunya; Camilo Cristancho, Investigador Grupo Democracia Elecciones y Ciudadanía, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona

Central question in social science research: behaviour, communication, information dynamics. And methodological challenges: influence networks, actor attributes and roles, context and case studies.

What are the consequences of social media use on mobilization and diffusion? What are the bridges and commonalities between computer and social sciences?

The aim of the research is finding what is the state of the art of research in the field of mobilization and its relationship with social networking sites. A literature review for the period 2007-2013 was carried on.

Diffusion is based on the adoption of a practice or features through different channels. It depends on the message, the information dynamics, actors and the network structure. Some organizations play key roles in some mobilization processes, and specifically, the resources of these organizations. These resources can also be social capital, linkages and opportunities.

The relationship between actors, indeed, can tell us much about the probability that a movement can go on, can evolve, can grow.

Organizations are usually “sense makers”, they provide good explanations for what is happening in reality, they provide frames, scenarios, diagnosis, identify the main subjects. We know little, though, how the context changes, what are the group dynamics.

Concerning future research, we have to take into account the diffusion processes that involve information dynamics but also practices (tractics, strategies) and cultural norms. On the other hand, are we putting to much hope on Twitter or other social networking sites? We have also to analyze network linkages, formal structures vs. communication dynamics.