Providing a comprehensive explanation of blockchain, cryptocurrency and the international regulation and challenges that apply, this book introduces the reader to the core topics, including: global regulation of blockchain and cryptoassets; the Internet of Things; the Right to be Forgotten and the right to erasure; environmental, social and governance metrics; smart contracts; initial coin offerings; data protection regulation; Decentralised Autonomous Organisations ('DAOs') and the Metaverse. Written by leading UK experts in cyber law, the Second Edition includes: - fungible and non-fungible cryptoassets ('NFTs') - remedy and tracing strategies - financial hygiene requirements that flow from anti-money laundering - counter-terrorist financing regulations. Explaining the fundamentals of blockchain and cryptocurrency in an accessible and understandable way, and sparking new thinking about how old problems can be solved in new ways, this book is essential reading for anyone wishing to have a wider understanding of this complex and evolving area of law.

This is the first book-length treatment of the advancement of EU global data flows and digital trade through the framework of European institutionalisation. Drawing on case studies of EU-US, EU-Japan and EU-China relations it charts the theoretical and empirical approaches at play. It illustrates how the EU has pioneered high standards in data flows and how it engages in significant digital trade reforms, committed to those standards. The book marks a major shift in how institutionalisation and the EU should be viewed as it relates to two of the more extraordinary areas of global governance: trade and data flows. This significant book will be of interest to EU constitutional lawyers, as well as those researching in the field of IT and data law.

This book explores to what extent constitutional principles are put under strain in the social media environment, and how constitutional safeguards can be established for the actors and processes that govern this world: in other words, how to constitutionalise social media. Millions of individuals around the world use social media to exercise a broad range of fundamental rights. However, the governance of online platforms may pose significant threats to our constitutional guarantees. The chapters in this book bring together a multi-disciplinary group of experts from law, political science, and communication studies to examine the challenges of constitutionalising what today can be considered the modern public square. The book analyses the ways in which online platforms exercise a sovereign authority within their digital realms, and sheds light on the ambiguous relationship between social media platforms and state regulators. The chapters critically examine multiple methods of constitutionalising social media, arguing that the constitutional response to the global challenges generated by social media is necessarily plural and multilevel. All topics are presented in an accessible way, appealing to scholars and students in the fields of law, political science and communication studies. The book is an essential guide to understanding how to preserve constitutional safeguards in the social media environment.

The idea of a right to privacy, which arose in reaction to the rapid rise of newspapers, instant photography and the ""paparazzi"" of the 19th century, has evolved into a constitutional right in much of the developed world. It is enshrined in Hong Kong through Articles 28, 29, 30 and 39 of the Basic Law. Hong Kong stands proud as the first jurisdiction in Asia to enact legislation to safeguard personal data in the form of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance, Cap 486 (""the Ordinance"") which came into force in 1996. At its centre are the six Data Protection Principles based on the 1980 OECD Guidelines. The office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data was created under this legislation to provide oversight and ensure compliance. The Octopus scandal in mid-2010 eventually led to substantial changes being made to the Ordinance that were enacted in 2021 and 2013, the main amendments being the Direct Marketing provisions and the provision of legal assistance and representation to aggrieved persons. In this digital age, the Ordinance is proving to be the main safeguard of our privacy rights. The Data Protection Principles seek to create broad common principles based on fairness that apply to the public and private sectors. The passage of twenty years since the enactment of the Ordinance has given rise to a substantial body of case law and adminstrative decisions on these principles and the other provisions of the Ordinance. The new amendments have already been the subject of judicial scrutiny. This publication, which replaces its predecessor, has the dual aim of becoming a practitioner's guide on the important subject of personal data privacy, containing, as it does, a detailed exposition of the principles and provisions in the Ordinance and a comprehensive source of reference materials, and of enabling the Privacy Commissioner to discharge his major duty to promote awareness and understanding of the Ordinance. The second edition includes not only a full discussion of these principles, but also summaries of all the seminal cases and Administrative Appeals Board rulings in this area, as well as a comprehensive list of all the pertinent cases.

This book explores how the Internet impacts on the protection of fundamental rights, particularly with regard to freedom of speech and privacy. In doing so, it seeks to bridge the gap between Internet Law and European and Constitutional Law. The book aims to emancipate the debate on internet law and jurisprudence from the dominant position, with specific reference to European legal regimes. This approach aims to inject a European and constitutional "soul" into the topic. Moreover, the book addresses the relationship between new technologies and the protection of fundamental rights within the theoretical debate surrounding the process of European integration, with particular emphasis on judicial dialogue. This innovative book provides a thorough analysis of the forms, models and styles of judicial protection of fundamental rights in the digital era and compares the European vision to that of the United States. The book offers the first comparative analysis in which the notion of (judicial) frame, borrowed from linguistic and cognitive studies, is systematically applied to the theories of interpretation and argumentation. With a Foreword by Robert Spano, President of the European Court of Human Rights.

WHAT IF YOUR BOSS WAS AN ALGORITHM? The gig economy promises to revolutionise work as we know it, offering flexibility and independence instead of 9-to-5 drudgery. The potential benefits are enormous: consumers enjoy the convenience and affordability of on-demand work while micro-entrepreneurs turn to online platforms in search of their next gig, task, or ride. IS THIS THE FUTURE OF WORK? This book offers an engaging account of work in the gig economy across the world. Competing narratives abound: on-demand gigs offer entrepreneurial flexibility - or precarious work, strictly controlled by user ratings and algorithmic surveillance. Platforms' sophisticated technology is the product of disruptive innovation - whilst the underlying business model has existed for centuries. HOW CAN WE PROTECT CONSUMERS & WORKERS WITHOUT STIFLING INNOVATION? As courts and governments around the world begin to grapple with the gig economy, Humans as a Service explores the challenges of on-demand work, and explains how we can ensure decent working conditions, protect consumers, and foster innovation. Employment law plays a central role in levelling the playing field: gigs, tasks, and rides are work - and should be regulated as such.

Internet intermediaries play a central role in modern commerce and society. Although their economic and social importance is well-recognised, their legal liability remains poorly understood, and, until now, no work has specifically addressed their legal responsibility for wrongdoing carried out by third parties using their facilities or platforms. This work fills that gap by providing comprehensive coverage of the legal duties owed by intermediaries and the increasingly complex schemes that regulate their activities. The first part of the work introduces the concept of an internet intermediary, general doctrines of primary and secondary liability, and the European enforcement regime. The second part examines the liability of intermediaries in specific areas of law, with a detailed analysis of the applicable liability rules, and the major English case law, and decisions of the Court of Justice that interpret and apply them. The final part of the work provides guidance on remedies and limitations. Written by an expert author from the intellectual property chambers at 8 New Square, Lincoln's Inn, this is an essential guide for lawyers advising on liability, privacy, and online regulation.

This book considers jurisdictional issues on violations of personality rights through the Internet under the so-called 'Brussels-Lugano Regime' and centres on the special rule of jurisdiction in matters relating to tort, delict, or quasi-delict. It notes the governing objectives and underlying principles of this special rule; analyses its interpretation through the judgments of the ECJ, especially Bier, Shevill, and eDate and Martinez; and explores views expressed in legal theory and national judicial practice regarding its application for localising online violations of personality rights. The book aims to examine how the eDate and Martinez approaches advance administrability, predictability, and litigational justice and to assess whether they are suitable jurisdictional bases in Europe, where common legal norms, interests, and values increasingly integrate and connect persons. It concludes that they are not and recommends their possible reform.

Now in its second edition, this work contains a collection of sample agreements, presenting annotated contracts from the digital media sector in typical formats used by the industry. It includes agreements for wireless apps, digital downloads, user generated content, social networks, and cloud content. The work goes beyond traditional precedents by giving practical, business-minded commentary and background information to assist both readers intending to draft their own documents and those looking for hands-on guidance when reviewing standard form documents received from other parties. Its commercially-grounded approach will be of value to business affairs teams, entrepreneurs and start-ups in the digital media space as well as legal professionals working in private practice or in-house. Its primary jurisdictional focus is the UK but its scope is international with extensive comparative law comments and practical cross-border guidance for our connected online world. This sector-specialist guide is now supported by an accompanying website with agreements available to download and edit, as well as additional supporting material in the text itself .

This collection analyses the regulatory aspects of harmful interference faced by those entities operating space communication and broadcasting. While technology reacts to this international phenomenon with the development of continuously improving technological systems for preventing and combating harmful interference, its international regulatory and legal framework develops at a much slower pace. Issues discussed include the increasing deterioration of signals from broadcasting and communication satellites, including cases of intentional interference known as `jamming'; the human rights balance between freedom of expression and protection from hate speech; the efficacy of the current regulatory system and the legal consequences of non-compliance; the role of national authorities, and supranational bodies such as the EU and UN. The contributors include experts drawn from international and national academia, the ITU, national regulatory authorities and operators to present an international, multidimensional, and critical analysis of this complex phenomenon.

Cellular technology has always been a surveillance technology, but "cellular convergence" - the growing trend for all forms of communication to consolidate onto the cellular handset - has dramatically increased the impact of that surveillance. In Cellular Convergence and the Death of Privacy, Stephen Wicker explores this unprecedented threat to privacy from three distinct but overlapping perspectives: the technical, the legal, and the social. Professor Wicker first describes cellular technology and cellular surveillance using language accessible to non-specialists. He then examines current legislation and Supreme Court jurisprudence that form the framework for discussions about rights in the context of cellular surveillance. Lastly, he addresses the social impact of surveillance on individual users. The story he tells is one of a technology that is changing the face of politics and economics, but in ways that remain highly uncertain.

Mass digitization of texts, images, and other creative works promises to unprecedentedly enhance access to culture and knowledge. With the electronic 'library of Alexandria' having started to materialize, a number of legal and policy issues have emerged. The book develops an extended conceptual account of the ways in which mass digital projects challenge the established copyright norms through the wholesale copying of works, their storage in cloud environments, and their automated processing for purposes of data analytics and text mining. As individual licensing is not compatible with the mass scale of these activities, alternative approaches have gained momentum as effect of judicial interpretation, legislative initiative and private-ordering solutions. This book queries the normative and policy implications of this newly emerging framework in copyright law. Adopting a cross-jurisdictional perspective, it concludes that lack of clarity as to the scope of authorial consent does not only bear the risk of legal uncertainty, but can also lead to the creation of new and not readily transparent monopolies on information and knowledge. In this respect, a new regulatory framework is outlined drawing from the insights developed in areas of law where the concept of consent in the use of data has been thoroughly elaborated. Illustrating how mass digitization unveils a number of unsettled theoretical issues within copyright, the book builds a sophisticated case that digital repositories in the mass digital age should be and remain fully-fledged public goods to the benefit of future generations.

Do copyright laws directly cause people to create works they otherwise wouldn't create? Do those laws directly put substantial amounts of money into authors' pockets? Does culture depend on copyright? Are copyright laws a key driver of competitiveness and of the knowledge economy?
These are the key questions William Patry addresses in How to Fix Copyright. We all share the goals of increasing creative works, ensuring authors can make a decent living, furthering culture and competitiveness and ensuring that knowledge is widely shared, but what role does copyright law actually play in making these things come true in the real world? Simply believing in lofty goals isn't enough. If we want our goals to come true, we must go beyond believing in them; we must ensure they come true, through empirical testing and adjustment.
Patry argues that laws must be consistent with prevailing markets and technologies because technologies play a large (although not exclusive) role in creating consumer demand; markets then satisfy that demand. Patry discusses how copyright laws arose out of eighteenth-century markets and technology, the most important characteristic of which was artificial scarcity. Artificial scarcity was created by the existence of a small number gatekeepers, by relatively high barriers to entry, and by analog limitations on copying.
Markets and technologies change, in a symbiotic way, Patry asserts. New technologies create new demand, requiring new business models. The new markets created by the Internet and digital tools are the greatest ever: Barriers to entry are low, costs of production and distribution are low, the reach is global, and large sums of money can be made off of a multitude of small transactions. Along with these new technologies and markets comes the democratization of creation; digital abundance is replacing analog artificial scarcity.
The task of policymakers is to remake our copyright laws to fit our times: our copyright laws, based on the eighteenth century concept of physical copies, gatekeepers, and artificial scarcity, must be replaced with laws based on access not ownership of physical goods, creation by the masses and not by the few, and global rather than regional markets. Patry's view is that of a traditionalist who believes in the goals of copyright but insists that laws must match the times rather than fight against the present and the future.

This book is concerned with the nature of computer misuse and the legal and extra-legal responses to it. It explores what is meant by the term 'computer misuse' and charts its emergence as a problem as well as its expansion in parallel with the continued progression in computing power, networking, reach and accessibility. In doing so, it surveys the attempts of the domestic criminal law to deal with some early manifestations of computer misuse and the consequent legislative passage of the Computer Misuse Act 1990.

This book will be of interest to students of IT law as well as to sociologists and criminologists, and those who have a professional concern with preventing computer misuse and fraud.

Rights, Regulation and the Technological Revolution confronts a central question facing modern government - how can regulators respond to both the challenges and opportunities presented by a technologically-driven society without sacrificing legitimacy for effectiveness, or weakening the essential conditions of a stable, aspirant moral community?
Analyzing developments across biotechnology, information and communications technology, nanotechnology and neurotechnology, the book explores the difficulties facing the public control of rapid technological change, focusing on the problems of regulatory effectiveness, connection, legitimacy and compliance. The book argues that as regulators struggle to find adequate frameworks to limit, license and support new technologies, they will increasingly rely on a technological approach to complement, enhance, and even replace traditional legal strategies.
The book breaks new ground by offering the first overarching commentary on the relationship between regulators, industry, and wider society as the new technologies of the twenty-first century achieve an ever-greater penetration in our daily lives.

TV Futures: Digital Television Policy in Australia brings together leading writers from both law and media studies to examine the implications of the shift to digital television for the platforms and audiences, copyright law and media regulation. The book combines writers with expertise in media law and copyright law with those skilled in media policy and social and cultural research. Through its scope and topicality, the book substantially develops the literature on digital television to serve readers from across the fields of law, the humanities and social sciences.

The new edition of this acclaimed book gives a fully updated overview of European data protection law affecting companies, incorporating the important legal developments which have taken place since the last edition was published. These include the first three cases of the European Court of Justice interpreting the EU Data Protection Directive (95/46), the Commission's first report on the implementation of the Directive, the Data Retention Directive, new developments in international data transfers, conflicts between security requirements and data protection, and the implementation of the Electronic Communications and Privacy Directive 2002/58 in the Member States. It also covers the recent European Court of Justice decision on the controversial export of airline passenger data to the US, and expands its European overview to include the new and acceding Member States. The book contains comprehensive coverage of data protection law, while at the same time providing pragmatic guidance on the typical compliance issues that companies face. As globalization of the world economy continues, an increasing number of business issues with data protection implications have come to the foreground, for example, outsourcing, whistleblower hotlines and records management, all of which are covered in the book. The appendices have been expanded to include most sources which a company will need, such as the texts of relevant directives, the safe harbor principles and FAQs, and charts of implementation in the Member States of specific provisions of interest to business. Thus, the book is a single reference source for companies faced with data protection issues. A Chinese edition of the book was published in 2008, making it the first in-depth treatise on European data protection law published in Chinese.

Media Freedom under the Human Rights Act provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the impact of Article 10 ECHR, as received through the Human Rights Act 1998, on the substantive law governing freedom of expression in the media. Fully up to date, the book provides extensive coverage of crucial recent developments in this field; these include: the key cases of Ashworth and Punch in the area of contempt; the ground-breaking privacy decisions in Von Hannover v Germany and Campbell v MGN; full consideration of theoretical approaches to explicit speech and blasphemy, including a detailed critique of Strasbourg case-law in the area; detailed discussion of the new offence of incitement to religious hatred; the new scheme for content regulation of broadcasting under the Communications Act 2003 in the light of Prolife Alliance; a full survey of recent domestic and Strasbourg caselaw in the areas of copyright and political defamation, and analysis of the early impact of the Freedom of Information Act. The authors - both leading academics in the field - have drawn on significant comparative decisions to formulate a coherent and provocative critique of the relationship between media law and freedom of expression, and suggested principles which make a significant contribution to the legal discourse surrounding media freedom in the Human Rights Act era. The result is a book which provides a scholarly and theoretically informed analysis of this very topical subject, of interest to those studying at all levels and practising in this area of law.

Will cyberanarchy rule the net? And if we do find a way to regulate our cyberlife will national borders dissolve as the Internet becomes the first global state? In this provocative new work, Jack L. Goldsmith and Tim Wu dismiss the fashionable talk of both a 'borderless' net and of a single governing 'code'. Territorial governments can and will, they contend, exercise significant control over all aspects of Internet communications. Examining policy puzzles from e-commerce to privacy, speech and pornography, intellectual property, and cybercrime, Who Controls the Internet demonstrates that individual governments rather than private or global bodies will play that dominant role in regulation. Accessible and controversial, this work is bound to stir comment.

The Data Protection and Medical Research in Europe: PRIVIREAL series focuses on the 'Privacy in Research Ethics and Law' EC-funded project examining the implementation of Directive 95/46/EC on data protection in relation to medical research and the role of ethics committees in European countries. The series consists of five separate volumes following the complete development of the PRIVIREAL project. This volume relates to the first stage of the project regarding the implementation of the Data Protection Directive, in particular in the area of medical research. It contains an introduction and overview of this topic, keynote papers addressing specific questions on the subject, and a report on both the general implementation of the Directive and the implementation in relation to medical research in 26 European countries. The book will be invaluable for those people with an interest in data protection, medical research and their implications for each other. It lays open the actual situation across Europe, including both New Member States and Newly Associated Member States.

An accessible but comprehensive overview of Australias telecommunications regulatory framework. Written by experienced insiders, it describes the laws and policies affecting competitors and consumers, and the regulatory and self-regulatory bodies that administer them.

Now available in a paperback edition, law and technology guru Richard Susskind, author of bestselling The Future of Law, brings together in one volume eleven significant essays on the application of IT to legal practice and the administration of justice, including key topics such as knowledge management and the impact of electronic commerce and electronic government. This edition includes a new Preface, in which Susskind puts forward his views on the burst of the dotcom bubble, offers an extension to his Grid to cover in-house lawyers, and comments on the next big things in this area: e-learning, document assembly, online dispute resolution, e-mail management, and matter-centric systems.

This timely work examines the interplay between intellectual property protection and antitrust rules in the communications industry, with particular focus upon the role of externalities in that interplay. There is substantial discussion of the innovation process and of how companies leverage their intellectual property rights in order to obtain market leadership. Particular emphasis is also placed upon how legal doctrines have developed to cope with these issues, and related economic analysis is also discussed.