So, the long-running legal saga starring a photographer, a monkey and an animal rights organisation has finally come to an end when both parties (not the monkey) have reached a settlement. While it is not common to learn the particulars of such an agreement, lawyers for PETA have said that Read more…
One of the most over-used (yet true) legal comparisons in Internet regulation studies is to contrast the European and US approaches to freedom of speech when it comes to cyberspace. The United States favours an almost unlimited view of freedom of speech, while Europe has put in place large caveats Read more…
This may seem like an odd title given the fact that I write a blog and I also have an active social media presence. But the question of public engagement is one that does come up often in academic circles, where we are increasingly encouraged to generate impact and communicate Read more…
Amongst one of the most archaic legal arguments one can engage in, the question of whether free software licences are contracts or mere licences is up there with similar arcane questions about monkeys having rights. Thankfully I seem to be a specialist in those exact types of questions. A few Read more…
This question is as old as the Internet itself. It is often remarkable just how people behave differently when they are online, often under the guise of anonymity. The Internet allows us to become different people, to behave in ways that we cannot often behave in everyday lives. This can Read more…
Shutterstock Andres Guadamuz, University of Sussex When a group of museums and researchers in the Netherlands unveiled a portrait entitled The Next Rembrandt, it was something of a tease to the art world. It wasn’t a long lost painting but a new artwork generated by a computer that had analysed Read more…
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has made a very important decision in the case of Stichting Brein v Ziggo (C‑610/15), which involves blocking access to The Pirate Bay (TPB) and the legal nature of torrent files. This case follows a CJEU decision on multimedia players containing Read more…
I remember when I first logged on to the Internet like it was yesterday. I had been hearing rumours about this global communications network, and had met people who told me about electronic messaging systems that would send mail to people in universities around the world. It sounded like science Read more…
The world of information technology is reeling from last week’s massive ransomware attack that affected machines all over the globe. The WannaCry program is a malicious software that infects Windows computers taking advantage of a security flaw that was made public earlier this year by a hacking collective called the Read more…
The Internet of Things (IoT) is that loose definition that describes all sort of devices that are connected to the Internet, for whatever purpose. While the topic is often the subject of derision in some technological circles (honestly, who needs an online wine bottle?), there’s no doubt that we are Read more…