Law and Digital Society

In this article we argue the need for more socio-legal scrutiny in a digitally mediated and data-driven development. We focus and briefly outline socio-legally relevant aspects of the “sharing” economy, that poses a number of conceptual issues on how we understand and regulate innovative platform based ventures. This also arguably underscores a number of issues relating to the role of consumer and user data and the implications of this “datafication”, not least in terms of questions of accountability and balancing of both powers and privacy in a data-driven world that often is described as a “black box” (cf. Pasquale, 2015) in the sense that much of the automated processes – such as the workings of algorithms and third party trade of consumer data – is withheld from insight and transparency

Intellectual Property Law Compliance in Europe: Illegal File Sharing and the Role of Social Norms

The current study empirically demonstrates the widely discussed gap between copyright law and social norms. Theoretically founded in the sociology of law, the study uses a well-defined concept of norms to quantitatively measure changes in the strength of social norms before and after the implementation of legislation. The ‘IPRED law’ was implemented in Sweden on 1 April 2009, as a result of the EU IPR Enforcement Directive 2004/48/EC. It aims at enforcing copyright, as well as other IP rights, when they are violated, especially online. A survey was conducted three months before the IPRED law came into force, and it was repeated six months later. The approximately one thousand respondents between fifteen and twenty-five years-of-age showed, among other things, that although actual file-sharing behaviour had to some extent decreased in frequency, social norms remained unaffected by the law

Digital Consumption and Over-Indebtedness Among Young Adults in Sweden

This LUii report presents empirical results from studies on consumption and over-indebtedness in Swedish young adults in a digital context. The studies have been conducted through in-depth interviews with municipal financial counsellors as well as a quantitative survey with approximately 1,100 respondents in a sample representative of Swedes from 18 to 25 years old. The report includes an extensive literature review on over-indebtedness and consumption in a digital context. The purpose of the project has been to form a better understanding of in what ways the digitization of our everyday lives – including consumption, credit handling and overall communication – influences economic vulnerability among young adults. The research report is written by researchers linked to Lund University Internet Institute (LUii) and has been funded by the Swedish Enforcement Authority. The research has also been conducted in connection with a wider interdisciplinary research theme on ”The Credit Society”, at the Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies at Lund University. The research group is led by Stefan Larsson, Associate Professor in Technology and Social Change, and involves Lupita Svensson, PhD in Social Work, and Hanna Carlsson, PhD in Information Science. The work with the literature review received invaluable help from Fredrik Åström, bibliometrician and Associate Professor at Lund University. The empirical research was conducted during 2015 and early 2016

Parallel computing with graphics processing units for high-speed Monte Carlo simulation of photon migration.

General-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU) is shown to dramatically increase the speed of Monte Carlo simulations of photon migration. In a standard simulation of time-resolved photon migration in a semi-infinite geometry, the proposed methodology executed on a low-cost graphics processing unit (GPU) is a factor 1000 faster than simulation performed on a single standard processor. In addition, we address important technical aspects of GPU-based simulations of photon migration. The technique is expected to become a standard method in Monte Carlo simulations of photon migration

Online Piracy, Anonymity and Social Change – Deviance Through Innovation

This article analyses current trends in the use of anonymity services among younger Swedes (15-25) and focuses on individuals engaging in illegal file sharing in order to better understand the rationale behind both file sharing as well as online anonymity, especially in relation to enforcement of copyright. By comparing the findings of a survey conducted on three different occasions (early 2009, late 2009 and early 2012), we measure the fluctuations in the use of anonymity services among approximately 1,000 15-25-year olds in Sweden, compare them to file sharing frequencies and, to some extent, trends within legal enforcement. The article also suggests that the key to understanding any relationship between copyright enforcement and fluctuations in online anonymity can be found in the law’s relationship to social norms in terms of legitimacy by showing a correlation between file sharing frequency and the use of anonymity services. The findings indicate that larger proportions of frequent file sharers (downloaders) also use anonymity services more often than those who file share less. However, in comparison to the earlier surveys, the strongest increase in the use of anonymity services is found in the groups where file sharing is less frequent, suggesting that reasons for actively making oneself less traceable online other than avoiding copyright enforcement have emerged since the initial two surveys in 2009. Further, the overall increase (from 8.6% to 14.9%) in using anonymity services found for the whole group of respondents suggests both that high file sharing frequency is a driver for less traceability as well as a larger trend for online anonymity relating to other factors than mere file sharing of copyright infringing content – for example, increased governmental identification, data retention and surveillance in the online environment. The results are analysed in Merton’s terminology as file sharers and protocol architects adapting in terms of both innovation and rebellion in the sense that institutional means for achieving specific cultural goals are rejected. This means, to some extent, participating in or contributing to the construction of other means for reaching cultural goals