Law and the Internet seminar

Law and Internet are two things we all think we are aware of. We know what the Law is (or at least study it) and as global children we for sure know what is Internet. When you try to combine these two subjects, it turns out that Internet law is pretty tricky. Not only it is hard to imagine what we are dealing with (as it mostly covers relations concerning intangible goods) but it is also hard to define applicable law (since multiple countries are involved).

This rapidly developing area even in theory seems controversial, so hearing the thoughts from practicing lawyers was a good idea both for those, who had just started studying law and for students that have taken a couple of courses in the IP and IT law areas.

First two lawyers (Antti Innanen and Jaakko Lindgrèn) described briefly the key issues in digital world and data transfer. Antti Innanen has started with explaining what is value in general understanding and what value means in digital world. We all can agree that the more advanced our technologies becomes, the more we go away from the old-fashioned sense of value and comes to the “value of the intangibles”, that has overcome “the value of the tangibles”. Antti stressed that we have to understand it the sooner the better since we will most likely might work in some related areas.  Jaakko Lindgrèn focused his presentation on data protection. I would share the opinion of many lawyers if say that this issue is highly underestimated. Some of support an idea that we are “not that important” for government, big brother or anyone else to surf our interned history, others are convinced that we have to minimize usage of traced souses and be very close to writing encrypted messages to our friends in advertisement areas of “Turun Sanomat”. The truth is, as always, somewhere in between.

The third presenter, Jussi Kari, had shared very practical points of BitTorrent and copyright Letters sending that is happening now in Finland and in other countries. We have to agree with him that it is both cash grab and effective anti-piracy but still a little bit more a cash grab. Jussi showed some statistics about sending the letters within the years, the costs for maintenance of such and also explained what the possible solutions to the issue are. Not only the topic was engaging but also the practical approach to the presenting. I believe Jussi was able to interest everyone: the way of his explaining was simple and understandable so students with general understanding of issues and students, who are conduction their researches in the relevant areas, were also interested in practical issues as it is always interesting to observe how theory finds its fulfillment on practice.

As the last word I have to thank ELSA Turku for organizing such event. I hope many of the bachelor degree students will now be more interested in Law and the Interned and more seminars will be held.

Ganna Burynska
LIS-student

Pictures: Antti Malmberg & Noora Wilén