Attention under repair: asceticism from self-care to care of the self

This essay examines the contemporary mindfulness movement as a cultural response to a larger problem of attention in the United States. As raw material for both capital (re)production and subjectivity, attention is a zone of indeterminacy and struggle for workers in a so-called immaterial economy. This essay suggests that the rise of concern around “paying attention” from the 1950s onward is driven by post-Fordist labor requirements more than networked technologies. First, it examines mindfulness as a technique of attention management for businesses and gives a broad survey of its current popularity and prevalence in US culture. Second, it proposes viewing techniques of attention like mindfulness through a triple lens of repair: (1) as managerial tools to repair psychic labor capacity for capital; (2) as practices that subjects use to repair alienation; and (3) as sites for reparative reading. Third, the essay illuminates the ties between Eve Sedgwick’s repair and Michel Foucault’s care of the self in order to suggest that resistance to practicing the self is founded on a paranoid defense. Its central argument is that attention is a method in Foucault's care of the self, and, as such, a potential portal into pleasure and political change rather than a mere feedback loop into capital.     

China's stance on the Google/Motorola merger: Implications for competition in intellectual property-intensive sectors

China's merger enforcement agency approved the Google/Motorola merger with conditions. This pattern of approval is not in full accordance with that in other jurisdictions, including the United States and the European Union, which made unconditional approvals. This contradiction attracted ample criticism; some critics believe that China's policy is designed to protect domestic industry. In investigating the Chinese merger agency's decision and the basis for its decision making, this article finds that much of the criticism is groundless and misleading because the critics have failed to incorporate all elements of the global value chain of mobile intelligent terminals into their analyses. The investigation also shows that, although the decision makers are less experienced, their decisions are based on Chinese competition law and market realities. It is important for international firms to be aware of this pattern in merger analysis.     

The Google conundrum: Perpetrator or facilitator on the net? - Forging a fair copyright framework of rights, liability and responsibility in response to search engine 2.0 - Part II: The Google Books Search Project

Is Google in its quest for search engine optimization through the creation of new technologies, which not only improves its search algorithms but also refines its search functions for users, doing it in a manner that makes it a perpetrator of primary copyright infringement or an invaluable facilitator for Internet functionality? How should the balance of interests in the treatment of creative works be recalibrated in the face of changes in search engine technology and operations, and the disputes that have arisen within the last decade in the context of the digital age and its needs? Using Google as a case study, this paper will look at the two main areas of dispute over the operations of information locator tools and services that either threatens search engine functionality and efficiency or weakens copyright holders’ exclusive rights. It proposes a concerted set of solutions through a reassessment and amendment of copyright law to optimize the social benefits and objectives of both the copyright regime and technological innovations in the electronic model of information archiving, indexing and delivery. A fair distribution of responsibilities and allocation of rights and liabilities will be suggested. In the process, due consideration will be given to both public and private interests, with the former taking precedence; while the recommended solutions will be made within the currently outdated framework for Internet intermediary protection (i.e. safe harbor laws) and exceptions (i.e. specific statutory exemptions and the general fair use defense) under the existing copyright regime. Thus, the proposed changes will be far reaching without being too radical a departure from current law, an evolution that will likely be more acceptable and realistic a solution to the problem.This paper is published in two parts. Part One of this paper published in the previous edition of the CLSR at [2011] 27 CLSR 110-131 dealt with the challenges to the copyright regime posed by the operations and technology behind the Google Images Search Engine, while Part Two will assess the benefits of the Google Books Search Project vis-à-vis the effects it will have on the scope of copyright protection. Recommendations are made to copyright law to accommodate both functions while generally preserving the main objectives of copyright protection.     

More Bang for the Buck: Media Coverage of Suicide Attacks

ABSTRACT

This paper provides empirical evidence that suicide attacks systematically draw more media attention than non-suicide terrorist attacks. Analyzing 60,341 terrorist attack days in 189 countries from 1970 to 2012, I introduce a methodology to proxy for the media coverage each one of these attack days receives in the New York Times. Suicide attacks are associated with significantly more coverage. In the most complete regression, one suicide attack produces an additional 0.6 articles—a magnitude equivalent to the effect of 95 terrorism casualties. This link remains robust to including a comprehensive list of potentially confounding factors, fixed effects, and country-specific time trends. The effect is reproduced for alternative print and television outlets (BBC, Reuters, CNN, NBC, CBS), but remains weak for Google Trends (worldwide and in the U.S.), a more direct proxy for people’s interests, and is non-existent for C-SPAN, a television station dedicated to broadcasting political discussions directly. Thus, the media appears to cover suicide missions in an extraordinary fashion, which may in turn explain their prominence among terrorist organizations.     

The Google conundrum: Perpetrator or facilitator on the net? – Forging a fair copyright framework of rights, liability and responsibility in response to search engine 2.0 – Part I: The Google Images Search Engine

Is Google in its quest for search engine optimization through the creation of new technologies, which not only improves its search algorithms but also refines its search functions for users, doing it in a manner that makes it a perpetrator of primary copyright infringement or an invaluable facilitator for Internet functionality? How should the balance of interests in the treatment of creative works be recalibrated in the face of changes in search engine technology and operations, and the disputes that have arisen within the last decade in the context of the digital age and its needs? Using Google as a case study, this paper will look at the two main areas of dispute over the operations of information locator tools and services that either threatens search engine functionality and efficiency or weakens copyright holders’ exclusive rights. It proposes a concerted set of solutions through a reassessment and amendment of copyright law to optimize the social benefits and objectives of both the copyright regime and technological innovations in the electronic model of information archiving, indexing and delivery. A fair distribution of responsibilities and allocation of rights and liabilities will be suggested. In the process, due consideration will be given to both public and private interests, with the former taking precedence; while the recommended solutions will be made within the currently outdated framework for Internet intermediary protection (i.e. safe harbor laws) and exceptions (i.e. specific statutory exemptions and the general fair use defense) under the existing copyright regime. Thus, the proposed changes will be far reaching without being too radical a departure from current law, an evolution that will likely be more acceptable and realistic a solution to the problem.This paper is published in two parts. Part One of this paper will deal with the challenges to the copyright regime posed by the operations and technology behind the Google Images Search Engine, while Part Two that will be published in the subsequent edition of the CLSR will assess the benefits of the Google Books Search Project vis-à-vis the effects it will have on the scope of copyright protection. Recommendations are made to copyright law to accommodate both functions while generally preserving the main objectives of copyright protection.     

The ‘right to be forgotten’ or the ‘principle that has been remembered’

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled on questions referred by a Spanish court relating to interpretation of the Data Protection Directive and its application to search engine activities. In a controversial judgment, the CJEU found that search engines are data controllers in respect of their search results; that European data protection law applies to their processing of the data of EU citizens, even where they process the relevant data outside the EU; and that a ‘right to be forgotten’ online applies to outdated and irrelevant data in search results unless there is a public interest in the data remaining available and even where the search results link to lawfully published content.     

A Forensic Examination of Online Search Facility URL Record Structures

The use of search engines and associated search functions to locate content online is now common practice. As a result, a forensic examination of a suspect's online search activity can be a critical aspect in establishing whether an offense has been committed in many investigations. This article offers an analysis of online search URL structures to support law enforcement and associated digital forensics practitioners interpret acts of online searching during an investigation. Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and DuckDuckGo searching functions are examined, and key URL attribute structures and metadata have been documented. In addition, an overview of social media searching covering Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube is offered. Results show the ability to extract embedded metadata from search engine URLs which can establish online searching behaviors and the timing of searches.     

Privacy and consumer risks in cloud computing

While vaguely defined, and wide in scope, so-called ‘cloud computing’ has gained considerable attention in recent times. Put simply, it refers to an arrangement under which a user relies on another party to provide access to remote computers and software, whose whereabouts, including their jurisdictional location, are not known nor controllable by the user. In this article, we examine the privacy and consumer risks that are associated with cloud computing.     

To share is fair: The changing face of China's fair use doctrine in the sharing economy and beyond

Copyrighted works are greatly entwined with the concept of the sharing economy because of their status as informational public goods. Unlike commercial sharing models that address tangible goods such as bikes and houses, the sharing of which is limited by their physical nature, sharing models for intangible copyrighted works such as Google Books and live game webcasting must account for the comparatively unfettered ability for these to be shared. Accordingly, these models are more focused on exploiting such works to their full commercial potential. However, these sharing models are to a large extent based on the unauthorised exploitation of copyrighted works and will be unworkable if the related copyright issues cannot be solved. The interest that copyright owners have in exclusivity must thus be balanced with the public's interest in further exploitation of copyrighted works. Article 22 of the Copyright Law of China outlines an exhaustive list of copyright exceptions; such a restrictive list is incompatible with the sharing economy. The Chinese courts have realised this problem and have gone beyond the law in their judgments, taking a cue from their US counterparts. However, many of these decisions appear to be inconsistent with one another.To address the aforementioned problems, this paper examines the latest proposed amendment to the Copyright Law of China and proposes several legislative and judicial actions that could help promote the sharing economy. At the legislative level, enacting legislation based on a refined open-ended fair use model is necessary to promote the development of the sharing economy. At the judicial level, Chinese courts should employ the concept of transformative use to correctly interpret legislation based on the proposed open-ended model. With transformative use as the cornerstone of copyright policy, the public gains the freedom to share others’ works, participate in the innovation process, and create works with new value. Moreover, authors would retain an incentive to create works under such a legal regime because market substitution will not occur if a work is used for a different expressive purpose than that for which the work was originally created. Thus, a balance can be achieved between promoting the sharing economy and protecting the exclusivity of copyright in China.