<div dir="ltr"><div>Hi Everyone<br><br></div>I'd like to announce the release of issue #6 of the Journal of Peer Production.<br><br>Disruption and the Law was edited by Angela Daly (Swinburne University of Technology and European University Institute) and myself (Macquarie University). Please distribute across your networks.<br><br><a href="http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-6-disruption-and-the-law/">http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-6-disruption-and-the-law/</a><br><div><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-158ec5e2-e6c6-593c-2ba7-680f4d612272">The
disruption caused by new technologies and non-conventional methods of
organisation – from a Western perspective at least – have posed
challenges for the law, confronting regulators with the need to balance
justice and an appreciation of new realities with powerful interests and
existing paradigms. Experience from the “disruptions” of the late
twentieth century has shown that the response from incumbent industries
can lead to a period of intense litigation and lobbying for laws that
will maintain the status quo. For example, following its “Napster
moment”, the music industry fought to maintain its grip on distribution
channels through increased copyright enforcement and the longer
copyright terms it managed to extract from the legislative process. The
newspaper industry has similarly seen its historical revenue stream of
classified ads disrupted by more efficient online listings, and
responded to its own failure to capitalise on online advertising by
launching legal campaigns against Google News in various European
countries.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Though the law as it stands may not be well-equipped to
deal with disruptive episodes, the technological innovations of the last
twenty years have created an environment that generates disruption. The
Internet, the Web and networked personal computers have converged into
the ubiquitous post-PC media device, leaving twentieth century paradigms
of production, consumption and distribution, particularly in the
Western world, under considerable threat. The latest technology to be
added to this group of disruptive innovations may be 3D printing, which
in recent times has become increasingly available and accessible to
users in developed economies, whilst the manufacturing capacity of 3D
printers has dramatically grown. Although current offerings on the
market are far from a Star Trek-like “replicator”, the spectre of
disruption has once again arrived with the prospect of 3D printed guns
inspiring a moral panic and raising questions of gun control,
regulation, jurisdiction and effective control. In addition, 3D printing
raises a number of issues regarding intellectual property, going far
beyond the copyright problems that file-sharing brought about due to its
production of physical objects.</p>
<p>It is against this backdrop that we present this special issue of the
Journal of Peer Production, comprising six peer-reviewed papers and one
discussion paper covering an array of diverse issues implicated by the
emergence of new production and distribution technologies, associated
peer practices and tensions with legal and de facto regulatory
frameworks.</p>best<br>steve<br clear="all"><div><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><br>--<b><br>Dr Steve Collins</b><br>Senior Lecturer in Multimedia<br>Program Director / BA-Media / Bachelor Marketing and Media<br>Department of Media, Music, Communication & Cultural Studies<br>Macquarie University<br><br>P: (02) 9850 2165<br>W: <a href="http://bit.ly/122QivW" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/122QivW</a><br>L: Y3A 191D<br></div></div></div>
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