
In the following editorial, Professor Lilian Edwards considers the implications of the Brexit vote for information law and assesses the mood amongst the academic community in the aftermath of the EU Referendum.
The article was first published in Volume 13, Issue 2 of SCRIPT-ed: A Journal of Law, Technology and Society. Professor Edwards’ views do not represent those of the Information Law and Policy Centre or the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.
On 23 June 2016 a slim majority of UK voters decided we should leave the EU in one of the great political upsets of British political history. On 24 June, the next day, CREATe,[1] the RCUK copyright and business models centre which I have helped run since 2012, ran a one-day festival at the Royal Society of the Arts in London. This was designed to be a showcase and celebration of four years of working at the cutting edge of copyright and how it either helps or hinders the creative industries and arts. Hundreds of academics signed up to show and see, including the Director of CREATe, Martin Kretschmer of Glasgow University, from Germany by birth, and many others from all over Europe and beyond.
It was a classic international IT/intellectual property event: analysing laws made throughout the world to regulate globalised cultural markets, transnational data and product flows, disruptive technologies that disregard borders, and audiences as likely to listen to music made in Brazil via decentralised P2P networks, as watch Netflix series made in the US, or use smartphones made in Japan to watch Hindi pop videos on YouTube.
In the event, the CREATe Festival became more of a wake. Reportedly, experienced academics, who thought themselves hardened to trauma by years of bombardment from REF, TEF and NSS, were almost in tears at the first session. This writer, derelict of duty, was not there to corroborate, still staring like a rabbit in the headlights at the TV in a hotel bedroom in Docklands, where the dominant tech, business and financial workers were almost equally in shock.
So, Brexit. As the dust not so much settles as temporarily accumulates while we work out what on earth happens next, what are the implications for IT law and UK academe? Are they really as bad as they seemed that morning? Continue reading →