This work is part of a larger study on the effects of ebooks in small language markets. The results presented here are a study of more sophisticated technology users and an attempt to capture: (1) their domestication of ebook readers and surrounding technologies, and (2) their attitudes towards their tethered ebook applications. The goal is to better understand the sophisticated users as representatives of the early adopters who shape wider social technology adoption, interpretation and understanding.

In this case study we analyzed the traces of spontaneous reactions of Youtube users when confronted with the short clip ’You wouldn’t Steal a Car’, that was used by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to influence people not to download copyrighted material from the Internet. This film has become an important cultural icon, which to a certain degree has shaped a whole generation of film viewers. The aim of this study was to provide an example of how anti piracy initiatives are received and understood by the receivers of the message. This was performed by collecting and analyzing the users spontaneous reactions as entered as comments on the Youtube page for the clip by qualitatively categorizing the contents using a bottom up approach. The results suggest that people practicing Internet-based culture consumption (IBCC) do this in more nuanced ways than is assumed in the film, where they are polarized as either “common thieves” or “good citizens”.

Musikens teknik- och upphovsrättshistoria från första inspelningar till molnet

Three centuries have passed since copyright law was developed to stimulate creativity and promote learning. The fundamental principles still apply, despite radical developments in the technology of production and distribution of cultural material. In particular the last decades' developments and adoption of ICT's have drastically lowered barriers, which previously prevented entry into the production and distribution side of the cultural marketplace, and led to a widening of the base at which cultural production occurs and is disseminated. Additionally, digitalization has made it economically and technically feasible for users to appropriate and manipulate early works as method of production The renegotiation of barriers and the increasing number of creators who publish their works has led to an increase in copyright violations and a pressure on copyright legislation. Many of these potential violations are tolerated, in some cases have become common practice, and created social norms. Others have not been so fortunate and the law has been rigidly enforced. This arbitrary application decreases the predictability of law and forces a situation where creation relies on the tolerance of the other copyright holders. This article analyzes different cases of reuse that test the boundaries of copyright. Some of these are tolerated, others not. When regulation fails to capture the rich variation of creative reuse, it becomes difficult to predict which works will be tolerated. The analyzes suggests that as copyright becomes prohibitive, social norms, power and the values of the copyright holder dominate and not law.

Social media can be seen as a resource for increased interaction between municipal authorities and citizens. However, as authorities attempt usage of social media, practices can become entrenched in traditional regulatory frameworks that emphasize openness and transparency rather than interaction with citizens. Social media usage by authorities tends to touch upon a broad range of regulatory elements, some of which are legal in character and others that we see as embedded in the technologies themselves as well as practices developed in connection with the technologies. In this paper, 26 Swedish social media policies produced by municipalities are analyzed in order to better understand how the conflict between transparency and interaction is dealt with in practical guidelines. We are concerned with how the diversity of social media is understood and how public functions are identified. By analyzing challenges and policy strategies outlined in these documents, it becomes possible to identify four alternative foundational positions based on social media being perceived as a problem/possibility or homogeneous/heterogeneous. The general tendency in all material is that routines of command and control are established in order to create clear goals and practices for individual social media activities and thereafter to discipline social media activities to remain firmly within the intentions of the blueprint. This explicitly disallows activities to adapt to needs developing through interaction with citizens. Nevertheless, we have also found a number of participatory strategies that are either aimed at increased quality of community services or at extending the marketability of the municipal brand.

The concept of freedom of information has been raised to a fundamental good that permeats all aspects of modern democratic societies. The goal of this paper is to explore the role of this principle in relation to local authorities attempts to increase citizen participation via increased levels of social media usage. We argued that social media policy work raises a conflict in connection to the established norms of freedom of information and the ideological underpinnings of the technology in use. Our analysis builds on a Swedish case study and illustrates the conflict between citizen-government interaction via social media technologies and the established norms of freedom of information.