Conceptions in the Code: How Metaphors Explain Legal Challenges in Digital Times

Stefan Larsson's Conceptions in the Code makes a significant contribution to sociolegal analysis, representing a valuable contribution to conceptual metaphor theory. By utilising the case of copyright in a digital context it explains the role that metaphor plays when the law is dealing with technological change, displaying both conceptual path-dependence as well as what is called non-legislative developments in the law. The overall analysis draws from conceptual studies of "property" in intellectual property. By using Karl Renner's account of property, Larsson demonstrates how the property regime of copyright is the projection of an older regime of control onto a new set of digital social relations. Further, through an analysis of the concept of "copy" in copyright as well as the metaphorical battle of defining the BitTorrent site "The Pirate Bay" in the Swedish court case with its founders, Larsson shows the historical and embodied dependence of digital phenomena in law, and thereby how normative aspects of the source concept also stains the target domain. The book also draws from empirical studies on file sharing and historical expressions of the conceptualisation of law, revealing both the cultural bias of both file sharing and law. Also law is thereby shown to be largely depending on metaphors and embodiment to be reified and understood. The contribution is relevant for the conceptual and regulatory struggles of a multitude of contemporary socio-digital phenomena in addition to copyright and file sharing, including big data and the oft-praised "openness" of digital innovation.

Table of Contents:
1. HOW WE UNDERSTAND TECHNOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE 1.1. Conceptual Struggles in Societal Change 1.2. Neutral Infrastructure or Filtering Mediator 1.3. Cognition, Law, and Digital Technology 1.4. Outline of the Book 1.5. Conceptual Metaphors 1.6. Copyright as a Case 1.7. Intended Audience 2. METAPHORS AND NORMS 2.1. Conceptual Metaphor Theory 2.2. Embodiment 2.3. Metaphors and Law 2.4. Cognition and Norms 2.5. Skeuomorphs and the Conceptualisation of the Digital World 2.6. Skeuomorphs and conceptual path dependence 2.7. Summing Up 3. THE EMBODIED LAW 3.1. Corpus Juris 3.2. Embodiment and the Creation of Meaning 3.3. Seeing the Embodiment: Justice Under Law 3.4. Discussion: Law Incarnate 3.5. Conclusions 4. CONCEPTIONS OF COPYRIGHT 4.1. Metaphors We File-share By 4.2. Method 4.3. Findings and Analysis 4.4. Conclusions 5. COPIES: A METAPHORIC EXPANSION OF COPYRIGHT 5.1. Copies and their rights 5.2. The Pirate Bay Case and the Calculation of Value 5.3. Analysis: The Problem of Regulating Copies 5.4. Conclusions: Copy Me Unhappy 6. PLATFORM, STORAGE OR BULLETIN BOARD? THE SWEDISH PIRATE BAY COURT CASE 6.1. Categorization, Digitalisation and Law 6.2. The Pirate Bay 6.3. The Pirate Bay as a Metaphoric Court Case 6.4. Liability of the Functions 6.5. Outlook: Generativity in Decentralisation 6.6. Normative Implications of Skeuomorphs 6.7. Conclusions 7. BETWEEN FORM AND FUNCTION IN (INTELLECTUAL) PROPERTY 7.1. Between form and function 7.2. Renner and (Intellectual) Property 7.3. The P in IP 7.4. Conceptual Legal Change 7.5. Conceptual Transition of (Intellectual) Property 7.6. Körperlich and Control 7.7. Summing up: Conceptual Legal Change 8. CONCLUSIONS: CONCEPTIONS IN THE CODE 8.1. Metaphors, law, and digitality 8.2. Conceptual Path-Dependence 8.3. The Digital Challenge to Copyright 8.4. Metaphors and Power 8.5. "Invent the age! Invent the metaphor!" 8.6. Sum: Technology and Social Change References