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In this final chapter, I have built a simple model of process innovation where the provision of essential services (intermediate inputs, for example financial services or transports) for the production of the final good is subject to sectorial regulation, which shapes the market structure of the intermediate sector as a non-competitive one. The structure adopted in this chapter allows examining the effects on the economy of the presence of two different monopolized tasks: the intermediate service provision and the use of the innovation. The ultimate purpose is to show how the lack of competition in an intermediate essential sector, like the service sector, is actually able to depress productivity growth in the final sector.

The power of technology as a threat to mankind has been a popular science-fiction theme for a very long time, from classics such as George Orwell’s 1984 to more recent endeavours such as the haunting TV series Black Mirror. Perhaps the reason for the popularity of this subject is that these stories act as a catalyst to explore the future possibilities of the relationship between humans and technology. Based on our current experience we project into the future expecting technological advances to escalate at an advanced rate. Most would argue that technology is neutral in the sense that it can be used for positive or negative purposes. Either way, is clear that the development of technology is quickly progressing and more than ever we are replacing human services with machines and apps. However, this thesis aims to bring back the human element in the discussion of online copyright infringement. There are three key instances in which the capacity of a human mind intersects with the development of copyright law. The first is the development of the copyright statutory law, the second is the interpretation of the copyright statutory law by the judges, and the third is the cognitive interaction with new technologies by all humans. This thesis therefore addresses copyright law at each of these stages. The use of the internet in copyright infringement is a seminal case study to demonstrate the disconnect between the technological and the human perspectives. This notion of the disconnect between technology and human perspectives translates into the ‘internal’ and ‘external’ perspectives of the internet. The external perspective is the understanding of online activity from a purely technological point of view, whereas the internal perspective considers the cognitive understanding of the human experience in online activity. Each perspective determines a different and separate reality which results in a materially different decision when the law is applied to each reality as a set of facts. These concepts are developed into a Framework for analysis which is then applied to the law of online copyright infringement. The ‘Framework for Constructing Digital Perspectives’ is thus developed from the ‘internal’ and ‘external’ perspectives of the internet as a lens through which the investigation of online copyright infringement can be viewed. Applying this Framework, the thesis makes an analysis of section 17 and then section 20 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988); infringement by way of reproduction and communication to the public. This includes a detailed analysis of the development of the statute, the wording of the law and a consideration of the application of these sections to the relevant case law. This thesis is an investigation into copyright infringement on the internet. It involves a specific and in-depth analysis of the laws relating to digital copyright infringement by way of copying and communication to the public online. The context of this study falls within the broader and universal phenomenon of human interaction with new technologies. Thus, the study involves traditional doctrinal analysis of the law together with the broader consideration of the human element in the application of copyright law online. This thesis considers the mapping of copyright law online and the tensions thereof, in particular from the perspective of the cognitive understanding in the human experience with new technologies. As such, a key theme throughout the thesis is the human element in the development of copyright and new technologies. The moral of the story is the reminder that you cannot forget, or worse exclude, the notion of the human either in the law-making process, in the application of the law or in the regulating of those who make use of copyright works online. It is people who make and enforce copyright law, people who create copyright works and people who use those works on the internet. As Tim Berners-Lee stated: “The…Web… it’s really a system of people. Yes, it is enabled by technology. So, as time went on, we stopped thinking about the internet as the collection of computers and we stop thinking about the Web as the collection of connected pages and now we think of the Web as humanity connected.” In the high-tech society within which we currently dwell, it is easy to focus on and rely upon technology. However, this argues that putting the human element back into copyright analysis can return reason where it has been lost in technological specifics. The emphasis of defining online copyright infringement leans towards the specific technological means by which the activity is undertaken. However, this does not provide a coherent or consistent copyright law.

Responses to contradictory objections to biotechnology patents have in the main been applied through validity requirements and exclusions to patentability, largely with reference to morality provisions at the time of grant. This is not appropriate because the legitimacy of each issue depends upon its expression at different stages within an innovation time line. This thesis examines, with reference to three case studies, defects in the current approach of European Patent law, which arise in part due to confusion in (or fusion of) objections to inventions as opposed to exploitation. The conclusion suggests that it is not the grant of patents per se that causes difficulties but rather the way in which inventions are exploited and patent law should be focused accordingly.

This thesis addresses a significant research gap in critical research on forced eviction. It attempts to shift focus from the experiences of the evicted, examined in previous studies, to the work of evictors and eviction enforcement. It asks how the ‘tools, technologies, strategies, and tactics’ of forced eviction develop and are implemented in England and Wales. Using qualitative interviews centred around a case study of a city in the North of England to examine the ‘everyday’ form of evictions, this thesis looks at the work of a Rent Arrears Recovery Team on the ‘Benford’ housing estate in the city, and the working lives of County Court Bailiffs at the local court as they work in the context of a national ‘housing crisis’. Interviews with third party organizations and a High Court Enforcement firm, video footage, and online accounts of large-scale evictions provided by a wide range of sources from social movements are used to explore the ‘exceptional’ forms of displacement that emerge on a national scale. This research shows that Eviction enforcement actors and specialists have to employ forms of coercion which exist on a continuum between the ‘emotional’ and the ‘physical’; these practices are underpinned by ‘intuitive’ tactics built through individual and personal histories and the historical context in which evictions take place. These strategies and tactics of eviction are shaped by the resistance of the evicted, and the development of the disciplinary institutions of eviction happens in response to this resistance, which sets the pace for the development of the capacity of the state and economy to displace. This points to a need for more work critiquing the disciplinary institutions of forced eviction, and the global economy of eviction enforcement.

This thesis examines the relationship between the English patent system and early railway-related inventive activity, and it is proposed that the patent system influenced the rate and direction of early railway technology. Contrary to the current historiography of the patent system, it is argued that prior to the Patent Law Amendment Act (1852), in the absence of substantive Parliamentary intervention, the judiciary crafted and shaped the principles of patent law which provided certainty and security for patentees. Inventors involved in railway-related technology found great utility in a unique patent system which they used, relied upon, and promoted to their peers. The requirement post-1733 for a specification to be filed with a patent application, contributed to the origins of what today might be termed knowledge management. The patent system engendered a developing database of technical knowledge that was codified, controlled, circulated and commercially exploited. Profit was a key motive for those who patented railway-related inventions, which often involved high expenditure, of both time and money, and the patent system secured vital monopoly profits. The pecuniary advantage offered by an effective patent system served to incentivise the development and diffusion of early railway technology. This thesis demonstrates the value of industry-specific analysis of the workings of the patent system. The early railways are recognised as a fully cultural artefact, an approach that provides insights into the technological processes and economic development of the early railways, and since nascent railway technology was but one of several emerging, interwoven technologies, the investigation extends beyond the railway proper. These proposals are tested by reference to contemporary evidence relating to the professional engineering enterprises of George and Robert Stephenson, Marc and Isambard Kingdom Brunel and a number of individuals of less renown, whose patented inventive activity met the demands of the emerging railways.

The purpose of this research is to develop a coherent analytical framework for assessing the nexus between international and national law - based on the proposed case study for the implementation of the Nile River Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) in Ethiopia and Uganda; and in order to draw lessons for other basins. Chapter 1 introduces the scope of the research in general, and sets out the basic background on the subject in order to address the main research question: 'How and to what extent, do national laws and institutions support or hinder the implementation of and compliance with international obligations?' Chapter 2 examines the scope and structures of basic substantive and procedural principles as well as basin-wide and subsidiary institutional structures incorporated in the Nile River Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement, and seek to confirm the viability of implementation with the support of the national legal systems. Chapter 3 will assess the Ethiopian and Ugandan legal systems in order to determine the capacity of existing policies, laws, regulations and institutions in implementing the basic principles of international water law within the ambit of the CFA. Chapter 4 considers procedural rules, such as general obligations to cooperate on data and information. The extent of support for the implementation of procedural rules within the national laws of Ethiopia and Uganda will be considered in order to ascertain whether the applicable international law and national law provides an effective interface in relation to data and information exchange. In this regard, the principles of planned measures and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and audits are analysed in order to ascertain the extent of support and strength of the interface between international and national law. Chapter 5 will consider the framework of institutional structures in the context of the basin-wide framework; sub-basin structures and the national institutional structures. The chapter seeks to analyze the appropriate supportive linkages between international river basin organizations and national institutions. The findings of the analytical framework and the methodology employed will be analysed in chapter 6, in order to answer the key question: “How and to what extent, do national laws and institutions support or hinder the implementation of and compliance with international obligations?” This chapter will provide insights from the examination of the CFA and national laws and institutions to advance a framework for reviewing the international-national water law interface within transboundary river basins. Chapter 7 recaps the analysis and findings of the thesis.

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This thesis explores the paradoxes of intellectual property from a practicing artistic perspective. It is the outcome of a practice-led interdisciplinary research that was conducted as a response to an act of copyright-related censorship. The hypothesis of this study is that art practices based on the use and re-working of pre-produced and copyrighted material bring into effect the paradoxes of intellectual property. Where creation and innovation rely on access to and the use of protected works, proprietary rights stifle new creation and innovation.Taking the exhibition This is not by me (2004), cancelled on the basis of potential copyright infringement, as a starting point, this research project develops a specific methodology. ‘Performative research’ brings together legal studies, philosophy and art practice to conceptualise and dramatise a performative approach to copyright law. It has been developed with reference to the overall question of how art practice can promote ‘the subversion of the law’ and thus contribute to a solution of the problem addressed.The investigation begins with the analysis and the contextualisation of several contested artworks. The net.art generator (since 1998) is an online computer programme for the automated creation of digital collages culled from appropriated material. anonymous-warhol–flowers (since 2004) is a series of images that were made with the net.art generator based upon the famous Warhol Flowers. Continuing the tradition of various conceptual and media-related avant-garde practices of the 20th century, which challenged romantic notions of authorship and originality, these artworks question anew the basic principles of aesthetic modernism. Experimenting with digital authorship and originality, however, automatically entails experimenting with copyright infringement. The historically charged Flowers beautifully signify the aesthetic and legal ambivalence of appropriative art within this context.The discussion of the legal context explains how art and copyright are related and at which conceptual junctions the problems occur. It also situates appropriative art practices within the dynamics of intellectual property as the regulatory structure of the knowledge economy, eventually leading to an evaluation and discussion of the arguments, as performed through the practice part of this thesis. The project This is not by me comprises four artworks centering around the net.art generator reworking the Warhol Flowers. By performing the paradoxes of intellectual property this abstract concept becomes vivid and tangible. The new knowledge resulting from this approach crosses the borders of the art world and contributes to the general discourse on intellectual property by providing a unique insight for legal scholars, policy makers and the interested audience alike.The irresolvable paradox of intellectual property has a long history, however due to the technological, economic, legal and cultural developments that have taken place since the mid-1990s, it has taken centre stage within the ‘information society.’ Artists and the general public alike share the ‘right’ to access intangible goods and to participate in the production of culture.

This thesis discusses how law, especially intellectual property and biodiversity laws, mediates the operation of the bioeconomy by 'thinking through' the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze/Felix Guattari. As experimental thinkers, Deleuze/Guattari were committed to bring movement in concepts, that is, to experiment with concepts. Hence, the thesis deploys the concept of 'desiring-machine' to explain the operation of the bioeconomy. In this respect, the thesis focuses on the Bt. brinjal controversy in India - a specific instance of bio-economic production. Techno-scientific and legal discourses in the controversy have highlighted the risk and uncertainty surrounding modern bio-technical science and its regulation. A more interesting narrative, however, is the discourse of biopiracy, which claims that a number of global/local entities appropriated local germplasm illegally to produce the Bt. brinjal. And so, the thesis looks at the controversy as an 'event' in which heterogeneous elements, along with law,co-exist, co-function, form alliances and work in symbiosis. Pointing out the connection and relation between the elements, the thesis suggests that the bioeconomy operates in a connective fashion, through machinic conjunctions. Said otherwise, the bioeconomy is a 'machine' - each element functions in conjunction with others. It follows that the Bt. brinjal controversy is an effect of machinic assemblage. And yet, the question is: what establishes machinic conjunctions between the elements? The thesis observes that the bioeconomy is founded on desire because it is desire that connects, couples, assembles, creates chains and produces intensities. In what follows, the elements of the machine relate to each other through the continuous movement of desire. The argument, then, is that the bioeconomy is a 'desiring-machine'. Its operation, however, is mediated by law. In view of this, the thesis sheds light on a number of issues by unfolding the controversy. In particular, the thesis shows how the desire to propertise, to normalise appropriation, to capture, to contest, to produce transformed subjects and more importantly, to expand the spaces of bio-economic production move and flow through disparate legal mechanisms and practices. To be more specific,the thesis highlights how law mediates the movement of desire, which establishes machinic conjunctions between an array of elements located in dispersed spaces, and by doing so, spatialises materiality, normalisation, power and subjectivity. The Bt. brinjal controversy, from this point of view, has 'multiple dimensions'. Since the aim of this research is to experiment with concepts, the thesis 'thinks through' the concept of 'multiplicity' to construct the dimensions. As a topological concept, the term 'multiplicity' puts emphasis on constructing the 'multiple' by adding elements successively through conjunctions. In this vein, the thesis thinks rhizomatically - a style of thinking that moves in all directions to connect and link dispersed elements, thereby organises and arranges the relations between the 'many' in semiotic chains. As such, the essence underlying the thesis is deeply topological or spatial because it not only connects the 'many' through conjunctions and actualises their relations in extensive series, but also links up and combines one concept with another. Thus, while Deleuze/Guattari's philosophical thinking remains the enduring thread throughout the thesis, a number of other concepts, specifically from Michel Foucault and Georges Canguilhem, are added successively. To this effect, the thesis combines the concept of de/re-territorialisation with the analytics of 'governmentality' and 'normalisation', brings 'desire' in conversation with 'power', and links up 'becoming' with 'subjectivity' to multiply and expand the dimension of the controversy. The composition, then, itself becomes an articulation of the spatialisation of thought. Consequently, the thesis moves beyond the confines of the case discussed and relates the latter to broader issues concerning the operation of the bioeconomy. In fact, the Bt. brinjal controversy becomes a conduit for a theoretical exploration and explanation of how the bioeconomy operates as a desiring-machine; and how law mediates such operation in a global/postcolonial context. More broadly, the thesis engages with spatiality and spatialisation in a serious manner by focusing on how law spatialises materiality, normalisation, power and subjectivity, and to this end, offers a different way of critiquing law and its relation with the bioeconomy.