LEGAL-IST Title: LEGAL Issues for the Advancement of Information Society Technologies (LEGAL-IST)
Official Website:http://www.ve-forum.org/ Type of Project: SSA
Contract Number: IST-2-004252-SSA
Coordinator: Marco Conte
Duration: 1/4/2004 - 31/3/2007
Objectives:
The objective of LEGAL-IST (a SSA under the 2.3.6 General Accompanying Actions) is to provide support to the IST programme execution and to facilitate the rapid adoption and implementation of the relevant research results, by addressing legal issues and barriers which are hampering the adoption of IST related technologies and business models and by identifying an evolution strategy for the EU regulatory framework in the IST/eEconomy domain.
Expected Results:
The LEGAL-IST initiative is devoted to capturing, analysing and framing the legal aspects of innovative technologies and methodologies emerging from within the Information Society, in order to consolidate the results in the legal research undertaken in the IST Framework Programme, support the research activities within the IST priority from a legal point of view, contribute to the definition of emerging Policies for strengthening EU regulatory framework, deliver a on-line community for SMEs.
Other Partners:
European society of concurrent engineering
Loughborough university, civil and building engineering department
Cespim - centro studi per l'innovazione d'impresa s.r.l.
Valtion teknillinen tutkimuskeskus
Cetim - center for technology and innovation management gmbh
International business machines belgium
Platte consult
ALFEBIITE Title: A Logical Framework for Ethical Behaviour between Infohabitants in the Information Trading Economy of the Universal Information Ecosystem (ALFEBIITE)
Official Website:http://www.iis.ee.ic.ac.uk/~alfebiite/ab-overview-page.htm Key Action: Future & Emerging Technologies
Action Line: Universal Information Ecosystems
Contract Number: IST-1999-10298
Coordinator: Dr. Jeremy Pitt - Imperial College of Science, London
Objectives:
This project will investigate the application of formal models of norm-governed activity to the definition, management and regulation of interactions between infohabitants in the UIE. Current techniques for controlling interactions in distributed systems are based on mechanistic procedures, so that integrity relies on encryption, passwords, firewalls and so on. As the software processes in distributed information systems become more intelligent - i.e., as they evolve towards infohabitants - there is a need to enhance these procedures. ALFEBIITE aims to supply this enhancement with formally specified, socially motivated, anthropomorphic relations, such as trust, authority, reputation, etc.
Achievements:
The synthesis of inter-disciplinary research in computing, philosophy, psychology, and law delivered
a new paradigm in designing, deploying and managing open, distributed intelligent systems. In this paradigm,
dynamic social relationships become as important as interface definitions in providing interoperability.
This went some way to achieving the envisioned Universal Information Ecosystem: a rich, adaptive mix of diverse
and dynamic infohabitants.
However, a user-friendly information society built on the UIE is concerned with ensuring that citizens are not
exploited, rights are protected (e.g. statutory and consumer rights), and information privacy is not violated.
The results of ALFEBIITE provided EC citizens with greater trust and confidence in the new technology of the
emerging information society.
Furthermore, this project bridged on the one side the human sciences literature (social psychology,
sociology and philosophy), and on the other side the growing domain of normative studies in AI, A-life
and agent-based social simulation. In particular the psychological analysis integrated with the philosophical,
legal, formal, and AI competencies of the other partners, could provide a scientific mediation able to fill
the gap between socio-psychological approaches and the sciences of the artificial.
Other Partners:
Imperial College of Science Technology & Medicine
National Research Council
University of Oslo
University of Karslkrona/Ronneby
Queen's University Belfast
ALIVE Title: Advanced Legal Issues in Virtual Enterprises (ALIVE)
Official Website:http://www.vive-ig.net/projects/alive/ Contract Number: IST-2000-25459
Coordinator: Marco Conte - CE Consulting
Duration: 1/1/2001 - 1/4/2003
Objectives:
ALIVE project overall goals are to address the main legal issues which arise within peer-to-peer cooperation, to provide legal templates aimed at facilitating the definition of legal agreements in the virtual enterprise and to define the implementation scenario and roadmap for an evolution of European legislation in order to support such a new working way in the Information Society.
Achievements:
The ALIVE project achieved the following results:(i)Identification of common taxonomy about legal issues in Virtual Enterprises, which can be conveniently used as a basis to align the European research in the IST framework;
(ii) Nine studies on different legal issues;
(iii) Constitution of the ALIVE Interest Group, counting more than 200 members;
(iv) Definition of Contract Models for Virtual Enterprises, suitable for being re-deployed by users in different contexts;
(v) Identification of key recommendations for future development of European Policies on Virtual Enterprises.
Other Partners:
CE Consulting
KU Leuven
Mazzeschi & Partners
Loughborough University
GRUPPO FORMULA
Garrigues & Andersen
Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law
Kunz Schima Wallentin & Partner
IBERMATICA
Fritze Paul Schmitt Rechtsanwälte Notare
Virtual Enterprise Architects BV
Delphi & Co Advokatfirman
Trust and law in the Information Society. Title: Trust and law in the Information Society. Fostering and protecting trust in the market, in the institutions and in the technological
infrastructure.
Official Website:http://www.cirfid.unibo.it/trust03/ Type of Project: MIUR 40%
Coordinator: Prof. Giovanni Sartor, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna
Duration: 1/1/2003 - 1/1/2005
Objectives:
The overall goal of the research project is to investigate the theme of the relationship between law and trust in the information
society. The project unites multi-disciplinary competences (legal-theory, legal philosophy, law, psychology, business, computer
science), to the purpose of developing a notion and a theory of trust which meet the legal needs, of determining the ways in which the
law can contribute to promoting and guaranteeing trust in the different areas of social life (the market, the institutions, the
technological infrastructures), of developing techno-legal solutions able to reach this objective and to investigate how said solutions
can affect the economic and political interactions, and the IT infrastructures and systems.
Expected Results:
The project assumes that between trust and the law there is a dual relationship and besides that the law plays a fundamental role in
the building and maintaining of trust, also in large and anonymous societies: the law generates reciprocal expectations, recognises
the social reliances, ensures the functioning of information channels on which the rationality of reliances depends.
The research will determine how said functions can be developed and increased, on the basis of a better comprehension of the
processes which lead to the formation and preservation of trust, in the different social environments, in particular in the economy, in
politics, and in the technological infrastructures, as well as the ways in which said processes interact with legal rules.
Other Partners:
Università Bocconi - Dipartimento di Economia Aziendale
Università Roma Tre - Dipartimento di Studi Giuridici
Università di Bologna - Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informatica e Sistemistica
Università degli Studi di Siena - Dipartimento di Scienze della Comunicazione
Università degli Studi di Parma - Dipartimento di Studi Giuridici e Sociali
Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia - Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Informazione
Software agents and e-commerce: legal, technical and psycosocial aspects Title: Software agents and e-commerce: legal, technical and psycosocial aspects
Official Website:http://www.cirfid.unibo.it/trust03/ Type of Project: MIUR 40%
Coordinator: Prof. Giovanni Sartor, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna
Duration: 1/1/2001 - 1/1/2003
Objectives:
The research, having as its objective the software agents in the electronic commerce, articulates into three areas: (i) LEGAL-THEORY AREA;
(ii) LEGAL AREA; (C) COMPUTER SCIENCE AREA.
Expected Results:
The research will produce the following results: scientific papers in each of the area described above; the collection of legislation and case law relevant in the software agents subject; a paper containing the formalization of the rules determined in (A) and (B) areas, for their computer implementation; the production of software agents and a prototype of multi-agent system; a test of the prototype to verify its congruency to the rules identified, and finally a simulation of electronic commercial transactions.
Other Partners:
Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia - Scienze dell'Ingegneria
Università degli Studi di Siena - Scienze della Comunicazione
Università Trento - Scienze Giuridiche
Automatic management and negotiation of rights concerning digital works: legal and computing aspects Title: Automatic management and negotiation of rights concerning digital works: legal and computing aspects
Official Website:http://www.cirsfid.unibo.it/drm03/ Type of Project: MIUR 40%
Coordinator: Prof. Alberto Musso, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna
Duration: 1/1/2003 - 1/1/2005
Objectives:
The programme is aimed at analysing copyright law and the digital rights management of copyrighted works, this to implement a prototypal software (a DRM system with software agents) designed to automatically negotiate and manage rights of digital online works.
Moreover, we will go into developing an electronic database containing legislation and court decisions pertaining to research objects.
Expected Results:
(A) LEGAL DOMAIN.
The research Units of Bologna and Trento will do a legal reconstruction of the legislation concerned with copyrights of digital works, and will bee analysing the legal consequences of automated online management.
The research will go deep into three aspects: copyrights, contract law, and consumer protection and privacy, analyzing the rules in the context of the information society.
The legal research will yield doctrinal reports, and then a final report.
(B) LEGAL-LOGIC DOMAIN.
Based on the legal research in (A), a deontic-logic model will be developed and worked into a formal model designed to verify the rules relevant to each typical transaction; this model is the starting point for the development of the prototypical DRM software.
(C) COMPUTER SCIENCE DOMAIN.
The research here will focus on three areas: formalization in computational logic; system implementation; legal computer science.
It will be implemented, on the basis of the rules specified, a prototypical system for the online negotiation of digital rights (DRM), using to this end the formal logic model previously worked out. It will be also developed an electronic database containing Italian and European legislation and court decisions pertaining to copyright and digital rights management, based on the jurists' research.
Other Partners:
