November 2019 was the month and year in which the film Blade Runner was set. Anyone familiar with that film will understand the challenges that it presented to us as part of its depiction of the future of the human race. A dystopia was presented challenging our conceptions of artificial intelligence, of what it means to be human, and our relationships with the machinic and biologic. This special issue brings together articles considering this relationship between the human, the machinic, and the biologic.
We begin with an article by Edison Bicuardo, Phoebe Li and Alex Faulkner. They are assessing the relationship between patents and the experimental space. They are focusing on the social, legal, and the geographical dimensions of 3D bioprinting. They consider the entanglements between social creativity, legal instruments and global policies. They are looking at the use of bioprinting as a technique for the use of robotic computer-controlled devices, in which bioactive structures are manufactured. They argue that experimentation, and its ever-changing dynamics, is critical to the development of the global and local dynamics of bioprinting.
Lauren Elrick considers the ecosystem concept, suggesting a holistic approach towards privacy protection. She looks at the challenge of privacy in an era when digital technology can be highly intrusive, such invasion being adjudged essential for a State to be able to fight terrorism. This conflict poses a challenge to the notions of proportionality. The article suggests that there should be a use of the biological concepts of ecosystem to provide guidance. It argues that an ecological concept does offer a manner through which an assessment of privacy could be conducted. The importance of such an approach within a biologic and informatic future should be self-evident to the reader.
Nicholas Gervassis discusses the concept of information biopolitics. The article begins with a consideration of how our machinic and biologic futures are presented in film. It examines the nature of societies relationship with the medium of the Internet, underlining the conceptualisation of information as a form of communication. Gervassis points to the different levels at which copyright law is utilised as a disruptive force and as a tool for power. He examines the issue of commodification within this informatic biologic context. This is a paper that will challenge your preconceptions.
The final article is one written by the editor of this special issue. The article has been fully peer reviewed and edited by the journal editor in chief, Dr Subhajit Basu. The article draws parallels between the Chinese system of Internet State censorship, and the existing systems of copyright enforcement in the UK. The reader might correctly think that this is a loaded comparison. However, as the article discusses, there is a clear link between the technologies used for the purposes of censorship, and subsequent use of those technologies for the purposes of copyright enforcement. They are, essentially, the same technologies, but applied in different contexts. This article therefore assesses how the use of China's censorship technologies will feed into digital copyright enforcement.