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.

Stefan Larsson is Associate Professor in Technology and Social Change at Lund University Internet Institute (LUii) in Sweden, and a sociolegal researcher who studies issues in the intersection of conceptual, legal and social change, particularly in relation to digitisation and the Internet. He holds a PhD in Sociology of Law as well as a PhD in Spatial Planning, and an LLM. He is co-founder of LUii as well as the Cybernorm research group at Lund University, and has led various research projects related to trust in a digital context, open data, law and digital challenges, digital consumption and indebtedness, and more.