Introduction

There are so many jokes about lawyers. So, why my interest in the law? About 1500 years ago, Celsus' definition, ius est ars boni et aequi ( Ulpianus, Dig. 1, 1, 1, pr. 2) has been preserved for the generations to come. In other words, law can be an art, the art of the good and the equitable, of justice and fairness.

Pathetic? Not necessarily. Let's consider the Austrian Civil Code (Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, text, version for Palm/Visor) for a moment: In force since 1811, it's creation took almost a century. Until today, the ABGB gives us a set of basically simple but nevertheless very powerful tools to strive for reasonable and just balance in human relations, among the most important contracts. It is the real-life base of individual contractual autonomy, it implements freedom. In nearly 200 years, those basic tools didn't need major change, only adjustments here and there. 1502 paragraphs. 200 years. And it still seems to works. Impressive isn't it?

Building, maintaining and applying solid tools like these, not just implementing ad-hoc solutions following the pressure of interest groups is what lawyers should concentrate on. That's at least where I try to contribute my little share, as you might notice, if you're interested enough to read on...

Author's & Industrial Property Rights (in reverse chronological order):

• Die Software von Mutter Natur: Informatik, Genetik und Patente (Mother Nature's Software: Informatics, Genetics and Patents): On November 27, 2008 I joined once more Prof. Lachmayer's Seminar on Law and Informatics at the University of Innsbruck. Biopatents again? Yes, I got hooked. Taking a my slides from Krakow as a starting point and extending them significantly, I incorporated some introductory considerations, analysed the Broccoli Patent EP 1069819, and commented a bit on the expectations regarding the pending decision of the Enlarged Board of Appeals regarding patents on life as well as patents on computer programs. Download the slides here.

• Dichotomische und polare Visualisierung im Recht (Dichotomic and Polar Visualisation in Legal Science): From November 13-14, the first Münchner Rechtsvisualisierungs-Tagung (Munich Conference on Legal Visualisation) was held. I participated, but in a rather stressed out state, since I also observed the Vistaprint-Case before the Bundespatentgericht on behalf of the FFII. Slides and (quite probably) a publication will follow soon, nevertheless.

• Keine Patente auf Tiere und Pflanzen! (No Patents on Animals and Seeds!): On September 23, 2008, No Patents on Seeds, Kein Patent auf Leben, Greenpeace and Misereor organised a rally in Munich, starting on Isartorplatz up to the European Patent Office to deliver more than 40.000 signatures against patents on life and to alert the Enlarged Board of Appeals on the problems regarding patents like the one on conventionally bred Broccoli (EP 1069819). I was there and gave a short, but well-received introduction to the problems around software patents (which are patents on thought processes), the similarities to the fight against patents on life and a call to stop both. I took some photos with my cell phone (sorry, rather poor quality) of the crowd listening to my talk and the way through Munich to the EPO.

• On the Grammar of Patent Claims (Zur Grammatik von Patentansprüchen): This is an updated take on an old problem. Together with Hartmut Pilch, co-founder and longtime president of the FFII, I wrote a paper on why the issue of software patents is as burning as ever, explaining the need for the 2 rules on the limits of patentability proposed by FFII. We also suggest how these rules might be applied to other problematic issues, like Biotec patents. This paper has been presented during KnowRight08 in Krakow, Poland, 18-19 September 2008. The paper can be downloaded here (2.6 MB), please note that its distribution on paper is subject to copyright by the Austrian Computer Society. The presentation slides are available, too (2.5 MB). And there's a photo taken during my presentation, courtesy of Erich Schweighofer). You also might want to order the conference proceedings of KnowRight08.

• Rechte an Innovation - eine europäische Herausforderung (Rights on Innovation - a challenge for Europe): In 2007 and 2008, I participated in Prof. Lachmayer's Seminar on Law and Informatics at the University of Innsbruck. In October 2007, I started out with a presentation on Josef A. Schumpeter's concept of innovation and how it relates to current EU policies, entitled Innovation, Motivation und Gerechtigkeit (Innovation, Motivation and Justice). I then extended this approach, focusing more on the legal aspects, which I presented as Innovation and Law in April 2008. In May 2008, I was invited by Prof. Waldemar Hummmer, to give a similiar talk as a guest speaker in his Seminar on European Law, which motivated me to extend a bit on european and international aspects and resulted in the presentation Rechte an Innovation - eine europäische Herausforderung (Rights on Innovation - a challenge for Europe) (6.7 MB).

• Rechtliche Grundlagen Freier Software (Legal Basics of Free Software): In spring 2008, I was invited by the Handelsakademie Rohrbach in Upper Austria (High School for economy and Commerce in Rohrbach, Oberösterreich) to give a talk on the basics of Free Software licenses (like I did before here; also see my 2001 article on legal aspects of Free Software) during their Open Source Day on 15 April 2008 at the CENTRO in Rohrbach. I happily took advantage of the opportunity and significantly updated my slides on free software licenses (3.6 MB) as well as the handout.

• The Amazon Gift Ordering Patent EP0927945 (Das Amazon-Geschenkbestellungs-Patent): This patent, a close european relative of Amazon's One-Click-Patent in the U.S. (Patent No. 5960411) was heavily criticised by the FFII since its first publication and the FFII also filed an opposition at the European Patent Office. In the oral hearing on 7 December 2007, together with Hartmut Pilch, I represented the FFII in the oral proceedings. Short version: We won (here's the press release in german). A copy of the minutes of the oral proceeding is available and if you want the really long version, you can download the entire file of the complete EP0927945 procedure at the EPO Online Service (attention, this is over 50MB!). Here's some more information summarising the case. Update: Amazon has appealed this decision on October 16, 2008, so this case will continue for a bit...

• Digital Distribution of Films in Europe (Digitaler Filmvertrieb in Europa): EU-XXL is a forum dedicated to european film, whose president, actress and former MEP Mercedes Echerer, alerted me on the issues surrounding digital cinema. With the help of my friend and longtime FFII-Hero Bernhard Kaindl, I dug a little deeper into that topic, resulting in a talk during the International Film Festival 2006 in Pécs, Hungary on the effects of digitalization on filmmaking and distribution. An important part was an analysis of the DCI System Specification and how it is virtually locked up by patents (most of them on software), therefore being more of a franchise than an actual industry standard. You can get the slides in a version for the screen and one to print out (you do not want to confuse them). I then gave a similar talk at the EU-XXL Film Forum 06 in Bratislava, together with Thomas Heskia from the Film Fonds Austria, elaborating more on the economic aspects. In 2007, I was invited by CineRegio to give an updated version of this talk at their conference during the Film Festival in Sitges 2007, which was entitled Digital Cinema in Europe: Cultural, Political and Economic Impact of Infrastructure Standardization (pdf for the screen, pdf to print, less than 1 MB each). This is currently an extremely hot topic and a further updated paper will follow (probably during the first months of 2009).

• Der Geist - ein handelbares Gut? (The Mind - a tradeable Commodity?): For this article, which became part of the Festschrift honouring Prof. Manfred Rehbinder (R. Jakob/R. Weimar/M. Usteri - Eds., Recht und Psychologie. Gelebtes Recht als Objekt qualitativer und quantitativer Betrachtung. Festschrift für Manfred Rehbinder. Bern, 2006) I extended my usual criticism on current "Intellectual Property" policy for the first time on patents on biotechnology and life, taking the case of Monsanto vs. Percy Schmeiser as a - quite chilling - example. A pdf of the article is available.

• Technizität, Turingmaschine und λ-Kalkül: Überlegungen zur Patentierbarkeit von Computerprogrammen (Technicality, the Turing Machine and the λ-Calculus: Musings on the Patentability of Computer-implemented Inventions): In 2006, I was kindly invited by Prof. Lothar Philipps, a true giant in Law and Informatics to give a talk at the famous Donnerstag-Seminar (Thursday's seminar on legal philosophy) of the Institut für die gesamten Strafrechtswissenschaften, Rechtsphilosophie und Rechtsinformatik at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich. The presentation I gave (1.2 MB) on May 11, 2006 featured theoretical informatics, software patents as well as... the Woz!

• Die GNU General Public License: Version 3 (The GNU General Public License: Version 3): And back to Free Software! For the Conference Chaos Control 06 on May 10, 2006, organised by Juridicum Online, the Universitätslehrgang für Informationsrecht und Rechtsinformation, the City of Vienna and the Austrian Chamber of Commerce, I explained the process of creation of the third version of the GNU General Public License and the most important contents of its (then current) first draft. Find the slides here.

• Rechte an Wissen - Innovationsschutz oder Informationsfeudalismus? (Rights on Knowledge - Protecting Innovation or Information Feudalism?: On September 23, 2005, the enlarged board of the Austrian Green Party held a conference entitled "Besitz an Wissen" (Owning Knowledge). Here are the slides of my talk (7.6 MB). It's also a recount of the things that happened in Strasbourg during the Summer...

• Freie Software im Umfeld europäischer Rechtsentwicklung (Free Software in the Context of recent Developements in European Law): The European Forum Alpbach is one of the most important centres of scientific and intellectual exchange and a renowned - for lack of a better word - think tank. I was invited by the Club Alpbach Graz to give an introduction to Free Software as well as an update on Software Patents in Europe on May 31, 2005. Here are the slides.

• Keep on Rockin' in the Free World: Eine Birds of a Feather-Session zu Patentrecht, Lizenzen und rechtlichen Instrumenten unternehmerischer Zusammenarbeit (Keep on Rockin' in the Free World: A Birds of a Feather-Session on Patent Law, Licensing and contractual cooperation models): At the Linuxwochen 2005 in Vienna, Austria, I intended to give a really cool talk on Software Patents, Licensing, debunking the myth that Free Software patent pools might help and working out other forms of collaboration should the software patents directive pass. I prepared some wonderful slides on the train to Vienna. Then my PowerBook was stolen ("fortunately", so to say, it had one of those exploding batteries, so that SoB might have had a little surprise in the meantime...). However, my slides were lost without a backup and so we did a classical Birds of a Feather-Session...

• Softwarepatente auf der Zielgeraden? (Software Patents: The Final Countdown?): 2005 was the big year of Software Patents. I was invited by one of Europe's most important computing centers, the GRZ IT Center in Linz, Austria, to give a talk on the (then) current status of the directive proposal and patents on security software. I started out with a thought experiment: What if the glass manufacturers had lobbyists as insistent as some software companies, would there be something like... looking-glass-implemented inventions? But it gets much more serious after the first few slides of the talk, which are available here (9.1 MB); very special thanks go to Erik Josefsson (from whom I stole a few slides) and Jonas Maebe (who created the picture of the computer-implemented washing machine). This is also the first time I experiment with Apple's Keynote to produce slides.

• Der Schutz "Geistigen Eigentums" im Vertrag über eine Verfassung für Europa (The protection of "Intellectual Property" in the treaty for a European Constitution): The Charta of Nice, the draft for a European Constitution and now the Lisbon treaty (which aims to be a constitution by carefully avoiding to call itself constitution) all contain the paragraph which protects "Intellectual Property" as a fundamental right. Formulating a separate paragraph (instead of just seeing it as covered by the general protection of property and the information/communication freedoms) has more than symbolic value: It is not only another gift to industry lobbyists, but might easily backfire, too. For more criticism, read this paper (pdf), presented during IRIS, the Internationales Rechtsinformatik Symposion in Salzburg, 24.-26. February 2005 if you're interested.

• Einführung in Freie Software aus rechtlicher Sicht... mit leichten Anklängen an den Krieg der Sterne! (And Introduction to Free Software from a Lawyer's Perspective... with some little references to Star Wars!): On January 21, 2005 I participated in the Open Source Conference in Vienna, sponsered by the Austrian Chamber of Commerce. The introduction to Free Software based on references to Star Wars is still evolving, and the latest version of the slides looks quite cool. There's also a video available of my talk. Featuring a lightsaber. For real.

• Innovationsschutz durch das Patentsystem (Protecting Innovation through the Patent System: On August 4, 2004, the Fachverband Unternehmensberatung und IT, UBIT (The Professional Association for Business Consulting and IT) of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce held a meeting on Softwarepatents. I was again invited to explain certain legal and economic concerns and submitted this executive summary.

• Comments on the acquisition of ContentGuard Holdings, Inc. by Microsoft Corporation and Time Warner, Inc. (Kommentar zur Übernahme von ContentGuard Holdings, Inc. durch die Microsoft Corporation und Time Warner, Inc.): At some point in 2004 it was announced that Microsoft Corporation and Time Warner, Inc. would acquire the by then little known ContentGuard, a corporation specialising in DRM, holding over 150 patents in that sector. The European Commission decided to have a closer look at this acquisition, also due to this little report I submitted (which led to questionnaire, which is still confidential, so I can't publish my answers). Microsoft and Time Warner decided to evade the jurisdiction of the European Commission by having a third partner join them and acquired ContentGuard in 2005.

• "Computer Implemented" Inventions: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly? ("Computer-Implementierte" Erfindungen: Glorreiche Halunken?): On April 14, 2004, the FFII organised a conference in Brussels on legal and economic aspects of Software Patents and the (then) current status of the directive proposal. I was there to give this presentation.

• Deharmonization through the Intellectual Property Enforcement Directive (Deharmonisierungseffekte der Intellectual Property Enforcement Richtlinie): On February 11, 2004, I was invited to another hearing in the European Parliament, this time on the first Intellectual Property Enforcment Dircetive (IPRED1). The presentation I gave is available here. The comments I drafted (with significant help from James Heald from FFII U.K.) were published by rechtsprobleme.at in English and German.
  Later in 2004, I was invited to the famous Wizards of OS conference in Berlin to talk about IPRED1. Unfortunately, I couldn't go there, but I still prepared some new slides which were kindly presented at WizOS by Andreas Dietl from EDRI on my behalf.

• Sind Sie "Raubkopierer"? Nein? Dann holen Sie sich Ihr Geld zurück! (Are you a "copyright pirate"? No? Then get your moneys back"): The Austrian Author's Rights Code regulates that when you buy empty storage media, you have to pay copyright levies ("Lehrkassettenvergütung") which are distributed to artists by the collecting societies. However, it also says that if you copy something to that media with explicit consent of the author, you get your money back. This applies to artists, musicians, an advertising agency or a photographer, who use(s) CDs for his or her own works. It also means that you don't have to pay levies when you use the storage media for software licensed under the GPL. This tiny detail went unnoticed for years... until the FFS published this form. It made it's way trough the media and at first the collecting society Austro Mechana tried to put up a fight at first - but in the meantime, they use the form themselves. Should I... sue them for infringement, maybe? ;-)

• Urheber- als Freiheitsrecht (Author's Rights as Freedom Rights): Author's Rights are normally considered to be a hybrid of personal ("moral") and property (i.e. economic rights. This paper argues that there's at least one more important dimension to it: Based on Kant's definition that "every author has the unalienable right to commmunicate with his audience without any interference", and the fact that the concept of Author's Rights was developed in the years before and after the french revolution, they are, in their essence, to be understood as freedom rights. Given that contemporary legislation and jurisdiction neglects and/or has forgotten this aspect, the emergence of Free Software as a self-organised substitute to recreate that original freedom is a natural and logical consequence. Some of the thoughts are already found in the presentation I gave at the Literaturhaus in Munich a few months earlier.
  The paper was published in late 2003 on rechtsprobleme.at and received the award for best article in the category "Author's Rights/Copyright" sponsored by the Austrian Chamber of Commerece. Here's a nice picture of the ceremony. Two years later, the paper was re-published in the book Sounds Right by Jenny-Louise Becker (Marburg, 2005).

• Software Patents in the European Union (Softwarepatente in der Europäischen Union): On August 27, 2003, I was for the first time invited to a hearing in the European Parliament in preparation of the 1st reading of the so-called "Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions". I gave a statment entitled "Legal and economic concerns of the Proposal for a Directive on the Patentability of computer-implemented Inventions" on behalf of the FFII. The issue of Software Patents even received news coverage and if you watch this Video (courtesy of RTFB), there are also a few seconds of my presentation towards the end (at 00:01:59). For the first reading on September 28, 2003, I participated in the analyis of the directive and its amendments within FFII and prepared a Statemet on Software Patents as well as an analysis and voting recommendation on behalf of the FFS.
  Later in 2003, the European Patent Office received the Austrian Big Brother Award for harming the freedom of information ("the freedom to say that 2 + 2 = 4") by lobbying the EU to introduce Software Patents. My attempt to deliver it directly was refused, but was featured in the German Linux-Magazin nevertheless, here's a scan.

• SCO vs. Linux, Softwarepatente & Co. - Wird die Rechtsordnung im Informationszeitalter ad absurdum geführt? (SCO vs. Linux, Software Patents & Co. - Is Law becoming absurd in the Information Age?): Initially, I intended to give an updated talk on the implementation of the EUCD, but recent events made me change topic 3 days before the presentation at the Linuxwochen 2003 (Linxuweeks 2003) in Vienna, July 5-7. I explained the accusations SCO is publishing against Linux and why, In my opinion, they are absolutely groundless under european legal standards, therefore constituting an violation of european and national law against unfair competition. I then try to show that the case of SCO is the perfect proof that Software Patents in Europe are endangering the european economy, especially small and middle enterprises, rendering practically impossible any kind of useful innovation. You can get the presentation slides (pdf, tar.gz) as well as two press statements I wrote for the FFS, one regarding SCO (pdf) (mentioned, e.g. at the national broadcasting station's futurezone site), the other on Software Patents in Europe (pdf). If you want more information on both issues, please contact freedom2innovate@ffs.or.at. You might also want to get the contact address of some of the European Parliament's Members and tell (i.e. write a letter to) them what you think. Oh, and there are also some nice photos (1, 2) of my talk (courtesy of A.Krennmair).

• Freie Softwarelizenzen - Rechtliche Aspekte der GPL, LGPL und BSDL (Free Software Licenses - Legal aspects of the GPL, LGPL and BSDL): The Departement for Information Technology Law and Intellectual Property Law at the Institute for Civil Law, Commercial Law and Stock Market Law of the Faculty for Economy at the University of Vienna invited me to participate in the Rechtsforum Infolaw on June 3, 2003, where I gave a talk on various Free Software Licenses, on how and why to use which of them to solve what kind of problems and how to avoid possible pitfalls. You can get the handout (pdf) as well as the slides (pdf, tar.gz) directly from my site or download them from infolaw.at. If you want to know more about the issue, you might want to read my 2001 paper Freedom and Software.

• Vom Freiheits- zum blossen Vermögensrecht? (From Liberty to simple Property?): In it's convention from May 29-June 1, 2003 in Hallein, Salzburg, the Austrian Social Forum hosted a workshop on Information Technology for the first time. I gave a talk there on recent developements in Author's and Intellectual Property Rights Law, an update on European Patent issues, the international tendency towards "strong IP" and Copyleft as an alternative. The talk as well as the following discussion have been recorded and should be online soon.

• Urheber- als Freiheitsrecht (Autor's Rights as Liberties): Through the struggle of humanist philosopers, early european copyright was transformed from a tool of censorship and monoply to what has to be seen as a set of individual liberty rights. With the pending implementations of the EUCD and coming Digital Restriction Management technologies, this achievement is at stake. This talk has been given at the Workshop "Kreativität und Recht" (Creativity and Law) by the
Europäisches Institut für Urheber- und Medienrecht (European Institute for Autor's Rights and Media Law) on March 7, 2003 at the Literaturhaus in Munich. Slides (in german) are available (pdf, tar.gz); a publication followed.
• Modernes Urhebervertragsrecht (Contemporary Licensing Contract Law): In this talk, given at the Conference on Intellectual Property on Digital Processes from November 8-10, 2002 at the Department for Philosophy of the University of Vienna, I argued against the EUCD once more, focusing on one hand on the different traditions of Copyright vs. Author's Rights Laws and on the other hand on economic fairness of current and coming legal measures. As a brief summary, the handout is available. If you want to hear the complete talk (well, nearly - at the beginning, some minutes are missing) you can get a mp3 of it directly from my site or from the University of Vienna. The conference and my contribution have been mentioned at heise.de as well. If you're interested in doing something against the negative impact of the EUCD, you might want to join this mailinglist.

• Stellungnahme zum Entwurf einer Urheberrechtsgesetz-Novelle 2002 (Statement on the proposed revision of the Austrian Author's Rights Law): I wrote this official statement on behalf of the Verein zur Förderung Freier Software. The proposal by the Federal Ministry of Justice would implement the European Copyright Directive, thereby legalizing (in contrary to the Austrian Supreme Court's jurisdiction) unfair licencing models, de facto abolishing free (and fair) use and potentially harming economy, education and public administration. Because of the demission of the government, this proposal seems to be delayed at the moment. Nevertheless, the implementation of the EUCD is still pending - the issue will return. The Statement is available as pdf and html (both in german, of course). If you need the TeX-Sources to file a similar statement, mail me.

• Urheberrecht und Datenschutz - eine Abgrenzung (The Distinction between Copyright and Personal Data Protection/Privacy): This is a talk I gave at the Seminar entiteld Überwachung Überall? - Steht die Privatsphäre vor einer grundsätzlichen Neubewertung? (Surveillance everywhere - Is the Role of Privacy to be reevaluated fundamentally?) from July 26-28, 2002 at the Akademie für politische Bildung in Tutzing, Bavaria. I also participated as a referent in the podium discussion Visuelle Aspekte des Datenschutzes (Visual Aspects of Data Protection). A short summary of my talk is available (pdf, german). A book publication of an article elaborating deeper on the issues should follow.

• Owning the Immaterial? - Recent Developments in International IP Law and their Cultural, Social, and Economic Effects: Whereas european Author's Rights Laws (at least until now) provided a balance of interests between authors, publishers and users of a work, in the U.S. such a balance never existed. In practice, the publishing industry always has been the dominating force, tolerated by law. With the DMCA, absolute control about knowledge, art and information was handed over officially to Hollywood & Co., creating in fact a new and previously unknown form of property - stronger than any form of ownership on material goods. Therefore, it doesn't seem to far-fetched to consider it a bought law. Unfortunetly, the EUCD, the european cousin of the DMCA is likely to destroy the previous balance of Europe's Intellectual Property distribution, and hand it over to the U.S. Entertainment Industry, too. What legislators in european and developement countries can and should do about it now is the subject of this paper, which has been presented at the International Conference on eBusiness 2002 from May 22-26, 2002 in Beijing, China. The paper is available in the Conference Proceedings, Vol. II, published by Beijing Institute of Technology Press (2002), p. 667-672. Owning the Immaterial? can also be directly obtained from my site. Also available are the slides of the presentation (about 1.4 MB, so you might rather consider the tar.gz). Both in english, no german translation at the moment.

  I gave a similar presentation entiteld Der Kampf um das Copyright (The Copyright War) at the Museumsquartier Wien, Vienna during the viennese part of the Linuxweeks 2002 on June 27, 2002 although here, the main focus was on the (devastating) effect of possible implementaions by austrian legislature of the EUCD on austrian software developers, artists and users.

• Freiheit und Software (Freedom and Software): This analysis of the General Public License is a preview for more to come... see above. This paper has been presented at the Salzburger Rechtsinformatikgespräche 2001 and published in Schweighofer, E./Menzel, Th./Kreuzbauer, G. (Hrsg.): Auf dem Weg zur ePerson. Aktuelle Fragestellungen der Rechtsinformatik 2001 (= Schriftenreihe Rechtsinformatik; Bd.3), Wien: Verlag Osterreich, 331-344. During the months to follow, I elaborated on two aspects of the GPL: In a talk given at the Seminar für Rechtsinformatik und Rechtstheorie (Seminar on Legal Informatics and Legal Theory, University of Innsbruck) entitled Selbstregulierung im Internet am Beispiel Freier Software und Open Source (Free Software and Open Source as Examples for Self-Regulation on the Internet), I focused on theoretical aspects. In Die General Public License im Österreichischen Recht - Funktioniert der "Legal Hack"? (The General Public License in Austian Law - Does the "Legal Hack" work?) at the Linuxdays 2001 in St. Pölten, I examined practical questions in the use of the GPL and other Free Software licenses.

eGovernment and Knowledge Management:

• Stellungnahme für den Verein zur Förderung Freier Software zum Ministerialentwurf betreffend ein Bundesgesetz, mit dem ein e-Government-Gesetz erlassen wird sowie das Allgemeine Verwaltungs- verfahrensgesetz 1991, das Zustellgesetz und das Gebührengesetz 1957 geändert werden (Statment on behalf of the Federation for the Furthering of Free Software on the Austrian e-Government Act): This comment within the legislative procedure 9/SN-69/ME (XXII. GP) is available as a local copy as well as on the Austrian Parliament's site.

• Order and Chaos - Law as a Complex System (Ordnung und Chaos - Recht als Komplexes System): The goal of a legal system is to bring order into our lifes, isn't it? But what if legal systems and law itself were chaotic? A victim of the butterfly effect? In this paper, presented at IRIS 2003 - Internationales Rechtsinformatik Symposion in Salzburg I try to explain if Chaos Theory (or better: The Theory of Complex Systems) can be applied in Legal Science. So far, it is little more than a crative idea with a long way to go... still, there are some slides vailable, as well as a (somewhat arbitrary) XAF-animation for use with GNU XaoS.

• Electronic Government - Perspectives and Pitfalls (Electronic Government - Perspektiven und Fallstricke): This paper was presented at HICSS36, The Hawaiian International Conference on System Science. In it, the legal problems of current eGovernment paradigms are discussed. Issues which can be resolved on a technical level are explained as well as their possible solutions. Those problems which have to be dealt with by the legislative powers are identified and legal solutions proposed. Since I unfortunately was unable to follow the kind invitation to HICSS and participate personally, I am very thankful to Jochen Scholl, who presented my paper there for me. Both the paper and my presentation slides are available as pdf (the slides also as tar.gz). Published in Proceedings of Thirty-Sixth Annual Hawaii Conference on System Sciences, (CD/ROM) Washington DC (2003), available online at the Digital HICSS Library. In the meantime, there is Digistan, an organisation promoting open standards in electronic government, who also features my paper on their research site.

• Die Forschungsarbeiten von Tammelo und Schreiner zur Künstlichen Intelligenz (The Research of Tammelo and Schreiner on Artificial Intelligence): For the last two years before his death in September 2001, Helmut Schreiner has been my teacher while I worked at the Departement for Law and Informatics. About 20 years before, Illmar Tammelo was his teacher. This paper, presented at IRIS 2002 - Internationales Rechtsinformatik Symposion in Salzburg - is dedicated to todays relevance of their work on artificial intelligence. It has been published in Schweighofer, E./Menzel, Th./Kreuzbauer, G. (Hrsg.): IT in Recht und Staat, Wien: Verlag Österreich (2002), S. 273-283.

• Die Stadtgemeinde Bischofshofen - eGovernment in der Praxis (The City of Bischofshofen - eGovernment in Practice): This article, written together with Dietmar Jahnel and Jürgen Zahrer outlines details on one of the most interesting collaborations of the Departement for Law and Informatics - creating not only a website, but building an integrated eGovernment solution for the City of Bischofshofen. You can get a pdf of the article published in NOEO, Wissenschaftsmagazin der Salzburger Forschungseinrichtungen 01/2002, S. 14-18, as well as the slides of the presentation before the city senate.

Various Areas:

• Statuten des Vereins zur Förderung Freier Software (Statuatory of the Federation for the Furthering of Free Software): The Verein zur Förderung Freier Software is Austria's associated organisation of the Free Software Foundation Europe, both having strong bonds to the international Free Software Foundation. I have been one of the founding members of the austrian FFS, and (being a lawyer) made substantial contributions to it's statuatory. I am elected president of the FFS and you can find copys of some of my writings on that site, too. In the archive of the FSF-Europe's mailing list, you may be able to find some opinions of mine on licensing and author's rights issues as well.

• Zur Haftung universitärer Informatikdienste für Netzwerkausfälle und Accountsperren (Civil Liabilty of University Computing Centers): In May 2001, the Center for Computing Services of the Salzburg University hosted the annual Conference of ARGE Secure, an Organisation of Computing Centers of austrian Universities. The paper of my talk, dealing with the changes caused by the autonomy of universitarian Institutions and it's further developement, is available as pdf.

• Warum mir Nutella nicht mehr schmeckt... (Why I don't like Nutella anymore...): A rather polemic essay about the absurdities of domainames and intellectual property, critizising the Ferrero-Company (producer of the famous Nutella and holder of the corresponding trademark) for trying to frighten the holders of domainnames containing gnutella. It has been the Editorial for March 2001 on Prolinux. A local copy is available as html.

• Being Free: In August 2000, I participated in the Core Academic Session Transnational Perspectives of Intellectual Property and Telecommunications Law of the Salzburg Seminar as an Observer nominated by the University of Salzburg. The conferences there not only provide the opportunity of scientific discourse on a international level, they also create moments of beauty and magic. I made a lot of long-lasting friendship with people from all over the world there. Most of these friends are lawyers and/or IT professionals, but the majority wasn't too familiar with the concepts of Free Software, although all of them knew Linux. This paper (html version, both in english only)is an introduction to GNU/Linux, the licensing concept of the GPL and legal as well as economic issues related to it. I heard it even has been used as material in Taiwo A. Oriola's lecture on intellectual property law at the Obafemi Awolowo University of Ife-Ife, Nigeria. And it is dedicated to one of the most intense, brilliant and beautiful persons I ever met...

• Zur Anwendbarkeit von Kaufrecht auf Softwareüberlassungsverträge (Applicable Law when Purchasing Software): Comparing the Situation in Austria and Germany, I am analyzing high court decisions saying that the purchase of software is analogous to that of material goods. This paper has been a contribution to the Seminar in Civil Law held by Georg Graf, Michael Gruber, Peter Mader and Erwin Migsch at the Salzburg Faculty of Law in the Summer-Semester 2000. In the meantime, the Softman vs. Adobe case has created some interesting paralells to U.S. law.

• Sponsoringverträge - ein juristischer Überblick (Sponsorship Contracts - A Juridical Overview): Being my master thesis at the Salzburg University's Faculty of Law in 1999, it is my first major writing. My very special thanks go to Georg Graf, who is the father of my above mentioned doctorate thesis as well and always has been a wonderful teacher and indespensible help in it's creation. It is the first analysis of sponsorship contracts on the basis of austrian civil law and available as pdf. Since it is a rather large file (1.6 MB), a tar.gz and a zipped file are available as well. And yes, it has a very special dedication, too...