11th International Media Law Forum: “Legal Foundations of (Digital) Surveillance Capitalism”

The Institute for Media and Communications Law (IMKR), in collaboration with the German-American Lawyers’ Association (DAJV) and the Collaborative Research Center 1187 “Media of Cooperation” at the University of Siegen, invites you to the 11th International Media Law Forum (IMLF) on Monday, November 9, 2020, starting at 3:00 p.m.

Prof. Dr. Katharina Pistor, LL.M. (London), holder of the Chair of Comparative Law at Columbia Law School in New York, will speak in English about surveillance capitalism, which the US economist Shoshana Zuboff—who coined the term—describes as a rise in the use of digital data for private profit maximization that largely takes place outside the existing legal framework. In doing so, Zuboff overlooks the fact that digital capitalism has harnessed the very same legal structures that have formed the foundations of capitalism for several centuries. Surveillance capitalism is thus not an aberration, but a logical continuation of the capitalist system. In her lecture, Katharina Pistor demonstrates that a more socially responsible use of the digital age’s potential requires a reorganization of legal structures (see also her latest book “The Code of Capital”, published by Princeton University Press, and in German as “Der Code des Kapitals,” to be published by Suhrkamp). The lecture will be followed by a discussion.

All interested parties are cordially invited to participate via Zoom free of charge and without registration.