GikII is a series of European conferences on the intersections between law, technology and popular culture. It is hosted at a different institution every year. The first conference was in 2006 and was held in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, and was organised by Lilian Edwards and

Andres Guadamuz Andres or Andrés may refer to: *Andres, Illinois, an unincorporated community in Will County, Illinois, US *Andres, Pas-de-Calais, a commune in Pas-de-Calais, France * Andres (name) *Hurricane Andres * "Andres" (song), a 1994 song by L7 See als ...

. The conference has been held in several European universities and institutions, including

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other bein ...

Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society The Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) is a research institution in Berlin. Its stated mission is to research “the development of the internet from a societal perspective with the aim of better understanding the accom ...

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich h ...

and

University of Sussex , mottoeng = Be Still and Know , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £14.4 million (2020) , budget = £319.6 million (2019–20) , chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar , vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil , ...

. Spin-off workshops are regularly held in addition to the main yearly conference in other parts of the world or as tracks in other conferences, such as at TILTing 2019 at

Tilburg University Tilburg University is a public research university specializing in the social and behavioral sciences, economics, law, business sciences, theology and humanities, located in Tilburg in the southern part of the Netherlands. Tilburg University has ...

and SoGikII 2009 at the

University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensiv ...

. The conference deals with what the organisers describe as "geek law", studying the intersection of law, regulation, popular culture and technology. The covered topics include

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

cryptocurrencies A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It ...

virtual world A virtual world (also called a virtual space) is a computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many users who can create a personal avatar, and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activitie ...

s, games,

tattoo A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing proc ...

3D printing 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer ...

, fan fiction,

digital privacy Digital privacy is often used in contexts that promote advocacy on behalf of individual and consumer privacy rights in e-services and is typically used in opposition to the business practices of many e-marketers, businesses, and companies to coll ...

avatar Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appeara ...

rights,

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory Modality (human–computer interaction), modalities, including visual, Hearing, auditory, hap ...

, and robots.

Name

The Call for Papers of the first workshop gave the following explanation:2006 –Edinburgh
GikII archive

Geek The word ''geek'' is a slang term originally used to describe eccentric or non-mainstream people; in current use, the word typically connotes an expert or enthusiast obsessed with a hobby or intellectual pursuit. In the past, it had a genera ...
s are the people who contribute to this knowledge: fellow travellers on the digital omnibus, who delight in finding, publishing, inventing and sharing nuggets of joyful knowledge and innovation from the worlds of technology, science, popular culture, and technotrivia. LIIs are
Legal Information Institute The Legal Information Institute (LII) is a non-profit, public service of Cornell Law School that provides no-cost access to current American and international legal research sources online alaw.cornell.edu The organization is a pioneer in the d ...
s: invaluable on-line temples of legal knowledge. The patriarch of the field is
AustLII The Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) is an institution operated jointly by the Faculties of Law of the University of Technology Sydney and the University of New South Wales. Its public policy purpose is to improve access to ju ...
, but the concept has spread through the world bringing us
BAILII The British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII, pronounced "Bailey") provides legal information, and especially reports of cases decided by courts, in the United Kingdom generally. Decisions from England and Wales, Ireland, Northern ...
, PacLII,
CommonLII The Free Access to Law Movement (FALM) is the international movement and organization devoted to providing free online access to legal information such as case law, legislation, treaties, law reform proposals and legal scholarship. The movement ...
, and no doubt, many more bad puns to come. GikII proposes to be the place where these worlds, institutions and players will come together for the first time at a major law and technology conference.

References

External links

GikII website
Academic conferences Law in Europe Science and technology in Europe Popular culture Internet law Computer law {{Popular-culture-stub