Law and the "Sharing Economy"

Law and the
Author: Derek McKee
Publisher: University of Ottawa Press
Total Pages: 559
Release: 2018-11-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0776627538

Controversy shrouds sharing economy platforms. It stems partially from the platforms’ economic impact, which is felt most acutely in certain sectors: Uber drivers compete with taxi drivers; Airbnb hosts compete with hotels. Other consequences lie elsewhere: Uber is associated with a trend toward low-paying, precarious work, whereas Airbnb is accused of exacerbating real estate speculation and raising the cost of long-term rental housing. While governments in some jurisdictions have attempted to rein in the platforms, technology has enabled such companies to bypass conventional regulatory categories, generating accusations of “unfair competition” as well as debates about the merits of existing regulatory regimes. Indeed, the platforms blur a number of familiar distinctions, including personal versus commercial activity; infrastructure versus content; contractual autonomy versus hierarchical control. These ambiguities can stymie legal regimes that rely on these distinctions as organizing principles, including those relating to labour, competition, tax, insurance, information, the prohibition of discrimination, as well as specialized sectoral regulation. This book is organized around five themes: technologies of regulation; regulating technology; the sites of regulation (local to global); regulating markets; and regulating labour. Together, the chapters offer a rich variety of insights on the regulation of the sharing economy, both in terms of the traditional areas of law they bring to bear, and the theoretical perspectives that inform their analysis. Published in English.

The Cambridge Handbook of the Law of the Sharing Economy

The Cambridge Handbook of the Law of the Sharing Economy
Author: Nestor M. Davidson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 952
Release: 2018-11-22
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108266207

This Handbook grapples conceptually and practically with what the sharing economy - which includes entities ranging from large for-profit firms like Airbnb, Uber, Lyft, Taskrabbit, and Upwork to smaller, non-profit collaborative initiatives - means for law, and how law, in turn, is shaping critical aspects of the sharing economy. Featuring a diverse set of contributors from many academic disciplines and countries, the book compiles the most important, up-to-date research on the regulation of the sharing economy. The first part surveys the nature of the sharing economy, explores the central challenge of balancing innovation and regulatory concerns, and examines the institutions confronting these regulatory challenges, and the second part turns to a series of specific regulatory domains, including labor and employment law, consumer protection, tax, and civil rights. This groundbreaking work should be read by anyone interested in the dynamic relationship between law and the sharing economy.

Practicing Law in the Sharing Economy

Practicing Law in the Sharing Economy
Author: Janelle Orsi
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre: Cooperation
ISBN: 9781614385462

Sharing economy lawyers make the exploding numbers of social enterprises, cooperatives, urban farms, local currencies, and the vast array of unique organizations arising from the sharing economy possible and legal. This essential guide will guide the practicing lawyer through areas of law they need to be familiar with from drafting agreements to employment regulations and managing intellectual property and risk.

The Sharing Economy

The Sharing Economy
Author: Arun Sundararajan
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2016-05-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0262034573

The wide-ranging implications of the shift to a sharing economy, a new model of organizing economic activity that may supplant traditional corporations.

Destabilized Property

Destabilized Property
Author: Shelly Kreiczer-Levy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2019-11-14
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108475272

This book studies the rise of access over ownership and the sharing economy's challenges to the liberal vision of property.

Legal Tech and the New Sharing Economy

Legal Tech and the New Sharing Economy
Author: Marcelo Corrales Compagnucci
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2019-12-13
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9811513503

The exponential growth of disruptive technology is changing our world. The development of cloud computing, big data, the internet of things, artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, and other related autonomous systems, such as self-driving vehicles, have triggered the emergence of new products and services. These significant technological breakthroughs have opened the door to new economic models such as the sharing and platform-based economy. As a result, companies are becoming increasingly data- and algorithm-driven, coming to be more like “decentralized platforms”. New transaction or payment methods such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, based on trust-building systems using Blockchain, smart contracts, and other distributed ledger technology, also constitute an essential part of this new economic model. The sharing economy and digital platforms also include the everyday exchange of goods allowing individuals to commodify their surplus resources. Information and innovation technologies are used in order to then match these resources with existing demand in the market. Online platforms such as Airbnb, Uber, and Amazon reduce information asymmetry, increase the value of unused resources, and create new opportunities for collaboration and innovation. Moreover, the sharing economy is playing a major role in the transition from exclusive ownership of personal assets toward access-based exploitation of resources. The success of online matching platforms depends not only on the reduction of search costs but also on the trustworthiness of platform operators. From a legal perspective, the uncertainties triggered by the emergence of a new digital reality are particularly urgent. How should these tendencies be reflected in legal systems in each jurisdiction? This book collects a series of contributions by leading scholars in the newly emerging fields of sharing economy and Legal Tech. The aim of the book is to enrich legal debates on the social, economic, and political meaning of these cutting-edge technologies. The chapters presented in this edition attempt to answer some of these lingering questions from the perspective of diverse legal backgrounds.

The Sharing Economy in Europe

The Sharing Economy in Europe
Author: Vida Česnuitytė
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 429
Release: 2022-01-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3030868974

This open access book considers the development of the sharing and collaborative economy with a European focus, mapping across economic sectors, and country-specific case studies. It looks at the roles the sharing economy plays in sharing and redistribution of goods and services across the population in order to maximise their functionality, monetary exchange, and other aspects important to societies. It also looks at the place of the sharing economy among various policies and how the contexts of public policies, legislation, digital platforms, and other infrastructure interrelate with the development and function of the sharing economy. The book will help in understanding the future (sharing) economy models as well as to contribute in solving questions of better access to resources and sustainable innovation in the context of degrowth and growing inequalities within and between societies. It will also provide a useful source for solutions to the big challenges of our times such as climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and recently the coronavirus disease pandemic (COVID-19). This book will be of interest to academics and students in economics and business, organisational studies, sociology, media and communication and computer science.

The Sharing Economy

The Sharing Economy
Author: Maria Regina Redinha
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 508
Release: 2018-11-21
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1527522032

The sharing economy is just one of several possible expressions to designate the complex model of social and economic relationships based on the intensive use of digital technology. Constant permutations and combinations allow these relationships to be established through the intervention of a third party making traditional contractual positions flexible in such a way that today’s employee is tomorrow’s entrepreneur, or today’s consumer is tomorrow’s supplier of goods and services. The current legal framework is, in many respects, unable to accommodate such big changes and new legal regulations are required where adaptation of the existing ones proves to be inadequate. This book highlights where changes are needed and where adaptations are required, with a particular focus on the Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, British and Brazilian contexts. For that, four different approaches are undertaken, namely the meta-legal, macro-legal, micro-legal and transnational approaches. The study that results from these different approaches enables readers to acquire a general view on the current legal problems arising from the sharing economy, and was a direct result of a research project of the Centre for Legal and Economic Research, at the University of Porto, funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia.

Perspectives on the Sharing Economy

Perspectives on the Sharing Economy
Author: Indre Maurer
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2019-08-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1527538532

Sharing instead of owning is one of the major trends in modern (business) life. By changing how people consume, the rise of the sharing economy has the potential to redefine the role of owners, consumers and producers, change their mode of transaction, create innovative business models, disrupt existing industries, and challenge political and regulative institutions. In addition to these practical implications, the sharing economy phenomenon represents a novel playground for theoretical advancement, attracting a multitude of research and researchers from different disciplines. While this can potentially open up new avenues for practice and theory to stimulate each other, they do not seem to go hand-in-hand at the moment. This volume brings together research from a wide variety of theoretical backgrounds and disciplines to encourage academic discourse on the sharing economy phenomenon. It comprises contributions that are grounded in different theoretical perspectives, including business history, economics, strategic management, organization studies, information systems, political science, legal studies, linguistics, and semantics. While all contributions focus on the sharing economy phenomenon, they examine the subject from different disciplinary angles. Together, they provide a coherent and comprehensive overview of research on the sharing economy.