An information society is a society where the creation, distribution, use, integration and manipulation of information is a noteworthy economic, political and cultural activity.

• The rise of information society are realized along with some concerns
• concerning digital information, the internet, and applications (digitalized information)

Industrial and Post-Industrial Economics

• Industrial Economic Values:
  • Focused on producing goods demanded by the market.

The value of producing things are lass because other can also make similar things

• Post-Industrial Economic Values:
  • Shifted to providing services, with substantial growth in professional services like banking, insurance, legal services, education, and media.

The value of economy changes from ‘what we can produce’ to ‘what we can provide in terms of services’

Information Economics

• In information economics, the emphasis is on leveraging information to create economic value and a shift towards controlling and utilizing information as a valuable resource.
• Examples include internet services like banking, insurance, financial services, as well as video/music streaming and social networking tools.
  • Information Economic Values:
    • Focuses on enabling people to utilize information.
    • Involves developing an economy based on systems for collecting, storing, and processing information.
  • Control of Information:
    • Shifts from ownership or control of physical assets to ownership or control over information.

We believe that with the availability of digital information, we can create a new influential model — the Information economy, where the value lies in owning and controlling information rather than in owning or producing physical things.

The world of Bits

What is a bits

• A bit is short for "binary digit," representing the fundamental unit in binary code, which can be either 0 or 1. It is the smallest unit of computer storage.

Bits (digital information) vs Atom (physical things)

• The shift from economic value in physical goods to information signifies the maturity of information technology.
• This change simplifies the economic shift as moving from owning physical items ("atoms") to owning information in the digital realm, represented by "bits.”

Bits in the Physical World:

• In the physical world, understanding what a bit is involves exploring its impact on social interaction.
• In the context of this course, questions arise: How do bits affect social interaction? Why does the law need to consider the effects of bits?
• Therefore, the focus should not be narrow on what a bit is, but rather, a broader examination is needed to understand what a bit does.

The Process of Digitalization

Text

• ASCII is a common system used by all computers to encode all the letters and punctuations of the English language.
• Value between 0 and 255
• Capital A-Z are given values 65-90.
• Lower case a-z are given values 97-122
• อาจารย์จะให้เป็นตัวเลข Binary มาก็ต้องแปลงเป็น Decimal แล้วเทียบดูในตาราง ASCII ลองดูวิธีการแปลงที่ Binary Numbers

Digital Music

• Distributed digitally since the early 1980s.
• Encoded by taking constant samples of the audio waveform, representing sound pressure as voltage, and then encoding it as numerical values (bits).

Digital Photography

• Allocates numerical values to each color and shade.
• Enables precise replication and display of the encoded data on various output devices
  • Such as computer monitors and smartphone screens.

Digital Video

• Combines photo and audio techniques.
• Constant stream of data replicating moving imagery is encoded on a carrier media.

Moving from Atoms to Bits

Overview

• From writing a message on a paper → word processing it.
• Turn sounds, images, electrical outputs, into digital information.
• Such technology impacts the society and economic world.

Music Industry

• MP3 sound compression technique allowed us to reduce the size of music file to around 6-7 MB on average
• This compression involves removing non-essential information for reproduction.
• While there is a quality drop-off compared to high-bitrate recordings, for most consumers, MP3 quality is good enough!

Legal Challenges of the Information Society

• The shift from the industrial to the information society introduces three key effects:
  1. Transition from ownership or control of physical items to ownership or control over information.
  2. Introduction of a new and revolutionary model for marketing and delivering products or services.
  3. Move from rivalrousness to nonrivalrousness, indicating changes in the nature of competition and resource consumption. These shifts pose legal challenges that need to be addressed in the evolving landscape of the information society.

Regulating the Information Society