ESPRit Online Seminar Series: Periodicals and the Law — Fifth Series
ESPRit is pleased to announce the fifth series of its online seminar “Periodicals and the Law”, featuring two invited speakers who will explore legal, historical, and technological dimensions of periodical studies in a transnational perspective.
Registration form below
1. AI and Software Legal Protection
28 November 2025, 16:00 CEST
Speaker: Dr Marinos Papadopoulos (Lawyer; Legal Advisor; Specialist in Law and Technology)
Chair: Simona Laghi
The seminar will focus on the right of communication to the public and the making available right in relation to software. It will explore relevant EU legislation and draw on established case law concerning these rights, with particular attention to key legal concepts such as the notion of the “public.” The presentation will also address the protection of software under EU law, outlining the exclusive rights granted to software rightholders and examining how the right of communication to the public is exercised in practice. Part of the seminar will be dedicated to the intersection of software and artificial intelligence, highlighting common AI components and the legal mechanisms available for their protection. Additionally, the presentation will touch upon the challenges software developers face when attempting to secure patents under European law, metaphorically described as the "needle's eye" through which they must pass.
Speaker bio:
Dr. Marinos Papadopoulos is a Lawyer, registered with the Athens Bar Association since 1996. Ever since he practices Law and participates in national and international forums related to Law and Technology. From 2016 to 2024, he was legal advisor to the National Library of Greece for Copyright, Contract Law, Transparency and Open Access in the new era of the National Library at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre. He served as legal advisor to the World Bank Group on legal issues related to the implementation of the new Judicial Map of the Greek Justice system. He has extensive experience as a specialized scientist and legal advisor in innovation projects funded by the European Commission and implemented in Greece and abroad. Works authored by him on legal issues of Law and Technology have been published in academic and scientific publications in Greece, the USA, the United Kingdom, Australia and India.
2. So far, yet so close. English Newsbooks and the Polish-Lithuanian Sejm
19 February 2026, 14:00 CEST
Speaker: Dr Anna Kalinowska (Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences; Polish History Museum)
Chair: Aled Gruffydd Jones
Dr Kalinowska’s seminar explores how seventeenth-century English newsbooks reported on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and its parliamentary system. The emergence of the periodical press in England was closely linked to Parliament, as the first newsbooks in the early 1640s focused on reporting events in Westminster when Parliament became a key institution in the country’s political life. When the editors expanded the scope of coverage to include foreign news, Poland-Lithuania and its Sejm became regular subjects of reports and comments for newsbook readers. In my presentation, I will discuss the most important elements of the coverage of the Polish-Lithuanian parliamentary system, with a particular focus on the legal aspects of its functioning and the manner in which news about the Sejm was contextualised within the domestic political landscape. Despite the geographical distance and the multitude of differences between the two countries, it is clear that the Polish-Lithuanian reality was well known to both the newsbook editors and their readership, and constituted a point of reference in the domestic political discourse that was so prominent at the time.
Speaker bio:
Dr Anna Kalinowska is a Senior Researcher in the Institute of History at the Polish Academy of Sciences and Head of Publications at the Polish History Museum, as well as former Head of Historical Research at the Royal Castle, all in Warsaw. Her research interests are centred on the area of early modern diplomacy and news in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and in Western Europe, with a particular emphasis on newspapers. She is one of the organisers of the ‘Splendid Encounters’ conference series and a grantee of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the US State Department (Fulbright Program). Most recently she was also a Fernand Braudel Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence..
Registration
To register for the seminar with Anna Kalinowska, please visit:
👉 P&L Seminar – Anna Kalinowska – 19 February 2026