Editorial Information
Managing Editors
- Theo Koutmeridis (economics) [lead editor]
- Kris Erickson (media & communications)
- Martin Kretschmer [chair of editorial board]
Selection Methodology
Guidelines for the cataloguing of copyright evidence where developed following a CREATe workshop on 20 October 2014, attended by Sayantan Ghosal (Dpt of Economics, University of Glasgow), Georg v Graevenitz (Queen Mary University of London & CREATe Fellow in Innovation Economics), Morten Hviid (Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia) and Ruth Towse (Bournemouth University & CREATe Fellow in Cultural Economics). Further consultations have taken place with Chris Buccafusco (New York University), Smita Kheria (University of Edinburgh), Joost Poort (Institute for Information Law, University of Amsterdam & CREATe Fellow in Economics of copyright and media industries) and Steven Watson (Lancaster University).
The initial selection of 500 studies was drawn from four sources:
- A scoping review of the "piracy" literature commissioned by CREATe from Watson, Fleming and Zizzo, published in 2014. This used a review technique from the medical sciences to identify more than 50,000 academic sources that were potentially relevant for assessing unlawful file sharing, covering music, film, television, video games, software and books. During the review process, the sources were narrowed down to 206 articles which examined human behaviour.
- Working papers and pre-prints published in the SSRN e-journal Intellectual Property: Empirical Studies (edited by Christopher J. Buccafusco and David L. Schwartz). 710 papers published between November 1996 and July 2015 were narrowed down to 132 studies relevant to copyright law. These were further reviewed by the core editorial team of the Wiki (Koutmeridis, Erickson, Kretschmer) if they contained “sufficient empirical material” that warranted coding. “Sufficient empirical material” could be quantitative or qualitative. Our working definition excluded anecdotal or journalistic treatment, though single case studies were acceptable if the methodology was articulated and justified. A total of 103 studies were selected and catalogued from this SSRN source.
- Expert literature reviews conducted by Handke (2011), Kretschmer (2012) and Kheria (2013). They were used to fill some of the gaps left by the “piracy” review, in particular relating to creator perspectives. A total of 81 studies will be catalogued under this method.
- 50 governmental reports on intellectual property/copyright policy, proposed by CREATe doctoral candidates Kenny Barr and Megan Blakely, and reviewed by the core editorial team of the Wiki (Koutmeridis, Erickson, Kretschmer).
The initial selection of studies was pragmatic. The aim was to set a standard of review, and allocate limited resources for coding. The Wiki format is designed to enable user participation, and any gaps in the evidence should be filled by interested parties who may submit studies as candidates for coding, and/or volunteer to code these according to the template developed by the team.
An editorial review process will be devised that will be open, yet robust enough to prevent capturing of the Wiki platform by any specific interests. For this purpose, an editorial board will be constituted, following the public launch of the Wiki, on 2 September 2015, as part of the 10th Annual Conference of the European Policy for Intellectual Property Association (EPIP 2015).
The text which appears in the main page has been commissioned and reviewed by the editorial team. In particular, the initial texts for 'evidence-based copyright policy' have been written by Kris Erickson and Elena Cooper (B. Exceptions) and by Theodore Koutmeridis (F. Enforcement).
How to use and cite The Copyright Evidence Wiki
The material collected on CopyrightEvidence.org is offered on a free and open basis. The resource may be cited in the following way:
Koutmeridis, T., Erickson, K., & Kretschmer, M. (Eds.). (2015). The Copyright Evidence Wiki: Empirical Evidence for Copyright Policy. www.CopyrightEvidence.org. CREATe Centre: University of Glasgow. Accessed dd/mm/yyyy.
When citing, we suggest including the date when the platform was accessed, as the content is subject to revisions.
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