Copyright Evidence

From Copyright EVIDENCE
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Welcome to the Copyright Evidence Wiki
The open platform that collects evidence about copyright's role in society
909 studies have been fully catalogued
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Introducing Copyright Evidence

Copyright Evidence is a digital resource developed by CREATe at the University of Glasgow. The purpose of the Wiki is to categorise existing empirical studies on copyright to inform public debate and policy based on rigorous evidence. Among others, the evidence is catalogued by country, industry and research method, offering an in-depth view of existing findings. The evidence from empirical studies can be complemented with new results from CREATe research databases, such as those related to online consumption behaviour (OMeBa), litigation of IP cases (Litigation Explorer) and real-time infringement on file sharing networks (IPWatchr).

More about Copyright Evidence

Copyright Evidence intends to establish a body of evidence that allows better decision making in a contested policy field. Competing claims can be assessed and challenged transparently using underlying data and methods. Robustness and limitations of findings are carefully collected and are available here for all to reference.

This project is a form of dynamic literature review in a rapidly changing technological, business and socio-legal landscape. Only very recently, new research methods in combination with the development of big data techniques, which are richer both in size and in depth, have allowed researchers to test empirically key theoretical propositions and forced them to build theories which are consistent with observation. This generated the need to evaluate political decisions and design policy interventions based on evidence.

This open online platform builds on an innovative research philosophy and examines copyright from an interdisciplinary perspective, while it also facilitates bringing evidence to the debate from studies in fields that were previously overlooked. Relevant empirical work spreads across conventional methodological and disciplinary boundaries and it does not need to have "copyright" in the title.

A crucial dimension of the existing evidence examines different stages of production (e.g. creation, innovation, diffusion, distribution), in various creative industries (e.g. music, film and motion pictures, TV programmes, computer software, books), and estimates the effects of copyright on diverse agents in each sector, such as creators, investors, distributors, users or society as a whole. The fact that the impact of copyright law differs across various actors, industries and demographic groups, implies the need for more specific policies (for instance, even though the Ofcom (2011) survey provides evidence of heterogeneous consumption patterns, this remains an understudied aspect in most of the existing studies).

The transition to a global digital economy is associated with new challenges for enforcement authorities, for copyright law and for new business models. Imaginative use of the increasing volume of data is crucial for the design of more effective policies at the national and international level. Importantly, the effects of copyright protection and infringement for welfare, creativity and innovation require that policy decision making be consistent with rigorous empirical analysis.

I. Fundamental issues about the copyright incentive

1. Relationship between protection and economic performance (452)

This field includes studies that examine the connection between copyright protection (e.g. subject matter, term, scope) and economic performance (e.g. supply, economic growth, welfare). Papers in this category often link different legal and institutional settings to economic performance (e.g. through historical counterfactuals) and also may examine non-IP markets (e.g. recipes, jokes, formats, fashion).

2. Relationship between creative process, incentives and legal rules (168)

This field includes studies that focus on what motivates creators (e.g. attribution, control, remuneration, time allocation, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation). Among others, the papers included under this category connect to the literature on labour markets and earnings, and the production of culture literature (e.g. linking rules on adaptation, sampling, co-authorship to aesthetic outcomes).

3. Contracts, harmony and conflict of interests between creators and investors (71)

This field includes studies that examine the common assumption of a harmony of interests between creators (e.g. authors, performers) and investors (e.g. publishers, producers), a simplifying hypothesis that facilitates analytical solutions, which however finds weak empirical support. Papers included under this category also examine collecting societies and relate to the area of contract theory.

4. Effects of protection on industry structure (264)

This field includes studies that examine the connection between copyright protection, competition and industry structure. Among others, the papers included under this category focus on monopolies, oligopolies, the economics of superstars, new business models, technology adoption and relate to the fields of industrial organisation and competition law.

5. Understanding consumption and use (489)

This field includes studies that examine human behaviour and in particular consumption and use. Among others, the papers included under this category focus on the determinants of unlawful behaviour and changing forms of consumption and use (e.g. user-generated content, social media, streaming) and relate to the areas of behavioural economics and consumer theory.

II. Copyright policy issues

A. Nature and scope of exclusive rights (215)

This field includes papers that examine policy issues related to the types of works that are eligible for copyright protection and the extent of the protection offered by exclusive rights and moral rights. Among others, the papers included under this category focus on the originality threshold, derivative works, hyperlinking, news aggregation, retransmission and resale.

B. Exceptions (153)

This field includes papers that examine policy issues related to whether materials which otherwise are subject to exclusive copyright protection should be available for justifiable use without seeking permission and whether existing exceptions and limitations facilitate creative and scientific progress. Among others, the papers included under this category distinguish exceptions and limitations for the purposes of innovation or public policy, open-ended provisions from closed lists, commercial and non-commercial uses.

C. Mass digitisation / orphan works (78)

This field includes papers that examine policy issues related to the process that enable mass digitisation of copyright protected content. Among others, the papers included under this category focus on potential solutions for orphan works and non-use of cultural works (e.g. exceptions, licensing schemes and extended collective licensing).

D. Licensing and business models (288)

This field includes papers that examine policy issues related to strategies and licensing solutions in the exploitation of copyright protected materials, and how legal markets attempt to match production to consumption. Among others, the papers included under this category examine collecting societies, metadata, copyright exchanges and hubs, windowing and crossborder access.

E. Fair remuneration (136)

This field includes papers that examine policy issues related to creators’ earnings. Among others, the papers included under this category focus on the sources of artistic income, royalty flows, copyright contracts and levies.

F. Enforcement (463)

This field includes papers that examine policy issues related to the optimal way to enforce the private right of copyright. Among others, the papers included under this category focus on quantifying infringement, technological measures of protection, intermediary liability, graduated responses, notice and takedowns, criminal sanctions, litigation and court data, copyright education and awareness.

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Example Visualisation

Example Semantic and Visualisation
This network graph illustrates citation links between key related studies contained in the Evidence Wiki.
Create your own visualisations:

Featured Study

Steinmetz and Tunnell (2013) Steinmetz, K. F., & Tunnell, K. D. (2013). Under the pixelated Jolly Roger: A study of on-line pirates. Deviant Behavior, 34(1), 53-67.

Semantic Drilldown

This feature allows users to browse all studies in the Wiki. See all studies categorised by country, industry, research method, and more. Click here to try it.

Methodology (Analysis)

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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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This is a project of the CREATe copyright research centre at the University of Glasgow. With support from Research Councils UK.