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UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA -New study explores evidence on illegal downloading and file sharing(ENP Newswire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) ENP Newswire - 14 April 2014 Release date- 11042014 - Researchers at the University of East Anglia have conducted the most comprehensive review ever of evidence on the illegal downloading and file sharing of digital media. The copying and sharing of files, such as music, has been blamed for a potentially catastrophic decline in certain markets. But why do consumers copy? And is it as economically harmful as often thought? In a study carried out for CREATe, the UK research centre for copyright, a decade of evidence on the consequences of and reasons for unlawfully sharing digital media, such a music, films, videogames and books, has been analysed. The researchers say that it remains unclear whether illegal file sharing is good or bad for consumers and producers, and that there are 'serious limitations' to the methods used in existing studies, with a need to further explore the different markets. Applying techniques normally used in the medical sciences, articles were searched in academic databases, while non-academic literature was sought from key stakeholders and research centres. Over 54,000 sources published between 2003 and 2013 were initially found and these were narrowed down to 206 articles which examined human behaviour, intentions or attitudes. Prof Daniel Zizzo is an economist at UEA and co-authored the study with behavioural psychologists Dr Piers Fleming and Dr Steven Watson. Prof Zizzo said the research, launched today, revealed that current knowledge of file sharing is dramatically skewed by sector and method. 'Most evidence is based on the unlawful file sharing of music, which has been subjected to far more research than movies and software, which themselves have been studied far more than videogames, books or TV,' he said. 'This means there is a real risk of designing policy which meets the needs of a specific industry, possibly at the expense of other creative industries which are less well represented in the literature. Also, the economic effects found in one medium may not apply to another and current knowledge of file sharing is dramatically skewed by method. 'The evidence on societal costs points in conflicting directions and our study shows that the impact of illegal downloading and file sharing remains unclear. Focussing on 'lost sales', and examining people's hypothetical willingness to pay with and without the possibility of unlawful file sharing is insufficient. Regarding causes of unlawful file sharing, there are many studies on self-reported attitudes, but few studies that observe behaviour. This is a problem, particularly as there is often a gap in findings between studies that use behaviour and studies that do not.' An important contribution of the new study is the identification of five testable reasons why consumers copy: (a) Financial and Legal Utility (this is where the enforcement debate traditionally focussed: 'you can't compete with free'); (b) Experiential Utility (unlawful file sharing may be influenced by a desire to sample new content, to access niche content, or to build a collection); (c) Technical Utility (content is easier to access unlawfully); (d) Social Utility (it appears to matter what our peers do: a kind of herding effect); (e) Moral Utility (this perhaps motivates policy makers' emphasis on the education of consumers). The academics devised a cube graphic that illustrates the key findings of the study in relation to the determinants of unlawful file sharing. A commonly held belief is that unlawful file sharing costs the creative economy billions of pounds every year. But according to Martin Kretschmer, Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the University of Glasgow, and director of CREATe, 'legislating without understanding behaviour produces lop-sided policies. The most useful evidence increases our understanding of how to turn infringers into customers'. CREATe is the Centre for Copyright and New Business Models in the Creative Economy, a national hub jointly funded by the AHRC (Arts & Humanities), EPSRC (Engineering & Physical Sciences) and ESRC (Economic & Social Sciences). The centre is a pioneering interdisciplinary initiative, and globally the first effort to investigate the relationship between Creativity, Regulation, Enterprise and Technology (=CREATe) through the lens of copyright law. It is a consortium of seven universities, led by the University of Glasgow and including UEA. (c) 2014 Electronic News Publishing - |