If I were to imagine/conduct an information-related
experiment of some kind, without regard to budget, time, skill (and assuming participant
consent to privacy violation was obtained in accordance to ethics guidelines),
it would be something to do with online viewership.
For example, for the purpose of this week’s blogging post,
the experiment could be to test if having a Netflix, or Hulu or other membership
had a correlation to Canadian viewers’ choice of searching for copyright-violating
videos of American film/TV content on YouTube among other user video uploading
websites. The results of the experiment could reveal whether people search for
copyright-violating videos due to ‘financial’ reasons or other observed
reasons. Specifically, I would set the independent variable as having
membership with Netflix (or Hulu), and the dependent variable to watching
copyrighted-content on YouTube. The controlled variable is age or age groups,
as it could infer expertise in looking for illegal, but free content as well as
financial stability.
But realistically speaking is this experiment the SSHRC
would fund, let alone other research funding institutions/organizations?
Perhaps if I justified it through arguing this is of interest to either amendment
or call for enforcement of current copyright laws. This would also presume that
the current copyright laws are imperfect.
Lilian Le-Dang
This is such an appropriate and timely research experiment though! I have been doing a lot of research on copyright lately and with the relatively lax penalties in place in Canada it almost seems too easy to infringe copyright and get away with it. I also wonder the reasons for accessing copyrighted materials without permissions via geofencing and the use of VPNs. Michael Geist, a copyright expert located in Ottawa, has even suggested that Canada's Notice and Notice regime is essentially an educational tool meant to reduce the rates of piracy, but it would be beneficial to understand why users choose to violate the law and using this information as a vehicle for change in order to enforce it more vigorously. Although maybe not so vigorously as the TPP will require or as the six strikes policy in the US...
ReplyDeleteComparing Canadian and American copyright law enforcement seems definitely interesting as well, Angelique (another research study to consider!). On a side note I also wonder if a 'call' for enforcement also has to do with the stakeholders who might lose out if enforcement is 'relaxed'. Perhaps there is a correlation to the number of copyright holders hoping to monetize on their intellectual property to the number of holders that reside in America.
ReplyDeleteAlternatively my suggested experiment could also (now that I think about it, depending on its results/analysis) be a vehicle to inform why copyright enforcement might be unnecessary or unethical to be applied in certain areas where there is a digital divide (that is, access to copyrighted materials is too costly if added to cost of having high-speed internet access in remote areas…but this is all just thoughts with little evidence to support).