Ruth Towse – “The quest for evidence on the economic effects of copyright law”, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2013, 37 (5), 1187-1202

Abstract

The requirement by the UK government for evidence-based policy has recently been applied to copyright law in the context of I. Hargreaves’s report, Digital Opportunity: Review of Intellectual Property and Growth (Newport, Intellectual Property Office, 2011). In this article, I focus on data that have been used to make the case for copyright with government, but it is argued that this does not produce the evidence that is needed for policy purposes. The problem facing economists in providing such evidence is discussed in detail in connection with Hargreaves’ proposal for a digital copyright exchange.