It’s common to see reports that stress the economic importance of copyright and the content owners who benefit from it. What’s less common is to find studies that look at the economic impact of fair use.
That was the goal behind a new report from the Computer & Communications Industry Association. Their provocative finding? “In 2006, fair use-related industry value added was $2.2 trillion, 16.6 percent of total US current dollar GDP.”
The CCIA hired an economic consulting firm to run the numbers on various US industries that rely on certain fair use privileges. The list is broader than you might think: Internet broadcasting, data hosting and processing, audio and video equipment manufacturing, electronic auctions, radio and television broadcasting, and many more all rely on certain elements of fair use.
The “photographic and photocopying equipment manufacturing” industry, for example, relies on the Sony principle (that devices capable of substantial noninfringing uses should remain legal even though they could threaten some copyright owners) for its very existence.
Radio and TV broadcasters rely on fair use exemptions for criticism, news reporting, and parody. Even search engines like Google and Yahoo rely on fair use to republish tiny snippets of web sites in their search results and to store thumbnails of copyrighted images.
YouTube has even relied on a “safe harbor” defense enshrined in copyright law to keep out of trouble even when copyrighted works are posted to its service.
Photo by iit.edu.
Fred333 on September 19th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Very interesting read. I never realized it contributed that much.