The User Rights Database: Measuring The Impact Of Copyright Balance

By Sean Flynn and Michael Palmedo, PIJIP, American University Washington College of Law

(CC-BY) PIJIP’s Copyright User Rights Database tracks changes to copyright user rights (aka limitations and exceptions) over time in a sample of 21 countries of different development levels. The data assesses the degree to which other countries have adopted exceptions that are as open as the US fair use right – i.e. open to a use of any kind of work, by any kind of user and for any purpose. The instrument and results are available at infojustice.org/survey.

Econometric Tests of Copyright Openness

The Openness Score of a country is positively related to economic development as well as to creativity – as measured by firm performance and scholarly output controlled for firm size, national wealth, population, and time.

Research supported by the International Development Research Centre and an unrestricted gift from Google, Inc.