content production and perception of copyright - aliprandi & mangiatordi (2013)

8/13/2019 Content production and perception of copyright - Aliprandi & Mangiatordi (2013)

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ALIPRANDI& MANGIATORDI, Content production and perception of copyright(EJLT, 2013) 1___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

CONTENT PRODUCTION ANDPERCEPTION OF COPYRIGHT:

AN ANALYSIS OF HABITS AND BELIEFSOF INTERNET USERS

A paper by Simone Aliprandi and Andrea Mangiatordi1, published in

European Journal of Law and Technology,Vol !, "o # $%&1#' and released

under a (reati)e (ommons Attribution * ShareAli+e #& unported license

Please cite as:Aliprandi, S. & Mangiatordi A., "Content production and perception of

copyright: an analysis of habits and beliefs of internet users", European Journal of La and

!echnology, ol. #, $o. %, '(%.

More details about the project: www.aliprandi.org/copyrightsurvey. Other related

articles:http://copyrightsurvey.blogspot.it/p/related-articles.html.

1 Simone liprandi !Ph"#:www.aliprandi.org$ ndrea Mangiatordi !Ph"#:

www.mangiatordi.net.
http://ejlt.org//article/view/257/415http://ejlt.org//article/view/257/415http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/http://www.aliprandi.org/copyrightsurveyhttp://www.aliprandi.org/copyrightsurveyhttp://copyrightsurvey.blogspot.it/p/related-articles.htmlhttp://copyrightsurvey.blogspot.it/p/related-articles.htmlhttp://www.aliprandi.org/http://www.aliprandi.org/http://www.mangiatordi.net/http://www.mangiatordi.net/http://www.mangiatordi.net/http://ejlt.org//article/view/257/415http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/http://www.aliprandi.org/copyrightsurveyhttp://copyrightsurvey.blogspot.it/p/related-articles.htmlhttp://www.aliprandi.org/


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Table of content

(. )ntroduction * . State of the art * .(. "+ehaiors of consu-ers of digital content in

)taly. !he case of file sharing" /onda0ione Luigi Einaudi ''12 * .. "3iscoering

behaiors and attitudes related to pirating content" 4C '('2 * .%. !he report on

innoation culture in )taly 5ired6Cotec ''72 * .#. !he 8lobal softare piracy study +SA

'('2 * %. !he research * %.(. 9uestionnaires structure * %.. 3ataset description * #.

Method and results * #.(. 4rincipal Co-ponents Analysis * #.. Cluster Analysis * ;.

3iscussion and Conclusions * +ibliography.

Abstract

!his article presents an analysis based on data fro- an open dataset -ade aailable by

an independent e-pirical research on the topic of ecties of the research and presenting the set of ariablesconsidered, an in6depth analysis is here discussed, focusing on the si-ilarities and

differences encountered in distinct categories of respondents.

!he -ain ob>ectie of this analysis is to test the soundness and the descriptie poer of

the classification proposed in the original study, hich diided respondents into the four

categories of


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Intro!ct"on

%his article describes a second and more speci&ic wor' o& analysis and

interpretation on a dataset collected through an independent empirical research

which was conducted between (ebruary and )une *+11 as a Ph.". &inal project.

%he title o& the original study was ,opyright in the digital age: attitudes social

perception and level o& awareness,. "iscussion about the main results o& this initial

survey are available both on the web*and in articles appeared on open access

journals !liprandi *+1*a liprandi *+1*b liprandi *+1#.

%he initial research study aimed at providing an impartial approach to the

analysis o& intellectual property issues ta'ing into direct account the viewpoints o&

0average citiens2 as opposed to those o& sta'eholders and e3perts. s a matter o&

&act very &ew studies address such &ramewor' so &ar. Most o& them have been

produced by major entertainment or so&tware companies in order to monitor and

anticipate mar'et trends thus considering common individuals as consumers andpotential buyers instead o& users in more general terms. %his strategy gives way to

a distorted perception o& collected data or at least provides a very limited

perspective on their outcome and analysis.

%here&ore this study &ocuses on a di&&erent perspective and will address three

broader research themes:

the most common behaviors o& 4nternet users when they get distribute

or otherwise deal with online content under copyright$

the average perception o& copyright itsel& that is whether users see it

as a primary or minor problem a use&ul tool or a useless burden etc.$

the level o& awareness o& 4nternet users about mechanisms and

principles currently governing copyright law in order to e3pose their

* http://www.aliprandi.org/copyrightsurvey
http://www.aliprandi.org/copyrightsurveyhttp://www.aliprandi.org/copyrightsurvey


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actual level o& 'nowledge on related issues.

4n this wor' the descriptive in&ormation is not going to be &urther commented:

the intent is rather to learn more about who answered the original 5uestionnaire by

tracing user pro&iles adopting a bottom-up approach based on correspondence in

aswers.

#$ State of t%e art

6arring a &ew e3ceptions empirical studies currently available on the subject o&

copyright ta'e only super&icially into account aspects such as the perception o&

behaviors the guilt that users can &eel the level o& awareness o& the rules. %hey

mainly dwell !perhaps e3cessively# on the 5uantitative aspects relating to the time

spent online the type o& activities carried out online the method o& ac5uisition and

use o& the content. %his implies that we have a lot o& data !well sampled and very

speci&ic# &rom which it is possible to draw several conclusions and on which it is

possible to ma'e comparisons and various analyes.

(or e3ample in 4taly the 7ational 4nstitute o& Statistics !4S%%# carries out

periodic surveys o& a nationally representative sample and periodically releases

statistics on the use o& technologies and consumption o& entertainment products

!4S%% *+1+#. %he same applies to a number o& studies promoted by the 89

institutions.

"espite these 5uantitative studies do not relate speci&ically to the subject o& the

ac5uisition and use o& copyrighted content it is still possible to &ind some use&ul

data about this speci&ic topic which can be isolated e3tracted and reprocessed in

order to reach &urther conclusions.

mong this high number o& studies there are some that are closer to the spirit o&

the research presented here: they are described brie&ly in the &ollowing paragraphs.


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#$#$ &Be%a'"ors of cons!(ers of ")"tal content "n Ital*$ T%e caseof f"le s%ar"n)& +Fona,"one L!")" E"na!" -../0

%he study that comes closest to the spirit and purpose o& this paper is de&initely

the one conducted in *++ by the (ondaione ;uigi 8inaudi a research institution

operating in 4taly.

%he study was divided in three parts: in the &irst one re&erred to as 0"es'


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#$-$ &D"sco'er"n) be%a'"ors an att"t!es relate to 1"rat"n)content& +P2C -.#.0

%he research conducted by Pricewaterhouseoopers !Pw# consisted o& a

5uestionnaire administered online in September o& *+1+ to a sample o& *+* people

aged between 1@ and =A who admitted to have per&ormed online piracy activities

in the previous si3 months.

%he collected data was published in )anuary *+11 in a report addressing eight

'ey research themes. %hey mainly re&erred to the relationship between the so-

called piracy and the ,temptation o& gratuity, the willingness or unwillingness o&

users to pay &or the use o& online content the correlation between downloading and

streaming and &inally the impact o& the new possibilities o& ,piracy via mobile,.

%his research is interesting primarily because it comes &rom one o& the most

in&luential individuals specialied in the online administration o& surveys on a

global scale and denotes a solid methodological approach. lthough the sample is

5uite small it was established in &ull compliance with the standards o& statistical

representativeness.

#$3$ T%e re1ort on "nno'at"on c!lt!re "n Ital* +4"re5Cotec -..60

4n the spring o& *++A the 4talian edition o& ?ired magaine published a study

containing some in&ographics ta'en &rom a *++A report titled ,%he culture o&

innovation in 4taly, written in collaboration with otec &oundation.

%he report is mainly &ocused on issues related to the concept o& innovation in a

broader and more general sense !biotechnology genetic engineering energy and

environmental policies telecommunications power supply# and reserves only a

smaller amount o& space to the subject o& copyright. Bowever the data provided in

that part is particularly interesting as it represents one o& the &irst cases in 4taly

!along with the research by (ondaione ;uigi 8inaudi# in which the research


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investigates not only behavior but also usersC opinions.

#$7$ T%e Global soft2are 1"rac* st!* +BSA -.#.0%he 6usiness So&tware lliance !6S# is a multi-national organiation that

brings together all the major realities o& production technologies and acts as a

uni5ue spo'esman &or these sta'eholders especially on issues related to

intellectual property en&orcement.

8very year 6S commissions supports and disseminates studies and statistics

relating to major issues a&&ecting the so&tware mar'et.

*+1+ report was based on a survey involving a sample o& about 1=+++ pc

users !both business and private# strati&ied into the levels o& geographical origin

!representing * countries# technological e3pertise and di&&erences in social status.

%he research also &ocused on some socio-cultural aspects lin'ed to the method

o& ac5uisition o& so&tware. mong the 5uestions there were some aiming athighlighting the perception o& legitimacy o& some behaviors related to the

ac5uisition o& so&tware and the level o& awareness by users. Some o& the 5uestions

were about the perception that users have o& the more general phenomenon o&

,intellectual property.,


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-$ T%e researc%

4n this section some bac'ground in&ormation will be provided about how theresearch was designed and conducted. %he dataset was collected through a sel&-

administered omputer ssisted ?eb 4nterview !?4# and the set o& 5uestions is

still available online.

-$#$ 8!est"onna"re9s str!ct!re

%he 5uestionnaire included:

A general 5uestions about demographic data$

= 5uestions re5uiring an answer &rom all respondents which

included:

1= 5uestions about behaviours$

1D 5uestions about opinions and perceptions$

> 5uestions about the level o& awareness about copyright-

related issues$

1+ 5uestions addressing speci&ic sub-categories o& respondents: access

to these 5uestions was &iltered on the basis o& the answers given to speci&ic

5uestions about use and production o& content.

Section = included in-depth 5uestions about speci&ic online activities based on

previous &ilter 5uestions in order to group respondents in speci&ic sub-categories

as shown in the &ollowing chart:

http://copyrightsurvey.blogspot.it/p/the-5uestionnaire.html
http://copyrightsurvey.blogspot.it/p/the-questionnaire.htmlhttp://copyrightsurvey.blogspot.it/p/the-questionnaire.htmlhttp://copyrightsurvey.blogspot.it/p/the-questionnaire.html


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%he 5uestionnaire was localied in 4talian and 8nglish. 4t was accessible &or

1*+ days !&rom (ebruary 1st to )une 1st *+11#. Eiven its target and content the

5uestionnaire was promoted mostly over the 4nternet. press release was issued on

(ebruary 1st *+11 announcing the research project and the publication o& the

5uestionnaire. 4nitially this press release F both in 8nglish and in 4talian F was

posted on several websites about digital activism and 4% topics with a clear

invitation to re-distribute it on any place and channel deemed appropriate.

Mainstream social networ's such as (aceboo' and %witter also proved to be

e&&ective distribution channels. (re5uent posting o& news items events notices

status updates and short messages F all including a direct lin' to the research

description page F was complemented by additional promotion at con&erences and

university lectures.


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-$-$ Dataset escr"1t"on

%he results o& the survey are divided in two di&&erent studies: Study 1 !4taly#

and Study * !rest o& the world#. %his selection is based on the answers to 5uestionnG 1. !,country,# and not on the language o& the 5uestionnaire.

%he 5uestionnaire was completed by 1= people with 1*@A &or Study 1 !4taly#

and DD> &or Study * !rest o& the world#. %his amount includes only the valid

answers meaning that only the 5uestionnaires correctly &illed at least till 5uestion

D.= included were considered. Only study 1 will be ta'en into consideration in this

paper.

Male respondents in Study 1 were A !=.H# while ==+ were &emale

!D*.H#. Over >+H o& all respondents is below the age o& D. %here&ore many

5uali&ied themselves as students !D+H# with =1H o& them holding a high school

diploma and only >.@H o& them saying to hold a basic 9niversity degree. %he

majority o& respondents !AA *.DH# lived in 7orthern 4taly while 1>.=H were

&rom entral 4taly and 11.1H &rom Southern 4taly and 4sles. %he most common

'ind o& 4nternet access was broadband !A=H o& the whole group#.D

3$ et%o an res!lts

%he analysis per&ormed on the dataset &ollowed two steps: &irst data &rom

di&&erent variables was aggregated operating a dimensional reduction o& the datasetitsel& by the means o& Principal omponent nalysis. Second the principal

components were used to create newer variables and the sample was classi&ied by

those variables applying clustering analysis. %his allowed to de&ine tendencies in

the way respondents agreed or disagreed with di&&erent 'ind o& assertions. ?e then

compared the clusters with demographic data and with the original &our categories

o& 0Eeneric2 0ctive2 0reative2 and 0Pro&essional creative2 users in order toD complete and detailed report !with more than =++ charts# is available online at

http://copyrightsurvey.blogspot.it/p/complete-report.html.
http://copyrightsurvey.blogspot.it/p/complete-report.htmlhttp://copyrightsurvey.blogspot.it/p/complete-report.htmlhttp://copyrightsurvey.blogspot.it/p/complete-report.html


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describe them using deeper indicators.

3$#$ Pr"nc"1al Co(1onents Anal*s"s%he principal component analysis o& the dataset variables !rotated using the

Iarima3 method# calculated using the 0psych2 pac'age within the < so&tware

pac'age allowed to de&ine @ &actors with eigenvalue above 1. (or each &actor only

the variables with loadings above +.= were considered.

Variable PC1 PC2 PC3 PC4 PC5 PC6 PC7 PC8

download crime 0.79

download damages economy 0.75

download stealing 0.73

copyright should be stronglyenorced

0.71

download damages authors 0.69

download needs to becircumscribed

0.68

download improper 0.67

itunes or similar store 0.8

get contents rom online store 0.79

get sotware rom oicial website 0.7

buying ater download 0.51

buying sotware rom store 0.43

get contents rom ilesharing 0.79

search in p2p networ!s 0.79

get crac!ed rom p2p 0.61

ha"e all music on harddis! 0.56

get contents rom riends 0.83

get sotware rom riends 0.7

araid o beeing caught 0.87

eeling guilty 0.83

search on youtube 0.7

get contents ull streaming 0.65


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get crac!ed rom p2p 0.37

get sotware rom internet 0.71

rip ater buying 0.39

download damages companies 0.77

download common beha"iour 0.59

%he eight &actors were then described and given a label in order to use them to

classi&y respondents in the &ollowing cluster analysis. Some o& them were 5uite

predictable while some showed interesting connections.

P1 - o2nloa;cr"("nal: this &actor is composed by all the variables

related to bad &eelings generated by the act o& illegally downloading

digital content$ there is substantial coherence between opinions about

illegal download !considering it as a crime is the variable with the highest

loading here# and the idea that it should be regulated or that copyright

should be strongly en&orced$

P* - 1a";o2nloa: whether it is &rom a speci&ic mar'et !e.g. i%unes#

or &rom a website people who declared to be used to buying online &rom

o&&icial sources seemed to do it using multiple channels$

P - 1-1;o2nloa: this &actor connects the use o& p*p networ's to the

&act that many respondents already own a huge amount o& contents andsometimes they simply need that in order to be satis&ied$ this relationship

suggests p*p use to be lin'ed to a sort o& 0collecting practice2 as people

download content and accumulate it$

PD - fr"ens: the two variables composing this &actor are easily

associated by the &act that both are related to getting contents &rom &riends

uni&ying the aspects o& a real li&e sharing activity$

P= - ba;feel"n)s: also in this case the association was 5uite


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predictable as the sense o& guilt and the &ear o& beeing prosecuted &or

copyright violations pertain to the same domain o& 0having bad &eelings2

about something$

P> - strea("n);1"rac*: streaming contents be it &rom sites li'e

Jou%ube or &rom less copyright compliant sources correlates with the

download o& crac'ed so&tware$ those acts have a lower respect o&

copyright in common$

P - ")"tal;s!11ort: a connection between so&tware download and the

habit o& ripping content suggests that users have now the possibility o&

choosing the best support &or the content they consume and that material

goods are being sent to the bac'ground as long as digital storage is more

convenient$

P@ - o2nloa;a(a)e: this last &actor was probably the hardest to

interpret as it lin's the idea that download can damage companies with

the belie& it is inacceptable yet tolerated$ we interpreted it as an indicator

o& the idea that damaging companies is not as bad as damagin authors

there&ore it can be tolerated.

3$-$ Cl!ster Anal*s"s

%he above described variable groupings were used to build inde3escorresponding to each &actor. 8very respondent got a score in the eight newly

generated variables and this data was used in the &ollowing analysis. %he &ollowing

table shows the centroids o& &our clusters identi&ied by the K-means algorithm

calculated using the 0cluster2 pac'age within the < so&tware pac'age. Ialues

above the row mean are highlighted using bold-&ace.


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uncomortableusers

online#olineconsumers

collectorsdetachedusers

download$crime 3%13 2.11 1.72 2%82

paid$download 2%38 1.83 2%24 2.07

p2p$download 2.18 3%2& 2%&4 1.68

riends 2.39 3%34 1.92 2.28

bad$eelings 4%'' 2.51 2.59 1.72

streaming$piracy 2.72 3%58 2.99 2.30

digital$support 3.38 3%63 4%'7 2.68

download$damage 3.64 3%85 3%81 3.65

(our groups were hence individuated which could be described as &ollows:

1. Unco(fortable !sers +-37 res1onents0: they tend to thin' that

downloading copyrighted content is a bad thing and they &eel guilty &or it

more than all the other groups which is probably why they avoid it$

*. Onl"ne


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Gener:male respondents were mainly classi&ied as collectors !.*H# or as

onlineBoffline consu-ers !*>.@H#. 4n this last group there was high presence o&

&emale respondents !D+H o& them#. ?omen had as a second most &re5uent outcomethat o& detached users.

uncomortableusers



total

(ale 18.3% 26.8% 37.2% 17.7% 100.0%

)emale 18.0% 40.0% 13.3% 28.7% 100.0%

A)e )ro!1: younger respondents tended to &all into the onlineBoffline

consu-ers category with no substantial di&&erences between those under the age o&

*= and those in the *=-D range. lmost hal& o& older respondents !=DL years old#

were classi&ied as detached users. %he two intermediate age groups !=-DD and D=-

=D# had similar distributions in both the unco-fortable and consu-ers groups but

had inverse distributions in the two categories o& collectors and detached users.

gain older respondents were more &re5uently classi&ied as detached.

uncomortableusers



total

*25 15.2% 43%4+ 22.0% 19.4% 100.0%

25,34 17.6% 43%8+ 26.7% 11.8% 100.0%

35,44 25.4% 14.7% 35%7+ 24.2% 100.0%

45,54 22.4% 14.7% 26.3% 36%5+ 100.0%

54- 8.8% 8.8% 33.3% 4&%1+ 100.0%

Res1onent cate)or"es: the original dataset included a classi&ication o&

respondents based on speci&ic &iltering 5uestions. omparing this top-down

classi&ication with the bottom-up approach proposed in this paper it is possible to

visualie some speci&ic correspondence patterns.


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uncomortableusers



total

.eneric user 18.68% 31%&2+ 18.00% 31%41+ 100%

/cti"e user 15.13% 46%22+ 26.89% 11.76% 100%

Creati"e user 19.39% 27.21% 37%76+ 15.65% 100%

Proessionalcreati"e user

18.45% 23.81% 3&%88+ 17.86% 100%

Eeneric users have a strong presence in both the consu-ers and detached

groups. Summing up onlineBoffline consu-ers and collectors !two groups with

very similar centroids that could be seen as complementary# on one side detached

and unco-fortable users !again groups with lots o& similarities# on the other it is

clear that generic users are almost per&ectly distributed between two &ronts: people

who see download o& content as something negative and people who dont.

strong majority o& ctive users &alls into the onlineBoffline consu-ersgroup

with a strong presence among the collectors too.

%he relative majority o& both 'inds o& creative users can be classi&ied as

collectors. 4n both cases the second most li'ely group &or them is that o&

onlineBoffline consu-ers which di&&ers &or the 0&riends2 &actor.

D"sc!ss"on an Concl!s"ons

%he analysis per&ormed here allowed to build a bottom-up classi&ication o& the

respondents o& a previous 5uestionnaire based on the analysis o& patterns in

declared behaviour. %he pro&iling system o& the respondents already present in the

dataset realied with &ilter 5uestions was rediscussed in the light o& this new

classi&ication. %he main &inding is that categories such as 0active2 or 0inactive2

only partially describe the positions that can be assumed by internet users towards

copyright and download o& digital creative content.


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s already highlighted in the previous section inactive users !those who only

consume digital content but do not upload content as a habit# split almost per&ectly

among positive and negative views o& download. %he &act o& being active on thecontrary seems to determine a shi&t towards a more &avorable view. 6eing creative

in the sense o& being producers o& original contents seems related with the view

that an internet user can &orm about copyright. 4nterestingly enough the data shows

an higher tendency towards the download o& digital content by creative users.

(inally there is no great di&&erence among 0creative2 and 0pro&essional creative2

users !the latter ones being those who gain money &rom their publishing content

online#.

%he &uture perspective is to use this pilot research to build a better designed

survey &or monitoring the perception and attitudes o& users towards the issue o&

copyright in di&&erent countries and conte3ts. %he analysis carried out here will

allow to redesign the original 5uestionnaire in a more e&&ective way by reducing

the number o& redundant 5uestions and by re&ining the classi&ication criteria o&

respondents.


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B"bl"o)ra1%*

liprandi S. !*+1*a#. Measuring the so called 0piracy2: a commented review o&the most important empirical studies. SC)entific @ESearch and )nfor-ation

!echnology !1# =AF@*.

liprandi S. !*+1*b#. opyright &rom criminalisation to normative e&&icacy.

Ciberspa0io e diritto (%!D=# 1DF1>>.

liprandi S. !*+1#. opyright in the digital era: a pilot on behaviours social

perception and consciousness. Journal of Library and )nfor-ation Science

#!*# D=F@.


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titleittadiniLLeLnuoveLtecnologieL-L*H*(dicH*(*+1+L-

Ltestointegrale*+1+1**.pd&F last visited on Ath)uly *+1

Maechler M.

content production and perception of copyright - aliprandi & mangiatordi (2013)

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