Darling (2014)
Contents
Source Details
Darling (2014) | |
Title: | What drives IP without IP? A study of the online adult entertainment industry |
Author(s): | Darling, K. |
Year: | 2014 |
Citation: | Darling, K. (2014) What drives IP without IP? A study of the online adult entertainment industry. 17 Stan. Tech. L. Rev. 655 |
Link(s): | Definitive , Open Access |
Key Related Studies: | |
Discipline: | |
Linked by: |
About the Data | |
Data Description: | Data were gathered from a series of interviews. Participants in the first set of interviews included lawyers, journalists, and people who work(ed) with adult entertainment companies. Participants in the second set of interviews were content producers of adult entertainment (totalling 21 participants for the second set). |
Data Type: | Primary data |
Secondary Data Sources: | |
Data Collection Methods: | |
Data Analysis Methods: | |
Industry(ies): | |
Country(ies): | |
Cross Country Study?: | No |
Comparative Study?: | No |
Literature review?: | No |
Government or policy study?: | No |
Time Period(s) of Collection: |
|
Funder(s): |
Abstract
“Existing copyright policy is based largely on the utilitarian theory of incentivizing creative works. This study looks at content production incentives in the online adult entertainment industry. A recent trend of industry-specific studies tries to better understand the relationship between intellectual property (IP) and creation incentives in practice. This study makes a contribution to the literature by analyzing a major entertainment content industry where copyright protection has been considerably weakened in recent years. Because copyright infringement is widespread and prohibitively difficult to prevent, producers have been effectively unable to rely on the economic benefits that copyright is intended to provide.
Qualitative interviews with industry specialists and content producers support the hypothesis that copyright enforcement is not cost effective. As a result, many producers have developed alternative strategies to recoup their investment costs. Similar to the findings of other scholarly work on low-IP industries, this research finds a shift toward the production of experience goods. It also finds that some incentives to produce traditional content remain. The sustainability of providing convenience and experience goods while continuing content production relies partially on general, but also on industry-specific factors, such as consumer privacy preferences, consumption habits, low production costs, and high demand. While not all of these attributes translate to other industries, determining such factors and their limits brings us toward a better understanding of innovation mechanisms.”
Main Results of the Study
• The study suggests that the production of adult entertainment content has decreased as a result of copyright enforcement difficulties against individual pirates (e.g., prohibitive time and money costs, respect of privacy) and the DMCA safe harbour which shields intermediaries from liability. However, participants do not solely place blame on the lack of access to copyright enforcement mechanisms for increased piracy, and instead also cite issues like consumer expectations (e.g., that content should be freely accessible) as forcing an industry restructure.
• In order to compete with easily copied, freely available online content, adult entertainment creators rely on alternative business models from traditional content production. Creators focus on accessibility and affordability of content to reduce consumer search transaction costs (e.g., by utilising video-on-demand technologies) and experience goods (e.g., interactive or live content) to shift away from static, copyable content.
Policy Implications as Stated By Author
The study does not make any explicit policy recommendations.
Coverage of Study
Datasets
Sample size: | 21 |
Level of aggregation: | Creators |
Period of material under study: | January 2012 - April 2012 |