BU Research Blog

Bournemouth University was host to an ESRC Festival of Social Science event on 8 November 2012.  The one-day conference, organized by Professor Martin Kretschmer and colleagues from the Law School, sought to explore the complexities of developing empirical research to support public policy in domains such as copyright law.   In attendance at the conference were stakeholders from the Intellectual Property Office UK, the Cabinet Office, law professionals and academics from around Europe.  The day was structured around a series of panel discussions by representatives from policy, the media industry, and law, prompting lively debate around questions such as: ‘What is the status of qualitative research in policy decision making?’ and ‘How can we reconcile the differing legal and academic standards for evidence?’.

The conference was video recorded with the help of research assistants from the Media School and will be made available in full as a series of digital conference proceedings.

The conference was also an opportunity for Professor Kretschmer, Dr. Kris Erickson and Dr. Dinusha Mendis to present the findings of research they carried out during the IPO consultation on the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property.  The research seeks to evaluate possible economic impacts of any future change to UK copyright law to permit parody, caricature and pastiche of existing works.  Currently, parody is not explicitly permitted under UK copyright law.  The authors hope that this type of empirical research will help to illuminate complex public policy questions and strengthen the role of academic research in the policy process.

Below you may view a detailed presentation of the research from the ESRC event.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWbgZ63Ug9k