Dynamics of expectations and linked ecologies: a case study of the Copyright Hub
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Date
08/07/2019Item status
Restricted AccessEmbargo end date
08/07/2020Author
Nguyen, Hung The
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Abstract
This thesis examines the development of the Copyright Hub, an emerging infrastructural
initiative, designed to streamline the processes of expressing, identifying and communicating
Intellectual Property (IP) rights information, especially copyright licensing, across sectors of
the creative industries.
The study highlights the origins of the Copyright Hub and the provision of public support for
its R&D as a product of divergent pressures: the creative industries sought government action
to redress their concerns about difficulties in enforcing copyright in a digital world;
government sought to stimulate the economy through fostering sustainable digital
industries. The project however did not fulfil its promise of enabling the innovation of new
market infrastructures for trading copyright-protected content.
To go beyond prevalent snapshot studies of innovation, this research draws upon the
Biographies of Artifacts and Practices (BOAP) approach, which informs the methodological
choice of multi-site, longitudinal fieldwork. A rich account of the unfolding of a field of
innovation is provided, combining archival and contemporary ethnographic sources.
The analysis applies concepts from the sociology of expectations (and in particular ‘arenas of
expectations’) to understand the process by which visions and expectations are mobilised to
accumulate public and private funding and support, as well as understanding the dynamics
of development of the Copyright Hub project. These notions are complemented by Abbott’s
concept of “linked ecologies”, which helps in scrutinising the interrelation of actors within
the policy-making ecology and its neighbouring ecologies of business and IP standard
development. In addition, Abbott’s discussion on “things of boundaries” provides a helpful
template for conceptualising the processes through which protected spaces are constructed.
The thesis makes three main contributions to knowledge.
1. It provides a rich, empirical description of the Copyright Hub initiative from its embryonic
stages when novel ideas are being formed, new alliances are being made, and resources
are mobilised to build a protected space for innovation development. In addition to high
expectations, this research managed to capture and portray how ‘low’ and ‘slow’
expectations can help in propelling the Copyright Hub project by (a) ensuring existing
market actors that the new initiative would not cannibalise their commercial interests,
and (b) providing for stability in policy making which counter-balanced the rapid re-bundling
of policy issues around IP. The substantive area of developing digital
infrastructures for IP licensing and management is per se of wider interest to policy
makers, creative industries and scholars of innovation studies.
2. It contributes to the sociology of expectations by furthering our understanding of “arenas
of expectations” as the battleground where adjacent ecologies meet in search of alliances,
resources and support. Policy makers, businesses and infrastructure entrepreneurs do not
compete alone, but rather in alliance, and thus any successful strategy must provide “dual
rewards” for members of the alliance in both ecologies at once. For example, the
Copyright Hub successfully acted as a “hinge”, which helped the UK creative industries
prevent further copyright exceptions being imposed upon them, while allowing the
government to fight off criticism of the dearth of visions and policies for long-term
economic growth. Similarly, arenas of expectations are not isolated phenomena, but they
are linked together through members of an alliance in its overall struggle for power.
3. It helps in reconceptualising “protected spaces”. The protected space for the
development of the Copyright Hub’s technology was established through explicit act of
various actors yoking together three “sites of differences”: the Copyright Hub Ltd., the
Digital Catapult, and the Linked Content Coalition. These sites of differences brought with
them constraints, preferences, and vested interests into the development process and
played a crucial role in shaping the innovation’s trajectory. When the interest needed to
hold these social boundaries in place was no longer adequate, the protected space would
be dissolved. Yet, elements of such spaces do not completely disappear but morph,
transform and eventually constitute new protected spaces or other types of social
entities. In the case of the Copyright Hub, for example, the protected space was eventually
dissolved when the Digital Catapult withdrew from the project, yet elements developed
within this space morphed and constituted a new project named ARDITO, whose
objectives were to develop actual services in the marketplace from the Copyright Hub’s
pilot use cases.