With partners in Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Sweden, Slovenia and the United Kingdom COUNTER’s research into counterfeiting and piracy will focus on the consumption of leisure goods. The project will focus on the users of counterfeit goods, their motivations and behaviour in order to get a view of the current state of the market in Europe.
The empirical elements of this research will combine data collection and analysis skills from psychology, marketing, law, sociology and heritage studies. The research will be organised around five complementary research and analytical activities exploring both physical goods and digital copies and downloads:
- COUNTER consumer survey
Postal and web-based questionnaires looking at users and non-users of counterfeit/pirated goods exploring practice, motivations and models of behaviour. The paper-based questionnaire will be issued in each of the five countries represented by the COUNTER team with approximately 10,000 questionnaires being sent out in each area.
- Consumer attitude focus groups
Providing the depth of data on consumer attitudes and perceptions of counterfeit goods, approximately 10 focus groups will be undertaken in each of the COUNTER countries. This will explore how consumers see pirated and counterfeit goods as part of their consumption choices, if purchase decisions are framed morally and the way they fit into daily routines. - Online ethnography of copyright and collaborative practices
Looking at online communities such as ‘warez’ sites and social networking sites this work will detail consumer use of copyrighted material to produce new cultural texts (e.g. video, animation, music, mash-ups, etc) and investigate the importance of services such as peer-to-peer networks and file hosting service (e.g. Rapidshare and FileFactory) in distributing pirated digital content. - Exploration of developing models intellectual property
Digital distribution has created a background where new models for categorising, appropriating, exploiting and generating rents from IP are being explored. COUNTER will explore the implications and possible impacts of these models for industry, policy and end users. - Review of best practice in managing Intellectual property
Drawing on interviews with key stakeholders and policy agencies COUNTER will identify and review activities and events which may have contributed to changes in levels of counterfeiting and develop a taxonomy of European initiatives highlighting key areas of best practice.
