Day June 19, 2023

The Creative Commons Solution: Protecting Copyright in Short-Form Videos on Social Media Platforms

[Cheng-chi (Kirin) Chang] Abstract: The rapid development of short-form video social platforms, such as TikTok, has created huge commercial value but also highlights serious copyright infringement problems. Traditional "all rights reserved" protection models may not be adequate in this evolving creative landscape. The paper proposes the use of Creative Commons licenses as a solution to address the imbalance of rights between platforms and users.

Global Inequities In Access to COVID-19 Health Products and Technologies: A Political Economy Analysis

[Deborah Gleeson, Belinda Townsend, Brigitte F. Tenni, and Tarryn Phillips] Abstract: This paper presents a political economy analysis of global inequities in access to COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and diagnostic tests. We adapt a conceptual model used for analysing the political economy of global extraction and health to examine the politico-economic factors affecting access to COVID-19 health products and technologies in four interconnected layers: the social, political, and historical context; politics, institutions, and policies; pathways to ill-health; and health consequences. Our analysis finds that battles over access to COVID-19 products occur in a profoundly unequal playing field, and that efforts to improve access that do not shift the fundamental power imbalances are bound to fail.

Geographic Isolation, Trade Secrecy, and Innovation

[Andrea Contigiani and Marco Testoni] Abstract: This paper studies the impact of geographic isolation on innovation. Geographically isolated regions have lower access to distant knowledge and, thus, may be less effective in producing innovation. In addition, this effect may be moderated by frictions in the labor market, such as trade secrecy protection, that hinder access to local knowledge. To explore this argument, we build a comprehensive dataset of US CBSAs for the period 1971–2014, combining data on travel time, trade secrecy protection, and patenting activity. We find that geographic isolation has a substantial negative impact on innovation quantity and quality. This relationship is at least partially explained by lower access to existing knowledge, as geographic isolation hinders collaboration and, to some extent, mobility. The negative effect is especially pronounced in regions characterized by strong trade secrecy protection. Overall, the evidence suggests that the combination of geographic isolation and trade secrecy protection is detrimental to the innovation performance of regions.