Via the Google Public Policy Blog, the Computer and Communications Industry Association has a study out finding that the “fair use economy” accounted for $4.6 trillion in revenues in 2006 (roughly one-sixth of total U.S. gross domestic product), it employed more than 17 million people, earning $1.2 trillion (one in eight U.S. workers).
This study should get the same scrutiny as studies put forward on the other side of the copyright equation, no? Go to work, study-parsers!
Update: Mike “Radar” Masnick published his take on this study 30 minutes before I invited him too! His conclusion – Mutual Assured Bogosity: “The next time anyone cites the bogus piracy numbers, they should at least be forced to acknowledge these numbers on the value of fair use as well as a counterweight. They may be bogus, but they’re equally bogus to the piracy numbers.”
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