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Practices and Moral Policy of Copying and Downloading in the Czech Republic: Audiences, Authors, Producers, and Distributors

Czech Science Foundation

The project aims to empirically and theoretically examine how Czech audiences, authors, and distributors engage with content obtained from unauthorized online sources, exploring both practical behaviors and ethical reasoning. It further seeks to interpret these practices within the broader relational context among the different stakeholders involved in content production, distribution, and consumption.

The research component of the project is based on a two-stage design that combines qualitative methods—allowing for an in-depth understanding of the actors under study, their behavior, and the inductive formulation of hypotheses—with a subsequent survey of the Czech adult population, which will enable these hypotheses to be tested. The second part of the project focuses on the relevance of the empirical findings from the perspective of the normative project of the ethics of copying. The aim of this component is to establish the methodological foundations for the development of an applied ethics of copying, enabling interdisciplinary cooperation between empirical sciences (descriptive ethics) and applied ethics (normative ethics).

Outputs

Pavel Zahrádka, Etika kopírování kulturních obsahů: Kvalitativní studie internetového pirátství v České republice. Iluminace 3/28 (2016): 5-27.

Pavel Zahrádka, We Are Sorry This Video Is Not Available in Your Country: An Ethical Analysis of Geo-blocking Audio-visual Online Content. Journal of Media Ethics, 12. 12. 2021. DOI: 10.1080/23736992.2021.2014850

Tomáš Karger, Iveta Jansová, The Six Faces of Ignorance in Online Piracy: How not Knowing Shapes the Practices of Media Consumption. Economy and Society 4/50 (2021): 666-685.

Iveta Jansová, Michael C. Elavsky, The Place of Convergent Audiences in the Small Industry Market. Television & New Media 1/24 (2023): 19-36.

Michael C. Elavsky, Iveta Jansová, Jakub Macek, Alena Macková, Beyond Stealing: The Determinants/Motivations of Czech Audiences to Pay for Audiovisual Content. Critical Studies in Television 4/18 (2023): 385-404.

Michael C. Elavsky, Iveta Jansová, When Things Get Real: (Re)Considering the Challenges to Cultural Industries Research. Cultural Studies – Critical Methodologies 3/21 (2021): 225-236.

Tomás Karger, Bounded Ownership: Lessons Learned From Online Platforms in Creating Inclusive Goods. Social Media + Society 2/9 (2023): 1-12.

Team

Michael Elavsky

principal investigator

Grant provider

Czech Science Foundation
project no. GA18-19278S

Project duration

2018-2020

Grant recipient

Masaryk University

Cirg - about

CIRG – the Cultural Industries Research Group focuses on research into cultural and media industries, particularly on current issues, challenges, and conflicts arising from tensions between intellectual property law, the business models of cultural industries, the digitalization and platformization of cultural sectors, and changing consumer habits. The group’s name is an acronym of its English title, Cultural Industries Research Group. CIRG is an informal association of experts from media studies, intellectual property law, media law, media ethics, cultural economics and cultural management, sociology of culture, and data analysis. The group operates on the basis of project-based funding through applied research projects (TAČR, NAKI, EEA and Norway Grants, OP JAK Intersectoral Cooperation), basic research projects (GAČR, ZIF Bielefeld, OP VVV Excellent Research, DFG), as well as contract research (State Cinematography Fund, Association of Audiovisual Producers).

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