NZCIEL Innovation and Investment Lecture Series 2016-2017
The Status of Empirical Evidence on Copyright Policies
Presented by George S. Ford, Chief Economist, Phoenix Centre

George S. Ford
George S. Ford is the Chief Economist of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Public Policy Studies, a Washington-based non-profit public policy research centre specialising in the law and economics of the digital age. Dr Ford publishes in economics, law and statistics journals and testifies on copyright related matters in forums such as the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Copyright Royalty Judges and the Canadian Royalty Board. Dr Ford received his PhD in Economics from Auburn University. One of his areas of research is a policy-relevant theoretical framework for studying fair use. This research, using a multistage model of creating, consuming, pirating, and transforming copyrighted works, derives the optimal “strength” of fair use. In doing so, Dr Ford’s analysis reveals a critical trade-off between fair use and copyright enforcement. His works are available at: www.phoenix-center.org and the Center’s IP-specific papers are listed here.

Commentator: Graeme Austin
Professor, Victoria University of Wellington, Faculty of Law. With first degrees from Victoria, he graduated JSD and LLM from Columbia Law School, where he was the Burton Fellow in Residence in Intellectual Property. Before returning to New Zealand in 2010, he was the J. Byron McCormick Professor of Law at the University of Arizona, where he co-convened the intellectual property programme. In 2017, he will be the Lionel Sheridan Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore, teaching a course on the interface between human rights and intellectual property.

This lecture will be chaired by Susy Frankel, Professor of Law and Director of the New Zealand Centre of International Economic Law, Victoria University of Wellington, Faculty of Law. Susy is Chair of the Copyright Tribunal and current President of the preeminent global IP Academics Association, ATRIP.

RSVP to law-events@vuw.ac.nz.
This lecture is CPD compatible.