Professional Competition in Policy Dilemmas: Intellectual Property Rights and Internet Governance in Denmark

Paper for the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics Conference 2013 Mini-Conference on Professions in Crisis

How is professional coordination on intellectual property rights protection on the internet mediated by cultural and institutional contexts? The purpose of this paper is to examine the interplay between the regulation of intellectual property rights and internet service providers, specifically through efforts to combat digital piracy. In order to address this question, the paper provides a study of the policy networks surrounding the issue in Denmark. Denmark is an interesting case to study when looking at digital piracy. Denmark is a small country, but with a very strong public sector and non-governmental organizations. Furthermore, it has a strong tradition for enforcing copyright on the internet, going so far as becoming one of only very few countries that enacted a ban on the Pirate Bay, a notorious file sharing website. Law-making processes in Denmark are consensus-seeking, involving wide networks of different experts, trade associations, interest groups, etc. (Pedersen, 2005). This means that on any given policy debate, there will be a broad spectrum of individuals with different professional backgrounds involved, that all understand certain issues in different ways.

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