Abstract
Copyright is under contest in Australia amid growing digital cultures of sharing. Using metaphor as a frame for analysis, this study applies internet search data (Google Trends) methods to visualise Australian online information-seeking patterns for metaphors related to copyright and sharing. An overview of legal metaphors of online copyright (‘piracy’, ‘war on copyright’) and metaphors of digital sharing (‘sharing is caring’, ‘sharing economy’) leads to a critical examination of the ‘metaphor struggles’ between the rhetoric of copyright infringement and sharing cultures promoted by social media. Key findings presented are of decreased information seeking for copyright metaphors and increased information seeking for sharing metaphors. Online information-seeking patterns, as visualised by internet search data, represent a form of public mobilisation. Visualisation of these patterns of public information seeking for metaphors of copyright and sharing demonstrates shifting conceptions of copyright in contemporary digital cultures. This article concludes by raising a potential relationship between rising ethics of online sharing norms and diminishing legitimacy of online copyright, as the legal metaphor of copyright appears to transition through the metaphor cycle.
Highlights
This article argues Australian public conceptions of the intellectual property metaphor of copyright are in flux within digital cultures of sharing
The second part sets out the study and the key findings of decreased information seeking for copyright-related metaphors and increased information seeking for sharing-related metaphors
The Search Query Index (SQI) for the combined words of the piracy metaphor cluster commences in January 2004 at 100, rises and falls sharply until March 2006, adopts an overall downward trend characterised by small fluctuations,79 falling below 25 in 2010 and decreasing to 3 in January 2021
Summary
This article argues Australian public conceptions of the intellectual property metaphor of copyright are in flux within digital cultures of sharing. This argument emerges from the findings of a study using internet search data on online informationseeking patterns by Australians. The first part examines the competing metaphorical strategies between online copyright infringement and digital cultures of sharing, such as those promoted by social media. The second part sets out the study and the key findings of decreased information seeking for copyright-related metaphors and increased information seeking for sharing-related metaphors. The third part argues these patterns of information seeking, as a form of public mobilisation, are consistent with shifting conceptions of metaphors of online copyright and sharing in contemporary Australian society
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