Research projects

This section contains information about two related research projects that are currently under way at the School of Law, University of Edinburgh. The projects, Individual Creators and Creators’ Organisations, are part of the research programme of the Centre for Creativity, Regulation, Enterprise and Technology (CREATe) and situated within the research theme “Creators and Performers: Process and Copyright”.

Research Team

Lead Investigator: Dr Smita Kheria is the lead investigator for both these CREATe projects. She is a Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law at the School of Law, University of Edinburgh and also an associate of SCRIPT Centre. Her research interests include applicability of empirical research, particularly socio-legal methodologies in addressing questions on copyright law and policy as to new types of creative content and exploring connections between Intellectual property law and new forms of property and culture through perspectives of creators and users.

Research Assistant: Mr Andrew Black was a Research Assistant for the Individual Creators project (2013-14) and is also involved in two other CREATe projects exploring Copyright and Civil Enforcement and Privacy, Personal Data Collection and the Freemium Business Model for Web 2.0. He completed his LLM in Innovation, Technology, and the Law with distinction and his research interests focus on intellectual property rights, with a particular focus on copyright and its interaction with the modern digital environment.

PhD Candidate: Ms Nevena Kostova is a doctoral candidate at the University of Edinburgh (2013-2016) exploring the relationship between copyright, creators’ organisations and business models as part of the CREATe Research Project on Creators’ Organisations. Her work will focus on the music and publishing industries. Nevena recently graduated with a distinction from the University of Edinburgh in the LLM in Intellectual Property Law Programme. She currently tutors on the eLLM in Intellectual Property Law Programme. Her research interests lie in the area of copyright, with a particular emphasis on copyright exploitation and the societal implications of the law. Other areas of interest include trademarks, data protection law and privacy.

CREATe

CREATe is the Centre for Copyright and New Business Models in the Creative Economy, a national research hub jointly funded by UK Research Councils. CREATe is a pioneering interdisciplinary initiative and globally the first effort to investigate the relationship between Creativity, Regulation, Enterprise and Technology (=CREATe) through the lens of copyright law. CREATe is based at the University of Glasgow, leading a consortium of six further universities from across the UK, including the University of Edinburgh. CREATe is supported by funding over four years from 2012 to 2016 from the AHRC (Arts & Humanities Research Council), EPSRC (Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council) and ESRC (Economic & Social Sciences Research Council). CREATe’s research agenda has been developed in collaboration with the Intellectual Property Office, NESTA and Technology Strategy Board.