Conclusions

When discussing legislative choke points to digital innovation, it is important to note that there is one more level of convergence between those potentially affecting corporate innovation and grassroots collaborative projects involving networked individuals: in both cases, the benefit from eliminating such obstacles is not quantifiable. Just as one cannot, with any certainty at least, make predictions on the quantity (or quality) of innovative projects to be developed within the coming year, how many of them will be commercialised and to what extent this will affect future developments, it appears similarly impossible to try and quantify the potential increase in GDP, the well-being of society or the behaviour of the stock market due to anticipated technological innovation in the wake of any given legislative change. In consequence, it cannot be said with any certainty how big an improvement Europe would see in the area of technological innovation should it choose to add a measure of flexibility to its copyright law. Applying this framing to innovation is misleading given the nature of the problem under discussion; for want of a better comparison, the situation can be likened to that of the government in a country that is hungry for quality road infrastructure pinning the decision to build roads on whether it can be guaranteed how much money will toll fees bring into the treasury.