Probably some of you were part of the ‘Polis’ conversation we ran at the last Global Congress in September 2018. Polis is a participated-directed survey tool that we’ve been using to hold large-scale conversations.
We reached out to over 1000 Global Congress alum and current attendees. Some 335 participated over two weeks. The results are not based on and do not have the statistical power of a random sample. Nonetheless, they’re individually and collectively a pretty interesting portrait of the community.
Polis analyzes voting patterns to identify broad tendencies within the participating group. In this case, the results suggest that there is both a larger ‘strong IP’ contingent in the community and a more distinctive ‘US law school copyright reformer’ perspective than my own experience would have suggested. Both subgroups are differentiated from a larger group of ‘global IP skeptics’ that has no well-defined geographical or other identity in these results, but which frequently has confidence in the viability of IP reform.
The report also contain snapshots of community opinion across a wide range of issues:
(Green=Agree, Red=Disagree, Grey=Pass, White=Did not vote)
For those of you who have been part of or who have an interest in the contours of the IP ‘public interest’ community, the full results are worth a look.
