New technologies have given rise to digital versions of many goods including photographs, books, music, and movies. This dissertation examined whether people ascribe greater value to physical or digital goods with self-report and incentive compatible designs. I report ten experiments that elucidate the preference and identify greater establishment of psychological ownership for physical goods as the mechanism responsible for their greater valuation. I found that participants ascribed a higher value to physical versions of a variety of goods, whether measured in an incentive compatible pay-what-you-want paradigm, willingness to pay, or purchase intention. In Experiment 1, tourists paid more for a printed photograph of themselves with a costumed historical figure at a historical site than a similar digital photograph, even when controlling for the perceived cost of production. Experiment 2 found that this difference in valuation generalizes to other product categories such as books, music, movies, and magazine subscriptions. Experiment 3 suggested that the differences were not due to perceived consumption utility. Although participants ascribed greater value to physical goods, they believed their digital counterparts were more useful on every dimension measured. Experiment 4 ruled out a social signaling motive, as participants exhibited the same greater preference for physical versions of both high and lowbrow goods. Experiment 4 also found that estimates of the retail prices of digital and physical goods does not explain this preference. Experiment 5 identified psychological ownership as a driver of the higher valuation ascribed to physical goods. Psychological ownership and not assessments of permanence or anticipated consumption enjoyment mediated the effect of product format on willingness to pay (WTP). Experiments 6A and 6B provided further evidence for the ownership account. College students reported their WTP for buying or renting a digital or print copy of a course textbook. The WTP gap between physical and digital versions of the textbook was considerably greater in the purchase condition than rent condition. Whereas students were WTP more to buy than rent a physical textbook, they were not WTP more to buy than rent the same digital textbook. The rest of the studies further explored the ownership account and its implications. / 2018-06-22T00:00:00Z

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is experiencing exponential growth which is rapidly transforming the traditional approach to international trade. The regulation and facilitation of the rising levels of e-commerce derived digital goods is undoubtedly a challenge for revenue administrations and customs administrations alike. However, it also presents opportunities for higher levels of revenue collection through increased economic activity and, as such, should be supported by e-commerce enabling legislation. Further consideration is required to ascertain whether the current legislation regulating the taxation of e-commerce will suffice, or if further amendments are required to provide for the necessary changes to enhance the tax base to be reflective of the drastic changes in the economy. For SARS better regulation and facilitation of cross-border e-commerce transactions can provide the opportunity to generate additional revenue for Government and enhance economic growth. This can only be achieved by creating an environment whereby an appropriate level of consumer trust is established. To this effect South Africa does have laws addressing key regulatory issues regarding trade in e-commerce. What remains is for SARS to determine the desired extent of levying consumption taxes on cross-border digital goods. Once it has been established, the application thereof must be aligned to guiding international tax principles to further embed the taxation of cross-border trade in digital goods in South Africa by way of continuous regulatory certainty. / Mini Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Mercantile Law / LLM / Restricted

The dissertation deals with the cutting-edge subject of electronic contracts, which have the potential to automatically process and control the access rights for (electronic) goods. The dissertation shows the design and the implementation of a rights expression exchange framework. The framework enables digital rights management systems to exchange electronic contracts with each other and thus, provides DRM system compatibility. The electronic contracts, which are formulated in a standardized rights expression language, serve as exchange format between different DRM systems. The dissertation introduces a methodology for the standardized composition, exchange and processing of electronic contracts respectively rights expressions. (author´s abstract)

Dans ces dernières années nous assistons à l’émergence de nouvelles licences, les Creative Commons (CC), qui dérivent du monde du logiciel libre et qui ont pour but de partager les œuvres artistiques (vidéos, musique, etc.) entre les utilisateurs. Cette thèse est consacrée à l’étude des vidéos qu'utilisent ces licences. En particulier cette thèse se concentre sur trois aspects de la production de vidéos sous licences CC : les choix judicieux du degré d'ouverture de la licence, la stratégie de financer et de mener l’innovation et le chemin qui détermine le succès des projets. Tout d’abord, pour enquêter sur ce qui est le choix judicieux entre les différents degrés d'ouverture dans les licences CC, nous avons conduit une analyse économétrique (approche quantitative) sur des vidéos sous licences CC stockées sur l'Internet Archive. Les résultats de cette étude suggèrent que, dans le but d'attirer les contributions des utilisateurs, les producteurs utilisent différents degrés d'ouverture de licences en fonction de leur statut organisationnel. Ensuite, pour étudier la stratégie de financer et de diriger l’innovation générée par les utilisateurs, nous avons conduit une étude de cas (approche qualitative) concernant un vidéo produite sous licence CC, Big Buck Bunny. Les résultats suggèrent que les utilisateurs peuvent être utilisés en tant que source de financement de la production et comme partenaires pour innover. Enfin, pour étudier le chemin et les caractéristiques des projets qui arrivent à être produit, nous avons crée un modèle multi-agent, capable de reproduire les faits stylisés de la production de vidéos sous CC stockées sur une plate-forme en ligne. / Recently Creative Commons (CC ) licenses emerged. CC are a set of licenses which derive from the free/open source software world. The aim of CC licenses is to share the artistic works (videos , music, etc.) among users . This thesis is devoted to the study of videos under these licenses. In particular, the thesis focuses on three aspects of video production under CC licenses: the successful choice of the degree of openness of the license , the strategy to fund and conduct innovation and the way that determine the success of the projects. First, to investigate the appropriate choice among different degrees of openness in the CC licenses, we conducted an econometric analysis (quantitative approach) on video under CC licenses stored on the Internet Archive . The results suggest that in order to attract contributions of users, producers use different opening licenses based on their organizational status degrees. Then, to study the strategy to fund and manage the innovation generated by users, we conducted a case study (qualitative approach ) of a video under CC license, Big Buck Bunny. The results suggest that users can be used as a source of funding for the production and as partners to innovate. Finally, to study the path and the characteristics of projects that succeed, we created an agent-based model that is able to reproduce the stylized facts of the production of videos under CC license stored on an on-line platform.