It's common to see reports that stress the economic importance of copyright and the content owners who benefit from it; the Copyright Alliance says that "core copyright industries" generated $819 billion in the US in 2005, for instance. What's less common is to find studies that look at the economic impact of fair use. That was the goal behind a new report (PDF) from the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA). Their provocative finding? "In 2006, fair use-related industry value added was $2.2 trillion, 16.6 percent of total US current dollar GDP."
