Rufus Pollock, a PhD candidate in economics at Cambridge University, has just released “Forever Minus a Day? Some Theory and Empirics of Optimal Copyright,” a brilliant new paper on the economically optimal term of copyright. He’s presenting it in Berlin this week, but it’s already online. Here’s the abstract:
The optimal level for copyright has been a matter for extensive debate over the last decade. This paper contributes several new results on this issue divided into two parts. In the first, a parsimonious theoretical model is used to prove several novel propositions about the optimal level of protection. Specifically, we demonstrate that (a) optimal copyright falls as the costs of production go down (for example as a result of digitization) and that (b) the optimal level of copyright will, in general, fall over time. The second part of the paper focuses on the specific case of copyright term. Using a simple model we characterise optimal term as a function of a few key parameters. We estimate this function using a combination of new and existing data on recordings and books and find an
optimal
term of
around fourteen yearsfind an optimal term of around fourteen years. This is substantially shorter than any current copyright term and implies that existing copyright terms are too long.[Link via Boing Boing]
Considering the fact that if given the chance, copyright owners would love to hold onto their copyright forever. And in some cases companies keep trying to renew their copyright over and over. It was good to read an economist break it down and figure 14 years is good enough.I very much doubt they’ll revise law to shorten it like that. But perhaps someone will read this study and do it.
Tags: Business, Economy, Finance, Financial, Interesting
