Efficiency Considerations in Copyright Protection

Many countries are revisiting their Copyright law in the light of new communication and information technologies, which make possible the generalized digitization of copyrighted material and in so doing hallenge the protection and enforcement of copyrights. As the laws are modified to adapt to this new environment, the foundations of copyright have been questioned. I claim here that the affirmation and protection of a strong and transparent copyright framework is a second best efficient institutional arrangement to foster cultural development and diversity and promote the emergence of new market-like institutions reducing the costs of transactions between creators and users.

[1]  P. Hugenholtz.  Why the Copyright Directive is Unimportant, and Possibly Invalid , 2000 .

[2]  Christopher J. Lortie,et al.  The importance of importance , 2005 .

[3]  Brendan M. Cunningham,et al.  Court Decisions and Equity Markets: Estimating the Value of Copyright Protection* , 2006, The Journal of Law and Economics.

[4]  Marcel Boyer,et al.  Toward a Political Theory of the Emergence of Environmental Incentive Regulation , 1999 .

[5]  Stephen E. Margolis,et al.  Seventeen Famous Economists Weigh in on Copyright: The Role of Theory, Empirics, and Network Effects , 2003 .

[6]  J. Laffont,et al.  Environmental Risks and Bank Liability. , 1997 .

[7]  Laura J. Murray.  Protecting ourselves to death: Canada, copyright, and the Internet , 2004, First Monday.

[8]  J. Riley,et al.  The Analytics of Uncertainty and Information- An Expository Survey , 1979 .

[9]  Copyright Issues in Digital Media , 2004 .

[10]  E. Rappaport,et al.  Copyright Term Extension: Estimating the Economic Values , 1998 .

[11]  K. Arrow.  Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for Invention , 1962 .

[12]  Francesco Silva,et al.  Sound Recording Market: The Ambiguous Case of Copyright and Piracy , 2000 .

[13]  Michael Waldman,et al.  The Effects of Increased Copyright Protection: An Analytic Approach , 1984, Journal of Political Economy.

[14]  William J. Baumol,et al.  Entrepreneurship, Management, and the Structure of Payoffs , 1994 .

[15]  Ian R. Kerr.  Technological Protection Measures: Part I - Trends in Technical Protection Measures and Circumvention Technologies , 2005 .