Amalyah! I love seeing your name in my in-box--I know it's always
bringing something thoughtful like this paper. Thanks.
Holly Witchey
Director, New Media Initiatives
The Cleveland Museum of Art
11150 East Blvd.
Cleveland, Ohio 44106
Phone: 216-707-2653
Fax: 216-721-4176
Email: hwitchey at clevelandart.org
www.clevelandart.org
www.museumattic.org
(blog) www.musematic.net
-Original Message-
From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of
Amalyah Keshet
Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2007 9:22 AM
To: mcn-l at mcn.edu
Subject: [MCN-L] IP SIG: Economist calculates optimum term of
copyright:14years (from BoingBoing)
Economist calculates optimum term of copyright: 14 years
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 years.
This is substantially shorter than any current copyright term and
implies that existing copyright terms are too long.
posted by Cory Doctorow on July 12, 2007, 07:22 AM
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/07/12/economist_calculates.html
And a link to the full paper:
http://www.rufuspollock.org/archives/198
Amalyah Keshet
Head of Image Resources Copyright Management
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem akeshet at imj.org.il
Chair, MCN IP SIG www.mcn.edu
Blog www.musematic.net
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