

Harvard Study Finds Weaker Copyright Protection Has Benefited Society - jgrahamc
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4062/125/

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jcl
_Given the increase in artistic production along with the greater public
access conclude that "weaker copyright protection, it seems, has benefited
society."_

As much as I'd like the paper's conclusion to be valid, it appears to ignore
the fact that creating salable creative products has become _much_ easier and
cheaper in recent years. Practically every computer sold today comes with an
audio mixer and video editor.

All we can conclude is that weaker copyright protection has not offset the
positive effects of technology on creative output.

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randallsquared
Well, has not _completely_ offset...

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crocowhile
I find table 6 in the paper to be quite astonishing. (uploaded here for those
who don't want to download the paper: <http://imgur.com/OU3Qk.png> )

In average only about 15% of an artist income seems to derive directly from
recordings. If this is a general rule for well established artists they should
all release their music absolutely for free and invest their energies in
concerts instead.

~~~
amalcon
It's also interesting that the outliers -- the artists who derive most of
their income from recordings -- tend to be rappers. Eminem, Jay-Z, Linkin Park
(A little bit of a stretch, but close enough for me), and Brian "Baby"
Williams are the ones that jump out at me.

This would imply that, rationally, rappers should be more concerned about
copyright, and people like Billy Joel and Neil Diamond shouldn't care one bit.

~~~
pchristensen
I'd guess that they can reach a lot of people through recordings that wouldn't
go to their concerts, presumably because of how white people are scared of
black males. Probably not as many people are scared of Billy Joel fans.

~~~
Jebdm
Maybe it's an issue of fear, but I doubt it; probably a combination of
cultural stigma (thinking it is "weird" for a white person to go to a rap
concert) and relative wealth of the target markets (concerts are much more
expensive than albums, especially when you include travel costs).

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grandalf
If you like this subject check out the book "The Lever of Riches" which is an
in-depth study of the issue:

[http://www.amazon.com/Lever-Riches-Technological-
Creativity-...](http://www.amazon.com/Lever-Riches-Technological-Creativity-
Economic/dp/0195074777/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245282231&sr=8-1)

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Sam_Odio
Slightly misleading headline. This isn't a "Harvard study." It's a draft paper
that reviews prior research on copyrights.

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johnnybgoode
In this case, I might even agree with the conclusion, but it's easy to be
misled by something like this. "Study finds x has benefited society" sounds
all scientific and objective, so it's easy to forget to ask, "What do you mean
by 'benefited society'?"

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jsonscripter
The authors of this article were one of the first to challenge the early
claims about the effects of file sharing. Years later, many other economists
have followed suit (including the study funded by Industry Canada). This
latest paper does a nice job of expanding the discussion, by using the data to
examine incentives for creativity and the effects on aggregate creator and
industry income.

~~~
jcl
Why post an almost-exact copy of the blog's closing paragraph?

