On 06/14/2000, Rod McCarvel <rod[_at_]seanet.com> wrote:
>
> On 11 Jun 2000, Don Roemer <droe2[_at_]earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, Jun 09, 2000, Jeremy G. Byrne <jeremy[_at_]iz.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > On 06/06/2000, Don Roemer <droe2[_at_]earthlink.net> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I find it difficult to follow your post. How does copyright
> > > > restrict my access to information?
> > >
> > > Oh, please. You're just jerking me around, yeah?
> > >
> > > Copyright produces artificial scarcity in order to manufacture
> > > "value" in information. It sets economic barriers in the way of
> > > access to the information which in turn give rise to geographic and
> > > even cryptographic barriers, all of which restrict your and my
> > > access.
> >
> > Oh, I see, you want it all for free.
> >
> > Sorry for even asking.
>
> This response fails to appreciate that, whether or not you agree
> with Mr. Byrne's ultimate conclusions about the utility of
> copyright, his economic analysis is, I think, exactly correct.
> Copyright restricts access to information, in the sense that it
> creates scarcity. This is in fact the purpose of copyright. If
> the copyright owner is unable to control the distribution of
> copies, the price of the work will inevitably collapse.
>
> The basic idea is that, while the initial investment in the first
> copy may be quite high, each subsequent copy can be produced quite
> cheaply. Particularly in the case of digitized information, for
> which the marginal cost of producing an additional copy is near
> zero, traditional notions of optimal pricing do not work. The
> normal concept of supply and demand presumes that supply is by
> definition finite. If supply can be readily increased with little
> or no additional cost, for all practical purposes without limit,
> classical economics tells us that the price per unit will be zero
> or very nearly so. Obviously, Metallica would not soon get rich
> this way. To put it less flippantly, authors may not be able to
> recoup the original cost of production unless the supply can be
> artificially limited and the price kept well above the marginal
> per-unit cost of the copies.
>
> Thus, the Constitution (presuming the U.S. copyright model --
> residents of other jurisdictions are on their own) grants Congress
> the authority to provide authors with a monopoly for a limited
> period of time. An artificial scarcity is created, propping up a
> non-zero price for each copy. In a very fundamental way, access
> to the underlying information is restricted by assuring a price
> substantially greater than the per-unit marginal cost. If I want
> to hear a particular song, read a particular book, or see a
> particular movie I will have to purchase or otherwise gain access
> to one of a pool of artificially scarce copies. This is in fact
> the whole point. Without restricted access, supply inflates and
> prices collapse. Authorship is not incentivised, and the public
> suffers (that's the theory, anyway).
>
> Of course, the trade-off here is that copyright is granted only
> for a limited time. Thus, the artificially created scarcity, and
> resulting limited access, is temporary. The public (for whose
> benefit, you will recall, the copyright is granted) ultimately
> obtains virtually unlimited access to the information embodied
> within the protected expression -- assuming that the public
> still cares.
Rod's thoughtful post hit the nail on the head. His analysis naturally leads us back to the issue that is central to much of the debate on this listserv: what level of scarcity provides the proper incentive for authors to make their works public? The goal, after all, is not to enrich the authors but the public -- compensation to the authors is just the mechanism, not an end in itself, at least for constitutional purposes.
Viewed in that light, the length of copyright protection afforded today is certainly troubling. Given that returns on copyright, by and large, diminish steadily after publication until they level off at a fairly low revenue stream (if any), it's difficult to see how a life+70 years copyright provides any more incentive to an author than, say, a 25-year copyright. In fact, if you equated copyright to real property, the current rule would violate the Rule against Perpetuities (assuming the author was the only "life in being" who counted).
Kevin Grierson
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