Re: actuaries and copyright extension

Paul Heald wrote:

>> 
>>     Should we extend copyright protection for 20 more years?  The 
>> basis of a "yes" response must be grounded on the notion that the 
>> extra twenty years would provide an increased present incentive for 
>> creation.

John Noble responded:
>
> Why is that true? One might as well say that increasing the minimum
> wage must be grounded in the notion that the increase will encourage
> more people to get jobs.

Possibly because your constitution requires it. It does not require that wage control legislation must encourage more people to get jobs.  

Paul Heald wrote:
[a demonstration that adding 20 years does not significantly alter the value of a creation AT THE TIME OF CREATION]

John Noble responded:
>
> I thought that a subsidy was the dedication of a public asset for
> private benefit, while the dedication of a private asset to public
> use was, in other circles, called something else.

Except that, in US law, copyright is private asset granted by the public for a particular purpose. The public grants limited monopolies to encourage creation. The argument is about whether to change the limits on those monopolies. Should the public change the nature of the private asset it grants to the detriment of the public in order to encourage more creation? The reply that Paul Heald made was that the increased incentive at the time of creation is insignificant and if the detriment to the public is significant at any time then the public has no reason to extend that monopoly.

Trotter Hardy responded to Paul Heald:
>
> OTOH, I am not sure that there is much detriment in doing so. Paul
> suggests that that there is no added incentive, and particularly
> that there is no added value to a work between a 50-yr and a 70-yr
> term. But doesn't that also mean that there is no detriment?

No because they are measured at different times. The relevant time to measure the incentive for creation has to be at or before creation in which case Paul Heald's analysis applies. The time for measurement of detriment to the public is not so limited.

> The reason that there is no difference in the value of a work between
> a 50 yr and a 70 year term is that no one cares about such works.

It may be that no-one cares about the vast majority of such works and that no-one can be sure at the time of creation whether anyone will care about that work by the time its current copyright term expires. But this isn't true about all works.

E.g. I would be willing to bet that Stephen King's latest novel will still generate significant income in 100 years time (I might be wrong).

I'm sure there are a number of copyright owners who care about the ownership of literary classics like the works of A. A. Milne etc from which there is still some potential to make money and clearly measurable detriment to the public by extending the copyright term. Extending the copyright term isn't going to encourage Milne to write more Pooh stories, but the public will have to pay more for the stories already in existence. (A. A. Milne was chosen as the Pooh books would otherwise be in the public domain)

I suspect that changing the term from 50 to 70 still doesn't significantly effect the purchase value of the income stream (even if that income stream were the royalties to a novel) at the time of creation because of the exponential behaviour of compound interest not because of the anticipated decline in the royalty income. Paul's model assumed that royalty income remained constant throughout the entire life-time of the annuity when in actual fact an income stream from a royalty is likely to decline (at least in real terms and subject to unpredictable rises and falls in popularity) through the life of the copyright.

> It seems to me, in short, that for the most part "ex ante value to
> author" and "ex ante value to the public" will rise or fall together,
> not inversely.

I agree completely but the issue is comparing "ex ante value to the author" with value to the public at any time. Paul's illustration shows that at the time of creation the difference between 50 and 70 is insignificant in terms of financial incentive (there may be nonfinancial  incentives but I am struggling to think of one that would make any difference between 50 and 70).

This analysis does fail to take account of the international aspect of the problem. Failure by the US to comply with international changes may lead to US works receiving less protection internationally. This could have an effect on the incentive to create.

Of course, in the rest of the world factors other than encouraging creation are also relevant ;-)

Tim Arnold-Moore, LL.B. (Melb)      | Multimedia Database Systems, CITRI  |
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