Statistical Analysis of Copyright Registrations

linuxizer writes "I've been poking around in Penn's Library for most of my Freshman year, looking up copyright statistics. What I found is basically what many suspected all along: extending and strengthening copyright terms has little effect on actual innovation. Perhaps most fascinating is the strong 40-year upward trend in registrations which is sharply broken in 1991 with a precipitous decline. Also included are some interesting observations about the RIAA's data. The numerous graphics should be well-enough explained that you don't need to go to the data files, but they are included if needed."

Comments

Conclusion

[Webtommy88]

So the premise remains valid. The conclusion is pretty clear as well, as seen from the decades following the passage of the 1909 and 1976 laws: the drastic expansions of copyright had little to do with increasing innovation in this country.

Like the study says, this is good grounds to stop extending copyrights as extending them would only serve to give incentive to innovate through prolonging the period of returns on said innovation. If this becomes widely accepted then it's just a matter of arguing copy rights are too long, (or too short?) as to provide enough incentive to innovate.

Note that the conclusions (and in the entire study) says nothing about copy right extensions slowing innovation.

I really would like to see some analysis on the negative effects (if at all) of copyright extensions on innovation.

VERY Interesting

[q2a]

Here's the thesis:

"The conclusion is pretty clear as well, as seen from the decades following the passage of the 1909 and 1976 laws: the drastic expansions of copyright had little to do with increasing innovation in this country."

We all need to ask ourselves how much is the public domain worth anyway?
The answer is A LOT. Our artists and culture are suffering.
/END RANT

-- Have you read 1984?
Since 1997, clicking this link is a Jail-able offense in the US.

Interesting Article

[ispeters]

All jokes about the wasting of his freshman year, and the innumerable popups (Long Live Mozilla!) aside, this was a rather interesting article.

I'd like to have seen the copyright numbers graphed next to some population numbers to see how they compare. Do the number of copyrights registered in the US correlate with the number of people in the US?

Also, the number of copyrights seems to follow a fairly linear trend until 1950, and then it suddenly becomes quadratic until 1991. Why? Was there some huge up-swing in population growth at that point, or something? (The baby-boomers wouldn't have started registering copyrighted works until much later, would they?) Did everyone suddenly discover acid and become that much more creative?

Ian

Answer to the question

[zpiderz]

So the author wanted to find out why copyright registrations declined after 1991? Well, there was a big depression shortly after that time. The article's author was pointing out how the Great Depression and the different major wars of the last century negatively affected copyright registrations, so it makes sense. I know he/she was probably 8-10 yrs. old in the early 90's so maybe he/she never really grasped how bad times were. And look! registrations start rebounding around '95-96 when IT started taking off.

Let me see if I've got this right

[mblase]

Since the page in question doesn't really come to a tidy conclusion, this is what I extracted from his "pretty data":

* Around 1991, the overall number of copyright registrations plummeted compared to what the data would predict.
* The number of musical compositions experienced a similar plunge, implying that fewer musical compositions led to fewer copyright registrations.
* During those years, the RIAA continued to ship certain CDs in proportion to their price, in keeping with the law of supply and demand.
* Probable conclusion: The RIAA's current financial woes are due to nothing more than an abrupt reduction in the number of recordings released.

Of course, IANAS. Did I miss anything?