Statistical Analysis of Copyright Registrations

Posted by michael on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @06:29AM from the number-of-the-beast dept.

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."

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Answer to the question by zpiderz · 2003-07-16 07:08 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.