Harvard Study Says Weak Copyright Benefits Society

An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist summarizes an important new study on file sharing from economists Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf. The Harvard Business School working paper finds that given the increase in artistic production along with the greater public access conclude that 'weaker copyright protection, it seems, has benefited society.' The authors point out that file sharing may not result in reduced incentives to create if the willingness to pay for 'complements' such as concerts or author speaking tours increases."

Comments

Pointless

[Razalhague]

These kind of studies are largely pointless. We already know this, and the media industry will not believe it regardless of how many studies come to this conclusion.

Re:Pointless

[Rogerborg]

the media industry will not believe it

Indeed, since the media "industry" - the guys that buy the lawyers and Senators - have no interest in "creating" anything. Their job is to exploit other peoples' creations. Whether the creators get rewarded or not is utterly irrelevant to them.

So what?

[MrEricSir]

The media industry is not society. Why would they care if society benefits if their bottom line does not also benefit?

Re:So what?

[Daengbo]

I read the first ten or so pages of the PDF before posting, and the intended audience was obviously not the media companies. I would guess that that audience would be law makers. The paper clearly states that social welfare for artists is not the intended consequence of copyrights, but that encouraging production is.

I found most of the arguments in the front section (which were probably more general and less supported than ones later in the paper) to be logical and well-reasoned, except for the part about authors generating income through speaking tours, which I doubt would be effective for any but the most famous.

I'll definitely read the rest of the paper this weekend.

Re:Err..

[Daimanta]

The same question would be: What if you are a painter and you paint only for a niche of the market? You make less money. But if you love the art, that's where your hart lies and that's what will make you happy.

Sure, you can go commercial and make more money, but that would probably negatively affect your happiness so you will have to choose and possible compromise.

copyrights were meant to be weak

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright was invented to allow creators to get an income from their creations before the creations are released to the public domain. The state should have stood firm in keeping the copyright protection short. However they didn't, but instead succumbed to the "industry" interests. This resulted to turning every creation in a cash-cow with no expiry date, which obviously hinders innovation and creation: there is little incentive to create a second good work since the first one you created will provide you and your descendants with a steady flow of cash for the next 200 years.

I understand that the above is a bit simplified because it omits the role of the "industry" in the flow of cash. The "industry" pimps will absorb much of the cash intended for the creator (after all, they forced him to sell them for pennies the copyright of his work). This will keep the creator going because he doesn't really earn that much to retire. But it will also degrade his output because he knows that even if he does really-really good with his next creation, it is the "industry" pimps that will get the most out of his work.

Still quite simplified, but I think you get my point: You can't grant quasi-perpetual copyright protection (google "The Mickey Mouse Protection Act") and still expect the same amount of innovative creations.

Re:Different views on "society"

[siddesu]

Nope, it is not a differing view on "society", but rather a differing view on "good".

For the society outside of the corporations, "good" is, generally, more creativity, i.e. less copyright. Less copyright means less monopoly, and less monopoly provides generally a better allocation of the resources of society. Of course, it'll make those lawyers, who want to succeed in the creative business work harder, but ain't that the American way anyway? Incidentally, this freedom may make people who invest in art more focused on the art itself as opposed to taking the easy way out -- owning copyrights and doing a failed remake after remake.

For the corporations, "good" is exactly the opposite. A corporation doesn't give a damn about what is good for society, as long as it benefits the corporate bottom line. Monopoly is the best way to insure a bottom line, especially in the view of the corporate owners (see, e.g. concepts like "economic moat"). So, a corporation will allocate resources not for new art, but for protection of lucrative copyrights, and for politics. Neither of which is good for art, or society.

If you take a look, you'll see that's exactly what's been happening in the decades since the ifpies and the wipos of the world came about.

Get a job.

[remmelt]

Get a job like the rest of us? You can't just label yourself an artist and go around whining about loss of income if you don't want to go the extra mile. I'm terribly sorry for people's overly romantic view of stardom, but it just sucks, especially if you're not a star (yet).

By the way, pretty much any artist has a side job. In my experience, the more serious the job is, the less serious the artist is about being an artist and vice versa. There is only a very limited subset of artists that can make a living from their art.