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Dead poets' property—how does copyright influence price?

Dead poets' property—how does copyright influence price? Copyrights create long‐lived intellectual property in goods ranging from science, literature, and music to news, film, and software. The economic effects of copyright, however, are difficult to identify in modern settings. This article exploits an unintended differential increase in copyright length under the UK Copyright Act of 1814—in favor of books by dead authors—to examine the effects of longer copyright terms on price. We find that a doubling in copyright length was associated with a substantial (roughly 50%) increase in the price of books. Additional years of copyright improved publishers' ability to practice intertemporal price discrimination. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Rand Journal of Economics Wiley

Dead poets' property—how does copyright influence price?

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References (95)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
© 2018 The RAND Corporation
ISSN
0741-6261
eISSN
1756-2171
DOI
10.1111/1756-2171.12223
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Copyrights create long‐lived intellectual property in goods ranging from science, literature, and music to news, film, and software. The economic effects of copyright, however, are difficult to identify in modern settings. This article exploits an unintended differential increase in copyright length under the UK Copyright Act of 1814—in favor of books by dead authors—to examine the effects of longer copyright terms on price. We find that a doubling in copyright length was associated with a substantial (roughly 50%) increase in the price of books. Additional years of copyright improved publishers' ability to practice intertemporal price discrimination.

Journal

The Rand Journal of EconomicsWiley

Published: Jan 1, 2018

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