New Economics Paper Explains How Shorter Copyright Stimulates More Music; TechDirt, 11/13/09

Mike Masnick, TechDirt; New Economics Paper Explains How Shorter Copyright Stimulates More Music:

"In the recent debate in the UK about copyright extension for performances, one of the key points raised by many who were against the proposal was that economic studies suggested that it would really only help a few big superstars (who probably were well enough off already) while harming up-and-coming artists greatly. Christian Zimmerman points us to a recent economics paper by Francisco Alcala and Miguel Gonzalez-Maestre that models why this happens, and points out that copyright extension actually serves to decrease incentives for the creation of new content. The full paper (pdf) basically points out that extending copyright really only helps the superstar performers, since, for everyone else, the economic value of the content is exhausted by the time the extension would matter. That's pretty obvious. But the more troubling part is that this also then negatively impacts the market for new artists, because money and attention that might have gone towards new works end up going instead to those older works."

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091104/0328256794.shtml