In another post that I never got round to blogging, Boing Boing linked last month to a new study into copyright. Economist Rufus Pollock takes into account that the optimal copyright period on intellectual property will fall as costs of production reduce, and that the optimal level will fall over time in general. Putting this into a model, he finds that the optimal period is 14 years – much less than the many decades with which music, books and other media are currently protected. This conclusion adds weight to the broad contention that current protection periods overly restrict the fair use of these media.

Boing Boing post is here. Rufus Pollock’s blog post is here. Via BOL, here.

Posted Monday, August 13th, 2007 @ 10:56 pm
Filed in business and productivity, copyright and drm, politics, science and tech

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Further reading

These posts may be related to the one above:

1. Guantanamo video
2. Unprotected music vs “cooling-off”
3. Perceiving the future