Copyright and Generic Entry in Book Publishing

Imke Reimers

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2019, vol. 11, issue 3, 257-84

Abstract: Taking works off copyright promotes their availability, but it also allows generic entry to dissipate producer surplus. This paper examines the effect of a copyright on the availability and price of books when incentives to create new works are not affected. Evaluating the welfare impact of the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act, I find that a copyright significantly limits the availability of works, leading to a decrease in consumer surplus, which is significantly larger than any increases in profits to copyright holders. Without changing incentives to create new content, the copyright extension was economically inefficient.

JEL-codes: L11 L17 L82 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
Note: DOI: 10.1257/mic.20170100
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (27)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mic.20170100 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mic.20170100.data (application/zip)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mic.20170100.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:11:y:2019:i:3:p:257-84

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics is currently edited by Johannes Hörner

More articles in American Economic Journal: Microeconomics from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().