COPYING AND COPYRIGHT
Copyright can be defined as the exclusive right to make and dispose copies of a literary,
musical or artistic work. Its purpose is to protect any form of expression and to encourage
creators to contribute more towards their fields.
In this paper, we discuss about the ‘evolution’ of copyrights in the United States.
Copyrights can be compared to patents and they are both defined by the three
dimensions: length, width and height. The length refers to the term of copyright, the
width refers to the breadth of coverage i.e. what can be protected using copyrights and
the height refers to the restriction that no substantial work can be copyrighted. A work
can be copyrighted for the lifetime of the author + 70 years or to a maximum of 75 to 95
years.
The act of Copyright prohibits copying any work. But quoting a work and reproducing
the work for criticism is considered legal. Copying TV broadcasts for personal use is also
considered legal. The principle of Indirect Appropriability states that the price increases
when the right to copy is given. We also discuss on the technique to set the price such
that customers prefer buying the product even when copying is permitted. The video store
model and the library model describe the price setting when a work is being shared by
different individuals with different tastes.
With all the work becoming digital, copying and distributing the work has become very
easy and enforcing copyrights on such works may become very difficult. We look into
various business models that discourage copying when copyrights cannot be enforced.
Many technologies that make copying of digital content inexpensive are also working
towards reducing the fixed cost of content creation. Many digital content are given away
for free, from blogs to open source software. This increased availability of the content
due to reduced cost in creating and distributing increases the competition and reduces the
price consumers need to pay for legitimate access.
Discussion Questions:
1. Consider the Piracy Rate vs. per capita Gross Domestic Product discussed earlier,
considering the state of affairs developing countries like India and China, how much
do you think the development of the County depends on the Copyright issue
2. The term of a Copyright is the life of the author plus 95 years. The emergence of
Copyright was to protect and encourage the author during his lifetime. After his death
would his work be better appreciated if it wasn’t copyrighted?
3. Consider the Borland vs. Lotus case which is in a state of deadlock in the U.S.
Supreme Court, should such user interfaces, like choice of keystrokes be subject to
copyright protection ?