Copyright Law Master Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

Copyright Law Master - Essay Example In many cases, the competition for this standard will be fierce,(n6) because the winner likely will have intellectual property rights in the technology and hence reap a significant reward. Such incentives often are needed for the development of objectively good standards. Yet, as a consequence of granting intellectual property rights, a monopoly is created in a product that Internet users need. Once an Internet technology becomes a standard, how can the owner of the corresponding copyright be prevented from extracting monopoly rents and thereby negating the increase in consumer welfare that the standard created It is an understatement to say that the Internet has become an important communications and commercial network. The large number of Internet consumers grants each user the benefit of network effects -- the effects of a system whose value to a given user increases with the number of users of that system --- a significant externality that affects decisions by potential new participants. Network effects are particularly important with regard to the Internet, because the more users it has, the more valuable it is as an information resource, a communications tool, and a marketplace for goods and services. In fact, the network effect of the Internet would be destroyed were it not for the adoption of common standards to ensure compatible communication. For example, computers use the public domain protocol TCP/IP, which allows the network effect to prosper, because it allows everyone using the Internet to speak the same language. Without such compatibility, email messages would not be readable by, and web pages would not be accessible to, all users; such facile interchange is precisely the value of being on the network in the first place. Thus, the need for compatibility also drives the standardization of Internet protocols and tools, because the network effect requires users to be on the same network. Copyright in the Age of Internet Copyright is a relatively neglected area as far as economists are concerned and it occupies a backseat by comparison to the economic analysis of patents and R&D. This is surprising since it plays a major role in industries that are increasingly important in post-industrial economies, the cultural industries (publishing, sound recording, film, broadcasting) and computer software. It is a fruitful area for the application of law and economics, for modern theories of industrial organisation and for public choice theory. Copyright law provides the institutional framework for markets in the cultural sector of the economy. Each country has its own national copyright law; however, the necessity for that law to be effective with international trade of cultural products has led to harmonisation of copyright across countries. The author may license, assign or sell these fights outright or in part or transfer them to an agent. All such transactions are made through contracts. Only the author's moral right in the work may not be sold or transferred1. The right way to evaluate policy on copyright is to undertake empirical analysis of the economic effects of changes to the law and to see how markets respond to them. It does not seem that this approach has so far even been considered in European policy-making on copyright. Principal-Agent