Brookings Institute on "Questioning the Economic Justification for Copyright Law's Prohibition Against Unauthorized Copying"

Related link: http://www.aei.brookings.org/publications/abstract.php?pid=302

A paper from the Brookings Institution argues that a fundamentalist approach to copyright is harmful to the market for music. From the abstract:

This article questions the economic justification for copyright law�s prohibition against unauthorized copying. Building on the thesis of Stephen Breyer�s 1970 Harvard Law Review article, "The Uneasy Case for Copyright," it contends that not only may copyright law�s prohibition against unauthorized copying (17 U.S.C. �106) not be necessary to stimulate an optimal level of new creations, but that �106 appears to have a net negative effect on such output!

The best case we can make against the copyright fundamentalists is economic. We are for deregulating the music industry, they are for government-sanctioned monopoly. We want a free market, they want protection from competition. This paper develops that argument in a disciplined way.