How effective are international copyright conventions in the music industry?

The paper is concerned with the issue of whether international copyright legislation is effective in curbing audio software counterfeiting. The paper finds that copyright conventions have not been effective in reducing audio counterfeiting to comparatively low levels. This result holds even when allowances are made for the duration of copyright convention membership and the specificity of the articles of the convention. Economic development is found to be the main determinant of low counterfeit levels. This would tend to support anecdotal evidence which indicates that economic development is a necessary condition for the active recognition of audio property rights by the general public, judiciary and police. It is also consistent with a view that pirate audio software, being an inferior good, has a more buoyant market in less developed economies. From a policy perspective the research would seem to suggest that the extensive efforts and copious attention to detail by legal experts has made little impact on counterfeit activity and is secondary in importance to the socio-economic environment in which these laws are being applied.     

Implications of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights for Cultural Dimensions of National Copyright Laws

Many national intellectual property laws contain provisions that reflect cultural values and have trade significance. Although cultural value defenses have generally been rejected by GATT and WTO panels, they may be more likely to succeed in intellectual property disputes because many culturally-laden rules are widely accepted in the international intellectual property arena. Moreover, intellectual products are less completely commodified than other products. Cultural economists can provide valuable insights to aid WTO in distinguishing between those culturally-laden intellectual property rules that should be or should not permitted when they have an impact on trade.     

The Moral Rights of Artists: Droit Moral ou Droit Pécuniaire?

An artist's moral rights consist of the right to be identified as the creator of a work (Attribution), the right to decide when and whether to publish the work (Disclosure), the right to withdraw a work from circulation (Withdrawal), and the right to preserve the integrity of the work (Integrity). As there are two main schools of thought on the monetary aspects of copyright, so are there two schools on moral rights. Canada embodies two legal traditions, and so provides an interesting case study of moral rights legislation. The main interests for economists studying moral rights are (i) the extent to which moral rights should be tied to monetary rights, and (ii) the extent to which moral rights should be alienable.     

The economic impact of intellectual property rights: An overview and guide

This paper, adapted from a conference presentation in Venice, links the history of intellectual property protection to two important trends in this field: (1) the shifting baseline, from a presumption of no property rights and open competition, to the presumption that all intellectual effort deserves the award of a property right; and (2) growing awareness of the political economy of these rights, which legislators can create and strengthen with little direct effect on government budgets. The paper also considers a shift in the scholarly emphasis, from the brand question of the overall worth of intellectual property to defailed consideration of individual doctrines and rules.     

The appropriate extent of intellectual property rights in art

The paper examines whether intellectual property rights in art should be extended to the entire world. In earlier papers, the economics of patent rights have been examined and the argument made that world welfare is likely to fall if patent rights are extended to the entire world. This argument is recapitulated here with special attention to the assumptions that are needed for its validity. These assumptions are then reexamined in the context of markets for art to see whether the argument carries over. It is found that while most of the assumptions do carry over well enough to justify the argument, there are also certain circumstances that may require greater geographic extension of intellectual property rights in some cases.Paper prepared for a conference on The Economics of Intellectual Property Rights, International Center for Art Economics, University of Venice, October 6–8, 1994.     

Intellectual property rights and U.S. information goods exports: the role of imitation threat

Trade in information goods is particularly sensitive to the strength of intellectual property rights (IPR) and encounters an apparently different pattern of imitation threat compared with manufacturing trade, but the information goods trade–IPR nexus is less systematically investigated. This article analyzes whether and how U.S. information goods exports are sensitive to national differences in IPR protection and the degree of threat-of-imitation from the dynamic perspective. Employing the technique of instrumental variables for a dynamic panel model to consider the hysteretic effect and controlling the endogeneity problem, the empirical results show that the strength of the importing country’s IPR protection overall exhibits a trade-enhancing effect, supporting the standpoint that stronger IPR protection will induce more trade. Moreover, we adopt the piracy rate as a proxy for threat-of-imitation to examine its role on the information goods trade–IPR nexus. Empirical findings validate the prevalence of the market expansion effect wherever the degree of imitation threat of importing countries is high or low, because the technology level and production cost of reproduction are very low. It implies that the existing theory on threat-of-imitation may not apply to the information goods trade.

What Has the Visual Artist's Rights Act of 1990 Accomplished?

This paper presents an economic analysis of the Visual Artist's Rights Act of 1990 (VARA) which provides attribution and integrity rights, commonly called moral rights, for defined types of artistic works. The paper shows that these laws may actually harm artists by adding contracting and transaction costs in the art market. For most works, these costs will be trivial because collectors have a strong self-interest in preserving works in good condition. These costs are more likely to be significant, however, for works subject to destruction or alteration in the future, such as site-specific works and works installed in buildings, because purchasers will require waivers rather than risk violating the Act. The paper also examines the few cases that have been litigated under VARA. Consistent with the economic model, these cases involve large-scale works by relatively unknown artists that have been destroyed by building projects. Finally, the paper presents an empirical analysis of state moral rights laws. Nine states enacted these laws prior to VARA. These laws had no significant effect on artist earnings but a positive and significant effect on the number of artists living and working in the state.     

Copyright and IPR management for cultural heritage digital content in peer-to-peer networks

As a general and effective protection measure for copyright violations, which occur with the use of digital technologies including peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, copyright owners from the cultural sector often use Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems and digital watermarking techniques so as to encrypt copyright information to the cultural content. In other cases, copyright owners restrict or even block access to the digital cultural content through the Internet and the P2P infrastructure. This chapter claims that DRM and P2P can be quite complementary. Specifically, a P2P infrastructure is presented which allows broad digital cultural content exchange while on the same time supports copyright protection and management through watermarking technologies for digital images.     

Win, Place or Show: Gauging the Economic Success of the Renoir and Barnes Art Exhibits

Special art exhibits, sometimes known as``blockbusters', are often thought of as tourism andbusiness generators. This belief is fostered byeconomic impact studies that bravely estimate thetotal gross domestic product or total jobs ``created'by such exhibits. Unfortunately, the enthusiasm of theexhibit promoters often leads them to the uncritical useof methodologies that exaggerate the size of theexhibit's contribution to the local economy. Fortunately, such methodologies are well understoodand corrective measures are available to make theestimates they produce more realistic and useful foradvocacy purposes. This paper presents a comparisonof two studies done in Canada to provide arts managerswith a gauge for realistically forecasting thepotential impact of planned ``blockbusters'.Several Canadian art galleries have recently hostedspecial art exhibits, notably the Renoir Portraits atthe National Gallery of Canada and the BarnesExhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario. They havesurveyed the visitors to them using a correctivemethodology that enables researchers to determinewhich visitors came to the region only because of theexistence of the exhibit and which would have come tothe region and spent money whether the exhibit existedor not. These data enables researchers to estimatequite accurately the amount of visitor spending thatis actually due to the exhibit. This lower, but morecredible, estimate is very useful in helping promotersobtain exhibit sponsorship from local tourismbusinesses who have become skeptical of theexaggerated claims of economic impact estimates basedon standard survey approaches.     

Estimating the real growth effects of blockbuster art exhibits: A time series approach

This paper addresses the evaluation of real growth forecasts made by impact studies. Intervention analysis is used to estimate the ex post impact of blockbuster exhibits on economic growth in Jackson, Mississippi (chosen because state and local governments provide regular subsidies to finance the exhibitions). Non-farm employment measures real economic growth and dummy variables capture the occurrence of the exhibitions. Univariate time series techniques identify and estimate a stationary process after filtering the data for seasonal and cyclical effects. The analysis estimates the short run impact on Jackson’s filtered employment series due to the blockbuster exhibitions as approximately 700 jobs.     

基于引力模型与社会网络分析法的海南省旅游经济联系及其空间结构研究

旅游空间结构是重要的旅游地理研究话题,但在省域尺度上的研究探索仍有待丰富。以2014年和2019年海南省18个县市的旅游截面数据为基础,借助引力模型测算18个县市旅游经济联系度,并利用社会网络分析法测算其网络中心度、网络密度等,分析海南省旅游经济联系空间差异。结果表明：海南省18个县市的旅游经济联系度在不断增加,存在较大空间差异和分层;总体来看,海南省大部分县市接近中心度下降,部分县市中间中心度上升;旅游经济联系网络明显由松散转为紧密。由此对海南岛旅游一体化发展提出建议：(1)整合资源配置,优化区域旅游网络结构;(2)完善交通网络,提升交通通达度水平;(3)充分发挥核心区辐射效应,加强区域间协作和带动作用。     

Sites,funds and spheres of exchange in a Clean Development Mechanism project

This article analyses the implementation and operation of a wind farm in ancestral indigenous lands in Colombia. A wind farm operates at different levels: creating energy, social programmes, jobs, carbon credits and revenues. However, such emerging objects are distributed unevenly. To understand the hierarchy in place in the carbon market, this article explains the disconnection between clean energy production sites and carbon funds in which credits are created. Given the fundamental need to understand the creation of objects of property that are, nevertheless, not fully interchangeable between the site and the fund, this article aims to draw renewed attention to the concept of spheres of exchange. The argument is built upon ethnographic fieldwork undertaken on-site in the Utility Company’s offices and the World Bank headquarters.