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Summer
Research Projects
Optimal Copyright Mechanisms for the Digital Age
By Jason Rhinelander
Copyright, nearly three centuries old, has over that time been expanded to cover an increasingly large range of creative works, for increasingly large periods of time. The essential basis of copyright's exclusive grant is a balance between the incentive to produce, and the gain to society of the increased amount of creative works available to be enjoyed. The industries relying upon copyright have faced enormous change in the past few decades: primarily that the cost of making perfect copies of a work of music, software, or motion picture (as many legal and illegal file sharers know) has plummeted.
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My research involves investigating the inefficiencies and problems posed by the current contours of copyright what is protected, and for how long and determining a better assignment of copyrights. In particular, I investigate whether a single system that is largely the same across the various industries that rely on copyright books, music, movies, software, public performance, etc., is the socially optimal choice, or whether different systems for different industries might provide a socially superior alternative.
The fundamental question to be addressed is whether a system originally developed for protecting the distribution of physical books can simultaneously be the best system for covering creative works as varied as music, television broadcasts, and computer software. Would another system whether under special provisions of copyright, or under some new legally backed construct be a better alternative for the different industries involved in creative output?
More Summer of 2009 Student Research
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