LAW & ECONOMICS WORKSHOP
presents
Joshua Gans
University of Toronto
Rotman School of Management
Remix Rights and Negotiations Over the
Use of Copy-protected Works
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
4:10 PM
Solarium - Falconer Hall
84 Queen's Park
This paper examines an environment where original content can be remixed by follow-on creators. The modelling innovation is to assume that original content creators and remixers can negotiate over the ‘amount’ of original content that is used by the follow-on creator in the shadow of various rights regimes. The following results are demonstrated. First, traditional copyright protection where the original content creators can block any use of their content provides more incentives for content creators and also more remixing than no copyright protection. This is because that regime incentivises original content creators to consider the value of remixing and permit it in negotiations. Second, fair use can improve on traditional copyright protection in some instances by mitigating potential hold-up of follow-on creators by original content providers. Finally, remix rights can significantly avoid the need for any negotiations over use by granting those rights to follow-on innovators in return for a set compensation regime. However, while these rights are sometimes optimal when the returns to remixing are relatively low, traditional copyright protection can afford more opportunities to engage in remixing when remixing returns are relatively high.
Joshua Gans holds the Jeffrey C. Skoll Chair in Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship and is a Professor, and Area Coordinator of Strategic Management at Rotman (with a cross-appointment in the Department of Economics). His research is primarily focused on understanding the economic drivers of innovation and scientific progress, and has core interests in digital strategy and antitrust policy. Joshua serves on the editorial board of Management Science, managing director of the Core Research consultancy and writes regularly for Forbes, HBR and Digitopoly.
For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.
