By , June 22, 2018.

Patent Injunctions, Economics, and Rights — Much of what Eric Claeys and Adam Mossoff say in this paper about patents applies just as well to copyright. The essay lays out “why a Lockean theory of rights supplies a more satisfying foundation for property rights and markets than consequentialist and law and economic foundations.”

The Motivations to Create — “Economists have long debated the degree to which inventive and artistic activities were either the result of instinctual urges on the part of creators, or the responses of creators to potential pecuniary rewards. Copyright and patent laws are based on a view that rewards are an important factor. In this paper we attempt to provide an empirical analysis of this question by using a recent data set covering the book production industry. We find evidence that authors publish more new books when they earned higher payments for previously written books, although at high enough levels of payment their production of new works begins to decline, consistent with a backward bending supply function.”

EU Parliament committee votes for tougher EU copyright rules to rein in tech giants — “The copyright rules, proposed by the European Commission two years ago, are designed to take account of the growing role of online platforms, forcing them to share revenues with publishers and bear liability for copyright infringement on the internet. The vote by the Legal Affairs Committee is likely to be the Parliament’s official stance as it heads into negotiations with EU countries on a common position, unless dissenting lawmakers force a vote at the general assembly next month.”

The internet apologizes… — “If you’re YouTube, you want people to register as many accounts as possible, uploading as many videos as possible, driving as many views to those videos as possible, so you can generate lots of activity that you can sell to advertisers. So whether or not the users are real human beings or Russian bots, whether or not the videos are real or conspiracy theories or disturbing content aimed at kids, you don’t really care. You’re just trying to drive engagement to the stuff and maximize all that activity. So everything stems from this engagement-based business model that incentivizes the most mindless things that harm the fabric of society.”