Australia

(Monash University) and (Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia)/ /Leave a comment

In Anglosphere nations, the rights of creators are governed almost entirely by their contracts with investors. The US and Canada have the only (small) exceptions: US law entitles creators to terminate (most) agreements after 35 years; in Canada, rights revert automatically to heirs 25 years after the author’s death. Outside those cases, and throughout the…

Australia, Canada, New Zealand, USA

(Monash University), (Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia), and (Monash University)/ /2 Comments

Copyright’s underuse hypothesis is simple: that, unless publishers are assured of exclusive rights in older works, they won’t continue to invest in making them available. This of course contradicts a core tenet of classical economic theory, that investors will continue to produce copies of books (or anything else) so long as they can expect to…