Real Copyright Reform

55 Pages Posted: 18 Sep 2009 Last revised: 30 Oct 2010

See all articles by Jessica Litman

Jessica Litman

University of Michigan Law School

Date Written: January 14, 2010

Abstract

A copyright system is designed to produce an ecology that nurtures the creation, dissemination and enjoyment of works of authorship. When it works well, it encourages creators to generate new works, assists intermediaries in disseminating them widely, and supports readers, listeners and viewers in enjoying them. If the system poses difficult entry barriers to creators, imposes demanding impediments on intermediaries, or inflicts burdensome conditions and hurdles on readers, then the system fails to achieve at least some of its purposes. The current U.S. copyright statute is flawed in all three respects. In this article, I explore how the current copyright system is failing its intended beneficiaries. The foundation of copyright law’s legitimacy, I argue, derives from its evident benefits for creators and for readers. That foundation is badly cracked, in large part because of the perception that modern copyright law is not especially kind to either creators or to readers; instead, it concentrates power in the hands of the intermediaries who control the conduits between creators and their audience. Those intermediaries have recently used their influence and their copyright rights to obstruct one another’s exploitation of copyrighted works. I argue that the concentration of copyright rights in the hands of intermediaries made more economic sense in earlier eras than it does today. The key to real copyright reform, I suggest, is to reallocate copyright’s benefits to give more rights to creators, greater liberty to readers, and less control to copyright intermediaries.

Keywords: Copyright

Suggested Citation

Litman, Jessica, Real Copyright Reform (January 14, 2010). Iowa Law Review, Vol. 96, No. 1, 2010, U of Michigan Law & Economics, Olin Working Paper No. 09-018, U of Michigan Public Law Working Paper No. 168, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1474929

Jessica Litman (Contact Author)

University of Michigan Law School ( email )

625 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1215
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.umich.edu/~jdlitman

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