Law Commons^™

Why Typefaces Proliferate Without Copyright Protection, Blake Fry

Blake Fry

Classic economic theory predicts that without copyright protection authors and publishers would not have sufficient incentive to invest the time or money needed to produce or distribute new works, and the public would suffer a shortage. Copyrights are an attempt to solve this problem. By granting a monopoly to the author of an expressive work the government gives him the sole right to copy it. If only the author has this right, authors will get a reasonable rate of return, and thus a sufficient incentive to create new works. However, empirical evidence on whether adequate expressive works would be created …