Copyright Protection and Cumulative Creation: Evidence from Early Twentieth-Century Music
Title
Copyright Protection and Cumulative Creation: Evidence from Early Twentieth-Century Music
Subject
Copyright
Description
This article uses information from an online database of music sampling to estimate the effect of copyright protection on the cumulative use of music. Using unique panel data that link upstream and downstream music, the author uses regression analysis to examine the rates at which early 20th-century musical works were used throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. The results suggest that copyright protection causes an upstream work to be used less than half as often as it would be if it were in the public domain after conditioning on upstream-song and downstream-year fixed effects. Placebo regressions in which the copyright expiration date is artificially shifted forward and backward in time by 2, 5, and 10 years suggest an immediate effect of copyright expiration on downstream use.
Creator
Stephanie Holmes Didwania
Publisher
The University of Chicago Press Journals
Date
June 2018
Contributor
Antonella Federici
Type
Journal
Bibliographic Citation
Stephanie Holmes Didwania, "Copyright Protection and Cumulative Creation: Evidence from
Early Twentieth-Century Music," The Journal of Legal Studies 47, no. 2 (June 2018): 235-268. https://doi.org/10.1086/698923
Early Twentieth-Century Music," The Journal of Legal Studies 47, no. 2 (June 2018): 235-268. https://doi.org/10.1086/698923
Files
Collection
Citation
Stephanie Holmes Didwania, “Copyright Protection and Cumulative Creation: Evidence from Early Twentieth-Century Music,” Digital Archiving Resources, accessed January 8, 2025, https://dar.cah.ucf.edu/items/show/403.