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Reconsidering Copyright: A Spatial Model of Differentiated Competition and Infringement

In practice, copyright is treated by economists and analysts as a tradeoff between monopoly and the incentive to create new works. This tradeoff is between stark opposites – power and innovation. Yet, in reality, copyrighted works face numerous close substitutes. In this paper, we formally model copyright using an approach better suited to the nature of copyrighted works – a model of differentiated-goods competition. We discuss the consequences of improperly viewing copyright as monopoly. While theoretically formal, the paper is intended to inform public policy with respect to copyright and is thus presented in a way accessible to the non-economist.