Copyright Protections Don't Encourage Creativity

[owlice]

The driving force behind copyright law has always been the assumption that increases in artistic protection encourage people to be creative.
brain

A new study, however, uncovers surprising news: When it comes to copyright law, one size does not fit all.

Published in the November 2009 issue of Vanderbilt Law Review, the study by Case Western Reserve University copyright expert Raymond Ku and Jiayang Sun, a Case Western Reserve professor of statistics, looks at how the number of creative works registered from 1870 to 2006 was affected by increases in copyright law, population, technology and the economy.

Ku says that increases of copyright protections didn't have a uniform or predictable relationship with the number of works registered-effectively pulling the rug out from under the theory that has driven the nation's ongoing expansion of copyright law.

http://www.case.edu/magazine/fallwinter ... right.html

http://www.vanderbiltlawreview.org/2009/11/

[geckzilla]

This is the first time I've heard of any claim that it encourages creativity, much less find out that it's not true. It is worth noting that though the title implies that copyright must therefore discourage creativity, the article doesn't seem to mention that either. Turns out many people are innately creative regardless of a big copyright symbol slapped next to their work or not, eh?