July 08, 2011
Will the NYT ever include any economic analysis of the costs imposed on the economy by copyright enforcement? As a result of this form of protectionism, books, music, video material, computer software and other items that would otherwise be instantly available at zero cost, instead can cost consumers large amounts of money. This dwarfs the economics costs that result from most forms of trade protection, which rarely raises the price of items by more than 10-20 percent.
This article on efforts by Internet providers to crack down on unauthorized duplication of copyrighted material would have benefited from some economic analysis.
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