Copyright and incentive : a music industry with Chinese characteristics
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Copyright law is widely perceived as the means to promote social welfare by providing necessary incentive for intellectual creation. There however has been little consensus in copyright literature how artists actually respond to copyright incentives: What factors motivate artists to create works? How do artists perceive the usefulness of copyright protection? Would artists continue their artistic careers in a world without copyright law? This dissertation reports the empirical evidence on copyright and incentive based on the industrial statistics and extensive interviews in the music industry in China, a virtual copyright-free environment featuring one of the highest piracy rates in the world and having generated dramatic developments of the music businesses. The qualitative research indicates three seemingly paradoxical phenomena: While merely 17.9% of all the musicians in the sample referred to economic benefits as at least part of their motivations for music creation, 97.4% specifically recognized money as being important and helpful for music creation. While 56.4% of all the musicians alleged that copyright piracy does not affect their creative motivations, 72% agreed that copyright piracy does affect music creation. While 53.8% of all the musicians explicitly admitted that they had little awareness or knowledge about copyright, 92.3% indicated that the current level of copyright protection is insufficient and 71.8% suggested that copyright law should provide strong incentives for music creation. The empirical evidence itself provides compelling explanations for such paradoxes: Even though musicians primarily create music for the music's sake, copyright law could still supply powerful incentive for music production in a way that not only caters to market demand but allows for wider artistic freedom. Copyright piracy that does not necessarily affect musicians' intrinsic motivations could nevertheless affect music creation in terms of the time spent on music creation, the volume of investment in music creation and ultimately the quality of music creation. Most importantly, copyright incentives do not function as a reward that musicians consciously bargain for and chase after but as a mechanism that preserves market conditions for gifted musicians to prosper, including a decent standard of living, sufficient income to cover production costs, and maximum artistic autonomy during the creative process.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Liu, Jiarui |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, School of Law JSD |
| Primary advisor | Goldstein, Paul, 1943- |
| Thesis advisor | Goldstein, Paul, 1943- |
| Thesis advisor | Friedman, Lawrence M. (Lawrence Meir), 1930- |
| Thesis advisor | Lemley, Mark A, 1966- |
| Advisor | Friedman, Lawrence M. (Lawrence Meir), 1930- |
| Advisor | Lemley, Mark A, 1966- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Jiarui Liu. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the School of Law JSD. |
| Thesis | Thesis (JSD)--Stanford University, 2014. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/dy646mj8708 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2014 by Jiarui Liu
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