Is Copyright Necessary?

According toTerrence Maxwell's model (above), any adjustment to the level and degree of copyright protection must be considered in relation to decisions about trade, education, literacy and technology, to achieve and maintain an effective balance between promotion of new knowledge and a healthy public domain. The presence or absence of copyright protection is most critical to the number of authors in a society, but has little effect on publisher expansion and profits, or on consumer prices. In fact, during early stages of development, capital requirements are far more critical to the overall health of a publishing community than copyright or other policy options. Copyright should therefore be viewed in relation to other potential policy options and to the goals we wish to achieve in supporting intellectual production and distribution both nationally and internationally. Current efforts to strengthen copy control over information products in order to keep prices at a level similar to pre–digital periods is not necessarily the best policy direction.