points from the WIPO report 2013

http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/freepublications/en/copyright/893/wipo_pub_893.pdf 
The report is free. The extracts below are to whet your interest. There 
is a considerable amount in it and some will be of value to all. Most 
particularly it gives the lie direct to the majority of "it should be 
free" and similar charges, and t o any belief that it is a secondary 
matter. It will give arguments related to the new US Copyright Act, now 
under preparation. And it will arm those round the world in dealing with 
governments. WIPO has constructed an invaluable analysis and factual 
resource.

Joseph Harris

"Once
perceived as an obscure legal concept, today copyright is increasingly 
relevant to the
everyday lives of an unprecedented number of people. In the global 
economy, copyright
protection creates the basis for entire industries such as those for 
music, publishing, film,
broadcasting and software, and affects as well many other business 
activities. Thus
copyright is a powerful source of economic growth, creating jobs and 
stimulating trade."

Annex 1 give an amazing list of industries under the copyright umbrella. 
As well as partial and non-dedicated ones.

"...showing how the
principle of copyright protection had contributed to establishing 
significant sectors of the
economy which were expanding more quickly than the rest of the economy...."

"...while there is significant amount of literature on the
economic effects of patents on economic growth, similar work has only 
relatively recently
started on copyright...."

***"Copyright is a property right"***
"Property rights are defined as “the
ability of individuals to own, buy, sell and use their property in a 
market economy.â€

"Copyright is different from means of delivery"

"73. First and foremost copyright law defines, recognizes and protects 
the copyright of
original works. It outlines the scope of the goods to be marketed and 
sets out the general
rules for their trade. In this way, copyright law becomes a prerequisite 
for market
transactions as it enables trade with the access to the underlying 
intellectual property.
Without copyright it would have been less profitable to trade in 
cultural creations since they
would not have acquired the characteristics of economic goods.40"

"76. Copyright law has also a number of important consequences of 
economic nature:
Copyright protection increases the ability of the copyright holder (the 
supplier) to maximize
his market position in at least two ways. Firstly, it allows him to set 
the market price at a
“monopoly†rather than at a competitive level (though we refer here to a 
different type of
monopoly),43 and secondly, it allows the supplier to price discriminate 
with regard to the
other participants in the market according to different levels of access."

"80. A number of conditions need to be met in order for copyright to 
perform its proper
functions. Among those particular attention should be paid to 
appropriate monitoring and
controlling misuse by consumers as well as the existence of appropriate 
valuation of
copyright, which has to balance the true cost of production and 
efficient protection."

"...creators
must be sufficiently compensated, or they will find another employment...."

"If the intellectual
property is not protected it will be easily reproduced and some other 
delivery media will
compete with the original on the market. This will undermine the profits 
and could imply
insufficient compensation for the creator. Under a system of legal 
protection the marginal
cost of reproduction will be increased and the market price will not 
fall so far as when
originals and copies compete and creators can thus enjoy compensation.45"

"3.4. Copyright in the Context of the National Economy
(a) Multiple effects on the economy"

"Effects are produced on the overall economy at all different stages – 
creation,
production, distribution and consumption. It should be noted that these 
effects vastly vary,
depending on the different categories of work, thus for example in 
respect of a book and a
song – different materials are used, different formats are applied, 
different devices are
needed to use the work, etc. Different works have different effect and 
in this Guide we
focus only on the effect which has a direct economic bearing. The legal 
protection granted
by copyright in a given country is crucial for specifying the categories 
of works to be
included in the study."

"(b) Economic organization and the role of the government"

"85. Cultural markets are highly diversified and that leads to 
substantial differences of the
various industries or copyright activity under review. The different 
industries have different
media for distribution, rely on different technologies, and require 
different materials and in
general different levels of investment. They often target different 
audiences and base their
activity on different rights or set of rights. As earlier pointed out, 
in real life one transaction
involves many rights. An important aspect of the cultural market is the 
financing available.
Clearly, the media industries, which reach a broader audience, demand 
bigger investments"

"Figure 1 Creative Industries55"

"107. The statistical distinctions have two aspects – how to classify 
these industries and
secondly, where to find data on them.
108. Statistical distinctions often tend to follow the functional 
distinctions. Governments’
statistics deliberately do not distinguish between production and 
distribution functions.
The general trend is that form follows function and government 
statisticians follow what is
proposed by the industrial organizations’ structure. At the corporate 
level, statistics are
mostly compiled without distinction between production and distribution. 
Consequently
the consolidated account statements reflect this and it leaves very 
difficult to distinguish
between the two functions in statistical terms. If this is the way 
statistics are being kept
and reported, there is no argument for reorganizing, disaggregating or 
separating them."

"(a) Press and literature
authors, writers, translators;60
newspapers;
news and feature agencies;
magazines/periodicals;
book publishing,
cards61 and maps;
directories and other published materials;
pre-press, printing, and post-press of books, magazines, newspapers,
advertising materials;
wholesale and retail of press and literature (book stores, news 
stands62); and
libraries.63"

"5.2. What to Measure?
145. The existing studies show a great deal of consistency among them in 
terms of what
need to be studied. They focus consistently on three main indicators:
(1) size of the copyright-based industries as a percentage of GDP;
(2) employment; and
(3) foreign trade (i.e., share of imports and exports)."


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