recent reading: copyright and law & economics

Anne Barron, Copyright Infringement, ‘Free-Riding’ and the Lifeworld, LSE Law, Society and Economy Working Papers 17/2008

A vigorous assault on the law-and-economics copyright restrictionist project of (my respected colleagues and, I hope, friends) Mark Lemley and Brett Frischmann. Argues that economics simply can’t explain either authorial production or reader/consumer benefit, partly because it lacks a theory of preferences but mostly because it lacks a theory of social value not translatable to money, and copyright’s limits require such a theory. I am highly sympathetic, but I think it’s worth reading if you’re likely to disagree, just to see the argument well made.