Research report 2006 - Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law
Copyright and the system of competitive markets
Authors
Drexl, Josef
Departments
Geistiges Eigentum und Wettbewerbsrecht (Prof. Dr. Dres. h.c. Joseph Straus)
MPI für Geistiges Eigentum, Wettbewerbs- und Steuerrecht, München
Summary
To achieve its goals of promoting creativity copyright law has to rely on market inventives. Therefore, copyright law is intrinsically intertwined with competition policy. Economic and legal writing so far has discussed the relationship of copyright and competition only in the light of the patent paradigm by referring to a dynamic concept of competition meant to promote innovation, or it only applied a static concept of competition based on a purely output and price-oriented analysis. Recent discussions on the Recommendation of the European Commission on the management of online-rights in musical works caused the Institute to work on a creativity-enhancing competition policy which might also be applied to other current problems in the field of copyright.