Book notices

Published by Edward Elgar Publishing, Recent Trends In The Economics Of Copyright is a compendium of scholarly materials edited by Ruth Towse (Professor of the Economics of Creative Industries, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands and Bournemouth University, UK) and Richard Watt (Associate Professor, University of Canterbury, New Zealand).

What the publisher's blurb says:

"It is widely recognised that many copyright issues are also economic issues. As a result the level of interest in the economics of copyright continues to grow. This carefully edited book presents a selection of the most important recent contributions to a wide range of economic topics on copyright. These include the copyright term, infringement issues, administration of copyright, incentives to artists and open source. There is relevance here for a wide readership, from teachers and students of economics, law, cultural and media studies to practitioners and policymakers".

What the IPKat says: this is a refreshingly up-to-date collection of materials, focusing on the economics of even such recent phenomena as open source, as well as on some of the more well-trodden paths such as copyright term and infringement. The readership is economists who want to know how their discipline deals with the weak but pervasive copyright monopoly -- which in many cases operates more as a trip-wire for the unwary and the unlucky rather than as a proper barrier to market entry. However, much of the narrative portion (i.e. the non-algebraic bits) are perfectly intelligible to the sentient copyright lawyer too. One thing occurs to the Kat at this point: IP lawyers are acutely conscious of the jurisdictional differences that are reflected by copyright law, enforcement and licensing at national level, but this doesn't seem to be something that overly concerns economists. Is this just a misconception on his part or is this so (naturally, with good reason?).

Bibliographic data: xii + 312 pp. Hardback 978 1 84720 045 7 £ 95.00 online discount £85.50. Rupture factor: medium. Webpage here.


Last December IPKat team member Jeremy left his warm place by the fireside and braved the bracing Arctic climate of Stockholm. where he attended an equally bracing one-day seminar on International Copyright and Intellectual Property Law: Contemporary Challenges for Media Companies. Now the book of the seminar has been published, carefully edited by Englishman-in-exile Edward Humphreys (Jönköping International Business School).


The book, International Copyright and Intellectual Property Law: Contemporary Challenges for Media Content Producers consists of the nine papers given at the seminar. Jeremy's paper was on the unfair competition aspects of the topic, but there were some interesting papers too: he particularly enjoyed Edward Humphreys' own offering on "International copyright and the TV format industry". Also recommended are "The changing media landscape: an industry perspective" by the BBC's Martyn Freeman, on irreversible change and the prospect that things will only grow more complex, and Monique Wadsted's critique of the Pirate Bay phenomenon in "Protection and enforcement of international copyright in Sweden: the perspective of international copyright owners".

Bibliographic data: 130 pages. Paperback. Price SEK 250 (inclusive of 6 % VAT and postage) or 25 euro. JIBS Report Series No 2008-2. ISSNs 1403-0462 and 91-89164-88-1. Rupture factor: small. Web page here.