OPTIMAL COPYRIGHT LENGTH AND EX POST INVESTMENT: A MICKEY MOUSE APPROACH

This paper considers a theoretical model of copyright protection in which the value of an intellectual work changes over time because of depreciation and value‐enhancing ex post investments. The first main finding is that, in the case of a single project, granting infinitely lived copyright protection maximizes social welfare when the return on ex post investments is high relative to the return on the initial investment. We also provide simulation results of our model for the case of multiple heterogeneous projects that show how social welfare varies with the length of copyright protection and the returns on initial and ex post investments. We then consider what our framework says concerning the social‐welfare effects of the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act.…