• SEARCH ON THE NET:

Speaking of my search on the net, the results are not satisfying. It is obvious that the materials on the net are more various than those in the databases. Amid them, there are not only academic papers, but also news, critiques, and all other kind of documents. However, although I don't consider them to be useless, they are usually general discriptions upon the issue I want to talk. In other words, they can serve as backgrounds at most. Of course, some valuable research works are also on the net, to me, it seems more convenient to search them in the databases.

 

Notwithstanding, I am going to cite some materials retrieved from the net, since they are unique and novel. One of them is the statistical report on the chinese computer users. Actually, this report is so new that barely any databases might include it. Besides, since I just want to cite some statistical results in that report, searching on the net is much faster for me to get to the exact part.

• SEARCH IN THE DATABASES:

To search in the databases, I think there are three steps to go:

• clear the aim:

With a clear aim, one might get bogged in the Sargasso Sea of information, while ending up with nothing. Here are two ways to vary your search objects so as to meet your aim - say a confined number of search research (e.g. 10 articles in your result as a ceiling), which are fit of course.

• seperate the topic:

Take my topic for example. It can be seperated into two parts: a) a general discription of the issue, such as the history of copyright laws, the general controversy, and the underlying principles of copyright; b) economic models.

To different parts, we can search in different areas. Of course, the general discription of copyright will lie in the law realm, while the economic models is economics-oriented. Without seperating the topic, we might have to choose those works contain both law and economic analysis. Of course, these kind of works are fewer. However, breaking down the topic helps to widen our horizons.

• broaden or narrow:

Sometimes, we have to broaden our topics, when we are searching a more general principles, for instance. Just as it is in my topic, I have to search principles of copyright laws rather than digital music copyright laws, although the latter one is my real subject.

And sometimes, we have narrow down our topics, when we are finding exact objects in a certain field. When I added "music" to my search keywords, I even got an exact paper talking about music market while some economic models were also used.

• classify the keywords:

There are two kinds of keyword: nuclear and general.

The nuclear keywords are those unique words leading the paper, and cannot be substituted by other words. Like "protect* copyright" in my paper. The general keywords is derived from the unique words, and they can be substituted. For example, "non-economic power" in my research is equivalent to "government".

While seaching, we have to be very careful on our keywords. The nuclear ones are sure to appear in each search, but the general ones can be shifted discretionally.

• evaluate the results efficiently:

To evaluate the results efficiently, there are four steps to follow:

• very roughly: according to the number of your results. If there are a great number of results in your topic, your search achievements can be further refined - we have to find closely rather than generally pertinent works, or else we might just pick some of them randomly for further reading, while leaving those really worth our time unread.
• targeted: first to read the introduction. To make sure you know what the work is telling you, then, whether it is valuable.
• further:conclusion. The results of the paper may still be ambiguous after you just read the introduction. Jump to the conclusions to see whether its conclusion is satisfactying.
• further and further: certain part.

T_T 写的比较早，结果写成英文的了……

既然这样的话，我也就不多赘述了。其实从上节课上的交流来看，大家都有很多很好的搜索方式。比如综合利用网络和数据库搜索，又比如在数据库中灵活使用结果的排序以获得最想要的结果。

其实，我的搜索方式比较程序化，就是依照三步走：明确搜索目标-->界定关键词-->对结果的有效评价。具体在每一步里的一些方法已经用英语写在上面了。另外，我觉得在数据库中搜索时，好好阅读help项的内容还是蛮有帮助的。毕竟每个数据库都不尽相同。比如w/n这个符号在有些数据库里就要变成" "~n的样子。

我想，尽管现在我对从数据库中得到的结果已经非常满意了，我还是会多练习一下网络上的搜索的。网络搜索每天都在用，如果能掌握更有效的搜索方法，以后一定事半功倍。

DETAILED OUTLINE:

Ø         TOPIC

My topic is the non-economic power’s impact on the overall welfare in the digital music market.

Ø         THESIS STATEMENT

Since the positive externality does exist in the digital music market, the intervention of non-economic power is required; however, this access should be limited to establishing certain institutions, because as long as the institutions are stabilized and properties are clarified, the market itself can reach the optimal output to meet maximal overall welfare.

Ø         KEYWORDS

digital music market ; internet; copyright protection; non-economic power; welfare

Ø         SIGNIFICANCE DESCRIPTION

My research will give some inspirations to settle the age-old controversy over copyright and related laws, and then, to promote some really efficacious ways to improve social welfare in digital music market.

Ø         OUTLINE

l         Introduction:

n         Generally describe the copyright issue, especially to emphasize the new characteristics in the digital music market seeing the advent of computer science.

n         Introduce the essential problems this paper is aiming at, i.e. whether or not the non-economic power should be required into the market and if should, how far this non-economic entity should go.

n         Introduce the methods this paper is going to use, i.e. history review plus economic modeling. Also, the conclusions being reached, i.e. since the positive externality does exist in the digital music market, the intervention of non-economic power is required; however, this access should be limited to establishing certain institutions, because as long as the institutions are stabilized and properties are clarified, the market itself can reach the optimal output to meet maximal overall welfare.

n         Introduce the structure of the paper.

l         Overview of copyright:

n         To describe the traditional concepts of intellectual property and copyright. The definition and internal indications of the term “copyright” will be expounded.

n         To review the history of copyright. Through this retrospect, the path of self-perfection in the realm of copyright laws will be revealed. Thus, we can figure out different focuses of such laws in different time periods.

n         To reveal underlying principles of copyright laws. A transformation of the crucial principles will be shown. To state the current principle of copyright laws is to protect the overall welfare, rather than the profit of producers only.

n         To illustrate the dilemma facing the copyright regulation. Based upon the principles revealed above, although some achievements have already been accomplished to the copyright laws, yet several shortcomings are also obvious. It also originates people’s debate over where should copyright laws go, i.e. to require more non-economic access since the current laws are immature, or to refine current copyright laws since current laws are doing “too much things”.

l         Analyze the non-economic power’s access and the market failure:

n         To restate the aims of such analysis, i.e. to target following questions: whether or not the non-economic power should be required into the market and if should, how far this non-economic entity should go. These questions are which the following analysis targets on.

n         Economic analysis. Use classical economic models to illustrate the existence of market failure in the digital music market. And also to show that the non-economic power can rectify such a failure to some extent. On the other hand, to discuss the cost one has to pay for requiring such a power, i.e. a deadweight loss of monopoly incurred by the non-economic power might reduce social welfare.

l         Use economic modeling to propose some rectification of copyright regulation in digital music market:

n         Modeling in current situation:

u       Given the scenario that the government’s access clarifies the property of music as follows: every one who devoted to or in other words “paid for” the music has the right to dispose it, i.e. the piracy in the physical music market is ruled out, while free download through net is available, we will show the overall welfare is stable once given the social demand.

u       Given a long time period, although the overall welfare is stable, the price is still very important. Under an unreasonable price, creators will quit in the long-run, thus the society will have no new music at all.

u       The producers should better resort to public broadcasting systems to increase social demand, then to realize a greater social welfare.

n         Modeling with strict regulations on the net:

u       The definition of strict regulations on the net is: although the consumers can buy the music, they can not transmit or modify it. Thus, the creators would gain the monopolistic position in both the physical and visual market.

u       A much greater social welfare can be achieved if discriminative pricing is adopted. First to show the effect of theoretically existing “perfect discriminative pricing”. Then to show a more practical one called “the third scale discriminative pricing”.

l         Conclusion.

n         To restate the questions aimed and conclusions reached. The illustrative structure will also be reviewed.

n         To reveal that the distinction between two different models are resulted from different institutions. And thus to conclude the most important thing that the governments should do is to establish certain institutions.

n         To state the shortcomings in this paper, as well to figure out further space.

***** physical book:

Davies, G. (1994): Studies in industrial property and copyright law: volume 14. Munich: Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law.

 

This book focuses on the property and copyright law in four western countries: the US, Britain, France and Germany. The history of copyright law in each of these countries is stated, simultaneously, the underlying principles guiding these legislations are also revealed. These principles are summarised in the book as follows: (i) natural law, (ii) just reward for labour, (iii) stimulus to creativity and (iv) social requirements [the social members will benefit from creators’ works]. The history of copyright law will serve as a general background of my paper. And these four principles are actually the perspectives from which the controversy originated.

***** digital material:

Harvard Law Review (1999): The criminalization of copyright infringement in the digital era.

 

This review provides us with a integrated overlook over the evolution of copyright law. Although the perspetive of this material lies more on the criminalization part, the developing trace of copyright law is clearly revealed. This history not only serves as a background, but also indicates the true meaning of copyright and related laws.

****  digital material:

Larsen, I (2003): Public access to information: reaching the right balance between public and private.

 

The thesis shows that a view of information as personal property is not actually benefiting society in general and is dangerous for future progress: economic, scientific and social. The thesis suggests balancing the restrictions on access to information as a whole, meaning viewing the restrictions in copyright, database protection and privacy laws to see how they together affect access to information. This argument is actually similar to my general propostion to the digital music market.

****  digital material:

Lewis, G. J., Graham, G., & Hardaker, G. (2005): Evaluating the impact of the internet on barriers to entry in the music industry.

 

This paper suggests that main barrier to entry in the music sector has been the ownership and protection of artistic content in the supply chain. This revelation is fit for my proposal of the real origin of current controversy over copyright.

***    digital material:

Kim, J.W. (2004): Three essays on the distribution of information goods.

 

This dissertation is gonna be used as methodology reference. For one thing, the basic assumption is corresponding to my initial will, i.e. MR is low for transmitting online. For another, it proves that my propostition to adopt discriminative pricing is pratical, since the conclusion of his dissertation is that the unbundling of digital works and physical works is favorable, which in turn indicates a discriminative pricing is also favorable.

This book focuses on the property and copyright law in four western countries: the US, Britain, France and Germany. The history of copyright law in each of these countries is stated, simultaneously, the underlying principles guiding these legislations are also revealed. These principles are summarised in the book as follows: (i) natural law, (ii) just reward for labour, (iii) stimulus to creativity and (iv) social requirements [the social members will benefit from creators’ works].

• Purpose for use:

The use of this book is much like the use of that paper from Harvard Law Review. However, the principles and motivations underlying the copyright laws (and it legislation) is more completely described in this book. Besides, the purpose of writing this book is also to voice that more focus should be placed upon protecting public welfare by offering more general public access to the novel information.

Part of my draft:

After reading some references, some of which are listed above, I accomplished part of my draft this week. I paste it here for comments.

1. Introduction

Copyright protection has received general respect ever since technology began to play a vital role in the progress of human society. However, seeing the advent of the computer science and digital technology, the impact of various newborn methods for transmitting information upon the populace’s welfare has become a controversy for ages. Some argue that these new technologies are inclined to infringe creators’ proper pecuniary and metal rights; while some emphasize more on the gist for the creations to benefit a wider range of people these technologies will bring about. Thus, traditional concept of copyright protection is called into question. Davies (1994) describes this disputation in more details:

The proposition that copyright is in the public interest has been taken for granted in the past but, in recent years, it has been questioned within the context of the challenges to the copyright system posed by technical developments. In this debate, the underlying philosophy of copyright and its basic functions have been called into question and the public interest has been invoked, not in favour of better protection for copyright owners, but in favour of free and unfettered access by the public to copyright works. (Preface)

It is true that, for the inventions have a positive externality, the creators are due to obtain extra rewards as an incentive for further achievements, through such ways as occupying monopolistic positions. While simultaneously, the real essence of the creations to benefit the most and satisfy the needed seems distorted. Of course, a new balance should be met under this new situation within the Cyberspace.

The digital music market, which is composed of a physical market within which the music compact discs are being merchandised and an on-line market within which thousands of MP3 conveying the same music can be downloaded freely, manifests itself being swamped in the dilemma mentioned above, i.e. whether or not the non-economic power should be required into the market and if should, how far this non-economic entity should go.

To answer these questions, this paper reviews the history of copyright laws to explore the underlying principles of copyright protection. Simultaneously various perspectives pertinent to this controversy is synthesized and compared. Via economic analysis and modeling, this paper suggests that although the non-economic power should intervene into digital music market since the market failure does exist, considering the positive externality of such intellectual works left uncompensated otherwise, the impact of the non-economic power must be limited. Or else, the protection will be targeted to only a few, leaving the majority being worse off. And this outcome is generally against the rule says “the good of the people is the chief law” (Davies, 1994, pp.1). Besides, this paper also analyses three ways a greater societal welfare might be achieved through economic models under two conditions, where the non-economic power exerts differently. One of them is that the government recognizes the creators’ property of their works and inhibits any piracy in the physical music market. In this case, a larger overall welfare can be achieved if the information asymmetry is curbed and a profitably maximal price is chosen. The other is that the government also bans free transmission of music on the internet. If this is the case, the music firms can implement the third scale discriminative pricing. The welfare will turn out to be increased, while the equity might be sacrificed.

The remainder of the paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 provides an overview of the history of copyright laws, the transformation of the concept of copyright and presents the basic principles of such laws along with their application in this digital age. Section 3 calls for economic theories to show that the market failure does exist in the digital music market, and further to draw analysis upon the market with non-economic power’s intervention. Section 4 describes several ways through which a greater welfare can be achieved under different conditions. Section 5 concludes the paper.

2. Overview of copyright

2.1 The traditional concepts of intellectual property and copyright

Very broadly, intellectual property means the legal rights which results from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary and artistic fields (World Intellectual Property Organization [WIPO], 1997, pp.3). Originally, the concept of intellectual property was established as an incentive to the providers for further creations. It is widely known that unlike traditional commodities, the use by other persons of intellectual works can not be controlled by the creators simply through the so called possession of their works, once being disseminated among people. Thus, intellectual property is called into its position to guarantee that the creators can attain the proper remuneration to offset the costs and further to be encouraged forging ahead later on, just like other producers.

Intellectual property is traditionally divided into two branches, “industrial property” and “copyright” (WIPO, 1997, pp.3). “Industrial property”, within which patents are generally adopted as a protective means, is aiming at intellectual inventions. “Copyright”, on the other hand, provides the creators of other kinds of works both “the protection of copyright in the strict sense of the word and the protection of what is usually referred to as ‘neighboring rights’” (WIPO, 1997, pp.3).

A more detailed definition of the word “copyright” is stated below:

A copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted by government for a limited time to protect the particular form, way or manner in which an idea or information is expressed. Copyright may subsist in a wide range of creative or artistic forms or “works”, including literary works, movies, musical works, sound recordings, paintings, photographs, software, and industrial designs. Copyright is a type of intellectual property.[1]

Since copyright stands for a bundle of non-economic rights for the granted owners to produce exclusively for a limited time, which cover a broad scale of human intellectual fruits, it is not “rights in Personam”, but “rights in Rem” (Chen, 2002, abstract). Thus traditionally, there are two basic approaches to protect different copyright owners. One is called “droits d’auteur” (author’s right), based on the protection of the individual author, while other entities related to the author will gain “droits voisins” (neighboring rights); the other is called “copyright” directly, which does not make that distinction (Davies, 1994, pp.1).

2.2 History of copyright laws

Copyrights were firstly used to protect the creative works transmitted through traditional media, such as letters, telegrams, photos, sound tapes or even videos. According to the common-law tradition, copyrights, since being regarded as a special type of social contract, should be defined as a combination of certain economic rights in the first place. The government franchised the creators in the economic field with market powers in order to encourage more creationary works, at the price of sacrificing consumers’ welfares. Creators got rights to gain all their proper rewards and revenues. However, countries of the civil-law tradition considered copyrights to be much more like a sort of spiritual rights. In their views, copyrights covered from the rights to publish or amend, to the right to sign the works (Li, 2003, pp.282-283). But today, these two traditions are making common agreements on the definition and cognition about copyrights. Copyrights are both the economic and spiritual rights nowadays.

The legal methods by which the protective function of copyrights is realized has experienced quite a long period of transformation, from Statute of Anne enacted by the British government in 1709, which is the first statute recognizing the authors’ rights; to the amended U.S. Copyright Act, 1976, which widely broadened the range that regulated such affairs. We can obviously find out the path of self-perfection of copyright laws. Through these many years, people do not only become clearer at the recognition of what copyright is, but also developed the methods which regulate the operation in the copyright fields much near the earth.

2.3 General principles underlying copyright laws

People may take for granted that copyright laws, via their names, are addressing the protection of copyright owners, i.e. usually the creators. However, as stated above, these laws have been playing a much vital role to balance the benefit of both the elitist minority and the ordinary majority. Therefore, the principles of legislating copyright laws are more complicated than we might otherwise consider.

Actually, in the Preamble of Statute of Anne (1709), three main motivations for the legislation are listed. And Davies (1994) epitomizes them as follows:

First, to prevent for the future the printing and publication of “books and other writings, without the consent of the authors or proprietors of such books and writings”, that is, to outlaw the pirate trade in books. Second by preventing piracy to remedy a practice seen as being to the “very great detriment” of authors, leading “too often to the ruin of them and their families.” Third, “for the encouragement of learned men to compose and write useful books.” (pp. 2)

Hence, very originally, the copyright laws did sponsor more to the creators’ rights, under the recognition that the situation of this “minority” was somewhat miserable then. However, these reasons seem lack of a persuasive power due to the subjectivity even human emotions in them. The later laws within this field hold a more integrated self-analysis, and after all, four general principles are summarized as (i) natural law, (ii) just reward for labour, (iii) stimulus to creativity and (iv) social requirements [the social members will benefit from creators’ works]. (Davies, 1994, pp. 10-13)

Through this transmission we can figure out that, although literally all these copyright laws are targeting the protection of copyright owners’ rights, the perspectives of regulation have been altered. Today, the laws are emphasizing more on the societal impact of intellectual works, while the creators are regarded equally with the others. In this way, the chief principle of copyrights regulation, i.e. to balance private and public welfare, is more evidenced.

2.4 Dilemma facing the copyright regulation

In despite of the strong pertinence to the problem, there were still many difficulties which could be easily found in concrete clauses of these copyright laws in the regulation. Since 1909, the amended U.S. Copyright Act had already involved abettors and associates into chastisement for copyright infringement (Harvard Law Review, 1999, pp. 3). Not alike punishing the accomplices in criminal cases for they facilitate the whole process, abettors and associates are involved in copyright entanglements just because the principles are usually hard to catch. First, people do not only infringe copyrights in the hope of getting extra profits, which was just defined as a precondition in traditional copyright laws. Lots of hackers attack on-line sites just for pleasure or to abreact their anger against society, for instance. Second, people now can dictate the infringement remotely. It isn’t easy to detect, testify and then ask for substantial compensation. Last but not least, these law-breaking infringements actually spread the new works among much a broader mass on the other hand, even at much lower costs than the creators themselves. Now that this is absolutely good news to consumers, the government who acts as the controller of the society maximizing the total welfare, has to ponder on the balance between consumers and producers.

Of course, these problems have emerged far before recent days. However, the booming internet technologies are making things just even harder to handle. Today, the information is being transmitted at such a rapid speech that so beyond the fastest but necessary legislative and judicial processes. It is alleged that there were more than 194,000,000 on-line citizens in the U.S.A. in 2005, accounting for 68% of the total population. In China, this number is 111,000,000 up to December 31, 2005[2] (Statistical Report of the Development of China Internet, 2005).