Der Richtlinienentwurf der EU-Kommission zur europaweiten Einführung eines Folgerechts auf Kunstwerke ist dazu gedacht, die öknomische Lage junger Künstler zu verbessern. Eine einfache preistheoretische Überlegung zeigt jedoch, daß dieses Ziel verfehlt werden dürfte. Außerdem analysiert...

According to a new European Union directive, artists, whose works are resold, are entitled to a share of the sales price. The principal aim of this initiative is to let the artists participate in the economic success of their work. Our analysis shows that the new directive is most likely to...

Der Beitrag zeigt die ökonomischen Wirkungen einer neuen EU-Richtlinie zur Einführung eines europaweiten Folgerechts auf. Das Lebenseinkommen junger, unbekannter Künstler dürfte eher sinken als steigen. Doch selbst wenn es steigen würde, wäre noch nicht sichergestellt, daß dies den NUtzen...

Patents have long been regarded as the 'gold standard' of intellectual property protection. In 'Little patents and big secrets: managing intellectual property', Anton and Yao (2004) call this traditional view into question by finding that firms keep their most important innovations secret. This...

Traditionally patents are seen as the gold standard for intellectual property protection. But, in line with empirical findings that secrecy is considered more important for appropriating returns, recent theories predict that firms keep their most important inventions secret. This article...

The database directive, initiated by the European Commission in 1992 and due to be finalised in the near future, establishes a two-tiered system of protection, amending copyright with a sui generis rule that grants protection against unfair extraction. The terms of protection are extended if the...

Policymakers all over the world claim: no innovation without protection. For more than a century, critics have objected that the case for intellectual property is far from clear. This paper uses a game theoretic model to organise the debate. It is possible to model innovation as a prisoner's...

Software is a good with very special economic characteristics. Taking a general definition of software as its starting-point, this article systematically elaborates the central qualities of the commodity which have implications for its production and cost structure, the demand, the...

The effects of (private, small-scale) piracy on the pricing behavior of producers of information goods are studied within a unified model of vertical differentiation. Although information goods are assumed to be perfectly horizontally differentiated, demands are interdependent because the...