The rights afforded to copyright holders are aligned...

The rights afforded to copyright holders are aligned with “laissez-faire capitalism” and shouldn’t confer the sense of a “monopoly” on content creators, said George Ford, Phoenix Center chief economist, in a paper Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1qwlwZI). It responded to claims by some conservative copyright scholars who believe current copyright regulations are antithetical to free market capitalism, said a Phoenix Center news release (http://bit.ly/1pOqNMR). Some conservatives are divided over whether copyright is a traditional property right or a government privilege (CD May 14 p11). “A landowner has a ‘monopoly’ right over his or her land, but this ‘monopoly’ right conveys no real market power,” wrote Ford. “The term ‘monopoly’ in the context of copyright is merely referring to an exclusive property right over an item with possibly thousands of close substitutes,” he said. “Its use does not imply the presence of market power."