A Positive Externalities Approach to Copyright Law: Theory and Application

This Article has two goals. The first is to explain in some detail what copyright law might look like if it reflected economic reasoning. The second is to put to the test the question of whether copyright law is as far out of sync with economic guidelines as cases ranging from White-Smith Music to Eldred suggest. Although this introduction has stressed the economic irrationality of copyright law, could it actually be that within copyright decisions there is an implicit economic sensibility?