Have We Misunderstood Copyright?

ABSTRACT This paper uses a quasi‐experimental design, a unique dataset of physical books, and a sample of vintage former bestsellers to examine copyright's impact on price, sales, and availability in the book market. We find that copyright increases sales, raises price, especially for top‐selling titles, and increases the number of old titles being sold in the market. These findings challenge the traditional access/incentive tradeoff and the view that society benefits when titles enter the public domain. Policy implications include reconsideration of uniform copyright terms and exploration of renewal‐based systems that allow rights holders to self‐select into extended protection.