Title: Price discrimination, copyright law, and technological innovation
Description: "This paper examines the welfare effects of intellectual property protection, accounting for firms' optimal responses to legal environments and technological innovation.  I examine firms' use of indirect price discrimination in response to U.S. copyright law, which effectively prevents direct price discrimination.  Using data covering VHS and DVD movie distribution, I explain studios' optimal pricing strategies under U.S. copyright law, and determine optimal pricing strategies under E.U. copyright law, which allows for direct price discrimination.  I analyze these optimal pricing strategies for both the existing VHS technology and the new digital DVD technology.  I find that studios' use of indirect price discrimination under US copyright law benefits consumers and harms retailers.  Optimal pricing under E.U.  copyright law also tends to benefit studios and consumers.  I also reanalyze these issues assuming continued DVD adoption"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Subjects: Copyright, DVDs, Economic aspects of Copyright, Mathematical models, Prices, Video recordings
Places: Europe, United States