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What is Intellectual Property?
Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind – everything from works of art to inventions, computer programs to trademarks and other commercial signs. This booklet introduces the main types of IP and explains how the law protects them. It also introduces the work of WIPO, the global forum for IP services, policy, information and cooperation.
Publication year: 2020
Exclusive content and platform competition in Latin America
Economic Research Working Paper No. 63
Platforms often compete over non-price strategies such as the exclusive distribution of products. But these strategies are not always welfare-enhancing. Using rich data on audiovisuals distributed on platforms in Brazil, we find that non-exclusive distribution and availability of titles across platforms is more effective in deterring online piracy than in the single homing case. Moreover, in certain markets (TVOD), it induces higher average investment in the production of new titles upstream. We discuss options of copyright and antitrust policies in the light of these findings.
Grand rights and opera reuse today
Economic Research Working Paper No. 62
This article studies the economic role of grand rights in the incentives to stage and reuse works from the opera canon. It complements previous research on the incentives to create new opera (Giorcelli and Moser, 2020) in the way it looks at copyright taxing availability and follow-on creativity around works. Based on a unique dataset of global opera performances, we find that changes in copyright status increase the number of total performances individual works receive on stage once copyright expires. Moreover, we provide preliminary evidence on chilling, long-term effects of status around premiering operas and revivals at the beginning of the copyright term. Based on these findings, we discuss limitations of the study and novel options for copyright policy frameworks.
Batman forever? The economics of overlapping rights
Economic Research Working Paper No. 61
When copyrighted comic characters are also protected under trademark laws, intellectual property (IP) rights can be overlapping. Arguably, registering a trademark can increase transaction costs for cross-media uses of characters, or it can help advertise across multiple sales channels. In an application to book, movie and video game publishing industries, we thus ask how creative reuse (innovation in uses) is affected in situations of overlapping rights, and whether ‘fuzzy boundaries' of right frameworks are in fact enhancing or decreasing content sales.
IP Training Institutions Brochure
Learn more about the WIPO Academy's support to Member States in establishing self-sustaining IPTIs