Longer copyright protection means fewer books are available, and they cost more – Walled Culture

"As we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the standard copyright term of life plus 70 years makes no sense: a promise that they’ll be paid after their death is unlike to stimulate extra creativity from artists. Conscious of how weak this argument is as a justification for extremely long copyright, supporters have come up with another argument. We need copyright to last well beyond the life of the creator, they say, to encourage investment from publishers and other companies to make older works available. Fortunately, this “under-exploitation theory of copyright” is not just a matter of opinion, but testable. Back in 2013 Paul J. Heald wrote an important paper that did just that, looking in detail at what actually happens: ..."