The Value of Copyright

My topic is the valuation of copyright. Valuation of any sort of intellectual property is a tricky subject. Somebody invents a better mouse trap and wants to sell the invention. He may get a patent for it. How does he know what to ask for it? An idea for a better mouse trap is not like a piece of land or a house. It is often hard enough to value that. We just bought a condo in Vancouver. The prices are insane. I certainly did not think that the condo was worth what I had to pay for it. But that was the market and I paid. But what is an idea worth? Or a book or a song? J.K. Rowling had difficulty finding anybody to buy her first Harry Potter book. The publishers she approached must have thought its value was close to zero. She found one who thought it was worth taking a plunge on, but I bet even that publisher did not know what a runaway hit the book would be. We now know the publishers that turned Ms. Rowling away were a billion or so dollars out, and the successful publisher who took her on was probably not much less out.

Featured here are the first few paragraphs of the Honourable Mr. Marshall Rothstein’s article, “The Value of Copyright”.  The full article is available in the latest issue of the Intellectual Property Journal, volume 28(3), pp. 295-302.