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Abstract

Vol. 63, No. 1, pp. 17-27 (2012)

“Non-governmental Copyright Protection in a Music Market”
Yasuhiro Arai (Faculty of Economics, Aomori Public College)

We consider non-governmental copyright protection in a music market in a game theoretical framework. Music composers voluntarily form a non-governmental association to prevent illegal uses of music and to impose music fees collectively. We find that the formation of an association increases social welfare when differences in composers' abilities are sufficiently large. We also show that a uniform pricing rule, as currently employed by the association in Japan, is more desirable from the society point of view than a non-uniform pricing rule whereby members can set music fees individually to maximize their private profits.