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- Title
Academic copyright in the publishing game: a contest perspective.
- Authors
Feess, Eberhard; Scheufen, Marc
- Abstract
As scientists are motivated by readership rather than by royalties, one might doubt that academic copyright is required for stimulating research. Consequently, establishing an open access regime is currently intensively being discussed. We contribute to the literature by using a contest-model in which differently talented researchers compete for limited journals space. The contest perspective adds a rent-seeking motive into the publishing game which questions that private incentives for research are always too low due to the positive externalities of scientific progress. In our model, open access always leads to higher social welfare when incentives are too high. When incentives are too low, then open access is only superior if the benefits from larger readership is sufficiently high.
- Subjects
COPYRIGHT; PSYCHOLOGY of scientists; OPEN access publishing; READERSHIP; PUBLIC welfare
- Publication
European Journal of Law & Economics, 2016, Vol 42, Issue 2, p263
- ISSN
0929-1261
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s10657-016-9528-1