Fair use markets: on weighing potential license fees

Abstract

Justice Breyer began his classic article, The Uneasy Case for Copyright, with a line from Lord Macaulay, that copyright is \u27a tax on readers for the purpose of giving a bounty to writers.\u27 Our society and its law values both writers and readers; the law cannot favor one side too much without losing some of the benefits the other side could have contributed. Make reading expensive and it will decrease, and readers might substitute less socially productive behaviors to take its place