Justifications for Copyright Protection Have Taken a Mercantilist Turn; The Shift from Neoclassical Welfare Economics to Mercantilist Justifications Defines US Trade Policy for Intellectual Property

Over the last twenty years, justifications for broader copyright protection have taken an increasingly mercantilist turn. In the recent debates over the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), proponents did not seriously argue that these measures would enhance welfare by encouraging the production of more and better works of authorship. Rather, they argued that these bills would increase revenues to domestic copyright owners and thereby create jobs. This shift from neoclassical welfare economics to mercantilist justifications for policy is not unique to PIPA and SOPA, however. Rather, it has become a defining feature of United States trade policy with respect to copyright and intellectual property, more generally, over the last few decades. Moving away from the tenets of free trade, trade policy in the intellectual property arena has sought increasingly to protect domestic industries from foreign competition and to ensure thereby more revenue for and more jobs in those industries within the United States.

--Glynn S. Lunney Jr., "Copyright's Mercantilist Turn," Florida State University Law Review 42, no. 1 (Fall 2014): 95-96.