Copyright and Distributive Justice

Justin Hughes & Robert P. Merges*

Is our copyright system basically fair? Does it exacerbate or ameliorate the skewed distribution of wealth in our society? Does it do anything at all for disempowered people, people at the bottom of the socio-economic hierarchy? In this Article we engage these questions. Our goal is to begin a more comprehensive discussion of the effect the copyright system has on the allocation of wealth in our society.

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© 2016 Justin Hughes & Robert P. Merges. Individuals and nonprofit institutions may reproduce and distribute copies of this Article in any format at or below cost, for educational purposes, so long as each copy identifies the authors, provides a citation to the Notre Dame Law Review, and includes this provision in the copyright notice.

*Justin Hughes is Honorable William Matthew Byrne Professor of Law, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. Robert P. Merges is Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley Law School (Boalt Hall). Our thanks to Margo Bagley, Barton Beebe, Robert Brauneis, Robert Burrell, Anupam Chander, Brietta Clark, William Fisher, Eric Goldman, Ruth Okediji, Leif Wenar, and Kim West-Faulcon for helpful comments and suggestions on elements of this Article as well as to Julius Bodie, Jesse Fox, Marcus Hayes, Emile Nijmeh, Lauren Noriega, Brian H. O’Beirne, and Justin Thiele for research assistance. As to the remaining errors, we are, as Charles Dickens said, “hoping defects will find excuse.” Charles Dickens, A Poor Man’s Tale of a Patent, reprinted in Reprinted Pieces: The Lamplighter, to Be Read at Dusk, and Sunday Under Three Heads 113 (Andrew Lang ed., London, Chapman & Hall 1868).