It Was 50 Years Ago Today: Recording Copyright Term and the Supply of Music

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of the expiry of recording copyright on the supply of music—in the form of rereleases, availability on streaming platforms, and concert performances—by artists popular in the United Kingdom in the 1960s. We find that recording copyright expiry has different effects on a song’s availability in different distribution channels. The lapsing of copyright leads to a large increase in the number of rereleases in physical formats, holding constant artist, age, and year fixed effects. However, when a song’s original recording copyright expires, it becomes less likely to be performed in concert. Moreover, copyright status is not associated with differences in availability on the digital streaming platform Spotify. These results show that copyright expiry has nuanced effects on availability and can lead to different and even opposite effects on availability of a product across different distribution channels. They also show that within the context of digital distribution, the impact of copyright on availability differs based on the business model of a platform. This paper was accepted by Chris Forman, information systems. Funding: J. McKeon thanks Boston University’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program for funding. M. MacGarvie and J. Watson thank the National Bureau of Economic Research (Digitization Small Grant) for funding. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4343 .