Copyright statutes benefit society by providing incentive to produce original works, so some kind of copyright statut...

Victoria on May 11, 2021

Hi @Andrew,

Happy to help!

You are correct, the author of the stimulus concedes that some kind of copyright statute is ultimately justified because these statutes benefit society by providing incentive to produce original works.

However, the author critiques current copyright statutes in many countries which grant copyright protection for the life of the author plus several decades. Overall, the author is suggesting that copyright statutes are ultimately justified because of their societal benefits, but that current statutes' length of protection is unjustified because it imposes societal costs which outweigh the benefits.

We are looking for a principle which supports the reasoning employed by the author in making this argument.

Answer choice (A) is incorrect because the author's argument does not address any inconsistency in the statutes' aims.

Answer choice (B) is incorrect for two reasons. First, the author does not suggest that copyright statutes should be repealed. Second, the author does not provide us with any information regarding the conditions which originally justified enacting the statute. We could guess that it was to provide incentive to produce original works, but this does not have to be true.

Answer choice (C) is incorrect because the author suggests that statutes with lengthy protection periods are unjustified.

Answer choice (D) is incorrect because the argument is focused on societal benefits and costs, not rights. Again, we could make some assumptions about the rights affected by copyright, but the stimulus does not provide us with enough information to draw any conclusions on this.

Finally, answer choice (E) provides us with a principle that supports the author's reasoning.

Statute justified --> Benefits > costs
Costs > benefits --> Statute not justified

The author tells us that the societal costs of the additional years of copyright outweigh the societal benefits. Therefore, while some sort of copyright statute is justified, these particular statutes are not.

Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any further questions.