Fighting Software Piracy: Which Governance Tools Matter in Africa?
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Fighting Software Piracy: Which Governance Tools Matter in Africa? Antonio R. Andre´s • Simplice A. Asongu
Received: 28 June 2012 / Accepted: 31 December 2012 / Published online: 10 January 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract This article integrates previously missing components of government quality into the governance-piracy nexus in exploring governance mechanisms by which global obligations for the treatment of IPRs are effectively transmitted from international to the national level in the battle against piracy. It assesses the best governance tools in the fight against piracy and upholding of intellectual property rights (IPRs). The instrumentality of IPR laws (treaties) in tackling piracy through good governance mechanisms is also examined. Findings demonstrate that: (1) while all governance tools under consideration significantly decrease the incidence of piracy, corruption-control is the most effective weapon; (2) but for voice and accountability, political stability and democracy, IPR laws (treaties) are instrumental in tackling piracy through government quality dynamics of rule of law, regulation quality, government effectiveness, corruption-control, and press freedom. Hence, the need for a policy approach most conducive to expanding development is to implement an integrated system of both IPRs and corollary good governance policies. Moreover, our findings support the relevance of good governance measures in developing countries wishing to complement their emerging IPR regimes. Keywords Software piracy Governance tools Intellectual property rights Instrumental variables
Introduction In legal terms, intellectual property covers three distinct sets of rights: copyrights, patents, and trademarks.1 However, economics differentiates between copyright and patent on the one hand and trademark on the other based on the following rationale. Copyright refers to two types of commodity—information or intellectual property goods2— having certain characteristics. Information goods have two important public goods characteristics. First, their consumption is inherently non-rival. That is, the use that one person makes of a piece of information does not decrease the possibility of use by others. Furthermore, because reproduction costs are potentially very low for anybody else than the creator of the good, information goods might be non-excludable in the sense that the producer is often unable to prevent those who do not pay from consuming the good in question. That is, consumers might appropriate part of the surplus at the expense of producers. Intellectual property law responds to this non-excludability problem by giving producers certain exclusive rights that exclude non payers form certain uses of their intellectual property goods. Thus, the producers are able to reap the benefits from the production of information goods for a certain period of time. Nevertheless, the rights holder might charge a price above the marginal cost and this 1
A. R. Andre´s School of Business Administration
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