Logical Reasoning

PT143 · S1 · Q10 Copyright statutes benefit society

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Copyright statutes benefit society by providing incentive to produce original works, so some kind of copyright statute is ultimately justified.

Conclusion 1 (so)

Some kind of copyright statute is justified.

Evidence

Copyright statutes benefit society by providing incentive to produce original works.

Conclusion 2

Granting copyright protection for the life of the author plus several decades is too long.

Evidence (since)

The societal benefit from additional years of copyright is more than offset by the society cost.

Evaluate

This is a weird argument because there are two conclusions here, but we would probably assume that the first one was background and that our job is really to support the one in the final sentence.

If we were just spelling out the missing link, it would sound like this:

Societal benefit of Too long a several decades after → period to death is more than grant protection offset by societal cost

Goal

Look for an answer that talks about societal cost outweighing societal benefit as a way to argue that giving copyright protection for decades after an author dies is too long / too much.

10.

Which one of the following principles, if valid, most strongly supports the reasoning in the argument?

  1. A statute should be written

    Bad Conclusion Match

    We’re told that the aim of copyright protection is to provide an incentive to produce original works. Was the argument saying that any part of copyright protection appeared to go against providing an incentive to produce original works? No the author isn’t saying that “protection for decades after death” appears to go against the motive of incentivizing production of original works. She was just saying that while it does provide society the benefit of incentivizing, it also produces even bigger societal harm (because it creates protected monopolies).

    2% picked this

  2. A statute should be repealed

    Weak Evidence / Conclusion Match

    This is fairy tempting. Does the left side match the evidence and the right side match the conclusion? The conditions that Copyright originally justified ? statute copyright protection should be no longer hold true repealed The original justification for copyright protection was to incentivize production of original works. Did the author ever say that we no longer have that incentive? No, but maybe we could say once an author dies, we no longer need to incentive that now-deceased person to create original works. Was the author saying that once the author dies, the copyright statute should be repealed? No, it wasn’t about repealing a law. It was just about saying the current period of protection is too long.

    6% picked this

  3. A statute that is justified

    Bad Evidence/Conclusion Match

    Neither part of the argument matches this move: if statute A is then statute B is justified in ? justified in country X country Y

    0% picked this

  4. A statute should not limit

    Bad Evidence/Conclusion Match

    Neither part of the argument matches this move: if a statute can’t then a statute be shown to ? should not enhance other rights limit rights Our conclusion is saying “You’re granting too much protection, too many rights! Let’s limit those rights a little. They don’t need decades of protection after death.” This answer is set up to support the conclusion that rights should not be limited.

    2% picked this

  5. Correct

    If a statute is to

    Why this is right

    This is a very hard to understand, complex correct answer. So let's focus on the one thing that would make it easiest to find and like this answer: it's the only one that has language relating to the author's since premise at the end, regarding whether societal benefit is more than offset by societal cost. Does this rule apply to copyright protection? Is copyright protection to be justified by its benefit to society? The author is justifying copyright protection that way, in his first sentence. So according to this rule, copyright protection should be designed so that its societal benefit always exceeds its societal cost. The way it's currently designed, the decades of protection beyond death that are afforded to an author are not meeting that standard. The societal benefit from the additional years are not exceeding societal cost. So this principle allows us to conclude, "copyright statutes shouldn't be designed in such a way that it offers those additional years of protection". Since copyright statutes currently do offer those additional years of protection, we can support the author's conclusion that "this is too long".

    Skill tested: Principle-Strengthen · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    90% picked this

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