Economic Research Working Paper No. 61 Batman forever? The economics of overlapping rights Alexander Cuntz Franziska Kaiser October 2020 Batman forever? The economics of overlapping rights ∗y Alexander Cuntz z Franziska Kaiser §
[email protected] [email protected] October 8, 2020 Abstract When copyrighted comic characters are also protected under trademark laws, in- tellectual property (IP) rights can be overlapping. Arguably, registering a trademark can increase transaction costs for cross-media uses of characters, or it can help adver- tise across multiple sales channels. In an application to book, movie and video game publishing industries, we thus ask how creative reuse (innovation in uses) is affected in situations of overlapping rights, and whether ‘fuzzy boundaries’ of right frameworks are in fact enhancing or decreasing content sales. Keywords: copyright, fictional characters, trademark, reuse, comic books JEL Codes: O31, O34, Z11 1 Motivation Intellectual property rights differ in purpose and function. Trademarks allow consumers to better distinguish products and services on markets. Once their initial term of protection ∗The views expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Intellectual Property Organization or its member states. yThe authors thank Anastasiya Letnikava and Kyle Bergquist for excellent research assistance. They gratefully acknowledge Lambiek Studio for sharing their data. Moreover, the authors would like to thank Estelle Derclaye, Carsten Fink, Christian Helmers, Marcus Hoepperger, Guy Pessach, Christian Peukert, Matthias Sahli, Martin Senftleben and seminar participants at WIPO and ETH Zuerich for helpful comments on previous versions of the work. zWorld Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). 34, chemin des Colombettes, CH-1211 Geneva.