Shunsuke KYO's Website: English Abstract of APCLR

This book describes the mechanism of the policy-making process in low-salience policy areas through case studies of Japanese copyright law revisions. The question is, “How are policies made, and whose interests are reflected in low-salience policy areas?” The hypothesis of this book, deduced from a game-theoretic model, is summarized as follows: interest groups’ successful achievement of desired policy outcomes depends on the ability to make government officials recognize political ties between interest groups and politicians. This book tests the hypothesis in comparative case studies of Japanese copyright law revisions and shows its validity.

The introduction presents the questions posed in this book, reviews previous research, and examines the significance of studying the policy-making process for copyright law and low-salience policy.

Chapter 1 examines five points on the research strategy proposed in this book and adds a case study as an addendum. The first point is methodology. It is generally agreed that the difficulty of generalizing findings and controlling variables is a disadvantage of case studies. This book tries to overcome this difficulty by adopting deductive modeling and comparative case studies in the same policy area.

The second point is the examination of political actors and interactions between them in low-salience policy areas. The main political actors in low-salience policy areas are government officials and interest groups. An accepted theory, which argues that the government officials’ goal is to expand organizational resources, is quite unsatisfactory in explaining the actions of government officials in policy areas dealing with “basic acts” that define the rights and duties of general citizens and legal persons (e.g., copyright law and commercial law). The assumption in previous research that the government officials’ goal is organizational continuance is valid, but specific factors leading to organizational continuance need to be considered, because low-salience policy areas are quite different from the high-salience ones studied by previous research. The chapter also examines how interest groups participate in policy-making processes and why they influence policy outcomes. It is necessary to analyze the interactions among government officials, interest groups, and politicians in order to understand the interest groups’ influence.

The third point constructs a game-theoretic model that simplifies the relationships between the actors and the policy outcomes and introduces a hypothesis for testing. The hypothesis is summarized in the following sentence: interest groups’ successful achievement of desired policy outcomes depends on the ability to make government officials recognize the political ties between interest groups and politicians.

To test this hypothesis in case studies, it is necessary to clarify specifically what the benefits and costs are in the actors’ utility functions in the model. Then, the fourth point is identifying benefits, costs, and other factors in the process of copyright law revision. The notable point is that the model analyzes the process of copyright law revision with the premise that maintaining the consistency of the copyright law is a goal of the Agency for Cultural Affairs (ACA).

The fifth point is the review of the history of copyright law revision and the introduction of cases, which are discussed in detail so as to present their backgrounds and a give complete picture of the cases.

A case study is added at the end of Chapter 1 in order to prove the validity of this book’s assumption regarding the ACA’s goal. The case deals with the policy-making process in revising the copyright law to add a provision for computer software in the 1970s and 1980s, a case involving an administrative conflict between the ACA and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). MITI wanted to establish a new act to protect computer software in order to increase their organizational resources. The ACA, on the other hand, proposed a revision of the copyright law that would maintain the consistency of the law, and thereafter, the administrative conflict broke out. However, two factors facilitated the resolution of this conflict. One factor was that international trends were not consistent with MITI’s proposal. The other factor was the difference between the two agencies’ goals, over which they needed to reach a compromise. This case study concludes that the ACA’s goal is not the expansion of organizational resources, but is instead maintaining the consistency of the copyright law.

In Chapters 2 to 6, the hypothesis of this book is tested in case studies. Chapter 2 analyzes the general revision of the copyright law in 1970. It compares the revision processes of five articles in the general revision in order to test the hypothesis. The five articles deal with the following aspects:
(1) the duration of protection of photographs,
(2) the protection level of phonograph-record producers,
(3) the protection of applied arts,
(4) the limits of the secondary use of phonograph records, and
(5) authors and copyright holders of films.

In cases (1) and (2), the policy preference of the government officials led to the policy outcomes they desired, since the politicians had few incentives to modify the bill that the officials had proposed. In case (3), the government officials proposed a bill that granted the policy preference of the interest groups, because they expected the interest groups to lobby and the politicians to modify the bill, so that the bill was passed. Case (4) involved modification by politicians, since the government officials had proposed a bill close to their policy preference, even though the politicians had incentives to modify the bill. In case (5), although the government officials had proposed a bill that met the policy preference of the interest groups, the politicians proceeded with the modification of the bill.

Chapter 3 traces the policy-making process that added a provision for rental records in the early 1980s. Record shops and the recording industry, whose interests might have been hampered because of record rental, lobbied the politicians and the government. While the ACA proposed to maintain the status quo, the Liberal Democratic Party drafted and passed a temporary act limiting record rental. After the temporary act, the ACA also drafted a bill for a copyright law amendment that provided authors and record producers with the right to license rental shops for the first year and to charge them rental fees for the rest of their copyrighted duration. The policy outcome in this case was different from the policy preference of the government officials, who had failed to recognize the ties between the interest groups and the politicians.

Chapter 4 traces and analyzes the political process of establishing the system of remuneration for audio and video home recording, which was finally introduced in 1992, by tracing the discussions in consultative councils for the preceding fifteen years. Authors and record-producer groups had requested the government to introduce a system similar to the one in West Germany in the late 1970s, but it was opposed by some manufacturer groups and so had not been introduced. However, bad sales of digital audio tapes changed the policy preference of the manufacturers, and the system of remuneration for digital home recording was introduced as a result. The initial policy of maintaining the status quo had reflected the policy preference of the interest groups, because the government officials had recognized the ties between the interest groups and the politicians. The policy outcome, therefore, changed as the policy preference of the interest groups changed.

Chapter 5 analyzes the introduction of an article for the prevention of the re-import of CDs that Japanese record producers had licensed an Asian company to sell in its own country. Re-imported CDs seemed to be harmful to the interests of the Japanese recording industry. In a consultative council, the Record Industry Association of Japan, an association of music record-producing companies, proposed the establishment of import rights as a new copyright, while it explained its significance to the politicians and the Federation of Economic Organizations in unofficial settings. The ACA drafted a bill that did not establish import rights but instead regarded importing such CDs to be a violation of copyright. In this case, the policy preferences of the interest groups and the government officials were so similar that the politicians had few incentives to modify the bill. The government officials were able to recognize the incentives of the politicians, and therefore, the policy outcome in this case reflected the policy preference of the government.

Chapter 6 examines the discussions in consultative councils on the reassessment of the system of remuneration for audio and video home recording after 2005. The amount of remuneration decreased as new recording devices, such as the iPod, that were not levied became popular. Although authors and record-producer groups had asked the government to levy the new devices, manufacturer groups had opposed such a levy. Although discussions in the consultative councils went on far beyond the scheduled period, they did not reach an agreement. As a result, a prohibition on downloading copyrighted files was established. The policy outcome in this case, which mainly reflected the policy preference of the manufacturer groups, was the status quo policy, since the government officials had recognized the incentives of the politicians.

The concluding chapter summarizes the analysis of this book and presents five implications. The first is that “fire-alarm oversight” in low-salience policy areas is regarded as not rational institutional design by the politicians; it is considered the result of rational action by interest groups intended to maximize the benefit to their interests provided by the policy.

The second is that the costs to politicians and interest groups in the policy-making process limit the use of “fire-alarm oversight” in low-salience policy areas. Raising an effective “alarm” requires interest groups to fund a sufficient lobbying effort.

The third is an implication for the actions of government officials. While previous research has supposed that the goal of government officials is to expand their organizational resources, this book supposes that their goal is to maintain the consistency of the copyright law in order to ensure organizational continuance.

The fourth implication concerns the influence of international treaties on domestic policy-making processes. This book shows that international treaties have an indirect influence on domestic policies because of two aspects of the policy makers’ incentives. One is that government officials want to calibrate domestic acts with international treaties in order to decrease administrative and political costs. The other is that international treaties deter politicians from passing laws that conflict with the treaties. Domestic policies reflect international treaties because of these two effects on the incentives of policy makers.

The fifth is an implication of consultative councils. Previous research regarded the roles of consultative councils as follows: platforms for authorizing policy-making conducted by government officials, institutions adopting the opinions of stakeholders and procuring their consent, means for institutionalizing the participation of interest groups in policy-making processes, and media for politicians with a means for ex ante control over government. The model of this book presents another role for consultative councils: as a system that enables government officials to collect information on interest groups’ policy preferences and their ability to lobby.