by ConnorL87 Thu Nov 15, 2018 2:49 pm
This passage as a whole turned me into a human shamble, but this question was the one that I got wrong even after a second attempt.
I didn't chose (A) in either of my first two passes because of confusion over the phrase "recoup the costs", and I think many people in this thread are confused in the same way. But upon closer examination, it became clear (A) was the most obvious answer. I was thinking of costs as the costs incurred by having jokes stolen (e.g. harm to reputation because people mistakenly think YOU copied the joke, or lost ticket sales because another comedian is doing the same set at another club). Nothing about the social norms helps someone recoup those costs, make back the lost income, restore their reputation, etc. But then I realized that the costs this was referring to, as evidenced by line (20), was the costs of creating the material. So do the social norms help comedians recoup the costs of creating material? YES! The social norms deter joke stealing from occurring in the first place, so comedians are able to create new material and recover the costs of creating their new material (e.g. opportunity costs of having to spend time writing new jokes vs working an hourly shift)
In my first pass, I narrowed it down to (A), (C), and (E). I went with (C) because it seemed the most supported. Isn't the fact that comedians evidently continue to develop new material an indication that they aren't too concerned with the expenses involved? The social norms that have developed mitigate the concern over expense. I thought the author would agree that, given the fact that comedians continue to make new material, the expenses involved in creating new material are clearly not much of a concern to them as a whole.
But then I realized, oh duh, the whole reason these social norms have substituted for IP law is because of the concern with the costs of developing new material. I was confusing a cause with an effect. The existence of these social norms is evidence that comedians are concerned about the costs of developing new material, otherwise these social norms would not have developed to fill the gap left by the inadequacy of IP law. I had it the other way around: there is a lack of concern because of the norms in place rather than there are norms in place because of a concern that exists.
So I reevaluated and chose (E). I originally didn't like (E) because of "should", but negating that seemed like something the author would disagree with "copyright law should NOT be modified to make it more cost-effective". I had a sneaking feeling that negation test doesn't apply to these types of questions though, but because of the time crunch I picked it and moved on.
