Posts for the ‘Economics and Social Sciences’ Category
Against Monopoly
The Economist takes a bleak look at the internet’s prospects, seeing it fracturing because of national and language differences, and anti-competitive forces among service providers link here. It seems that there is little individual users can do about the first two, as the likes of China puts up barriers in the national defense [...]
Against Monopoly
Via Conceivably Tech, we learn that Microsoft was granted a patent for the shutdown procedure in Windows. If I understand it right, Microsoft is now the sole owner of the procedure asking whether you really want to close an application with unsaved data.
Note that the patent does not seem to cover the most [...]
Against Monopoly
Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated is a mass collaborative artistic re-envisioning of George A. Romero’s 1968 cult classic, Night of the Living Dead.
International artists and animators were invited to select scenes from the film and reinvent them through their artwork.
The full and complete re-imagined work is currently available:
http://www.notldr.com/next/main.html
http://www.amazon.com/Night-Living-Dead-Duane-Jones/dp/B003GUGB8G
A similar artistic endeavor was performed [...]
Against Monopoly
Conor Friedersdorf over at Andrew Sullivan’s much-trafficked blog points to “an interesting post about craft cocktails and the impulse to protect certain recipes as intellectual property” as well as the reaction to the concept from a third blogger.
Read all about it and get the discussing links here:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/09/keeping-government-out-of-cocktails.html
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Against Monopoly
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has filed a patent lawsuit that is breathtaking in scope – even by the ridiculous standards of modern patent claims. Defendants include Google, Apple, Yahoo, Netflix, Facebook, AOL, eBay, Youtube, Office Depot, OfficeMax and Staples. He alleges the companies violated patents owned by his now-defunct idea lab Interval Research.
As Wired [...]
Against Monopoly
We previously mentioned Eckhard Höffner research showing how absence of copyright in Germany led to more rather than less output there than in England. This is being picked up by other blogs, here is a post on Kevin Smith’s blog. (Thanks to Ruth Lewis for the tip)
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Against Monopoly
The New York Times now carries a lot of stories that are of interest to anyone concerned about the high cost of intellectual property protection. The first story today is a debate over who is right AARP or the industry. AARP says the cost of branded drugs rose 8.3% in 2009 link here. [...]
Against Monopoly
Really, this is pretty funny.
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Against Monopoly
The NY Times has a review of the latest book arguing for less restrictive copyright regimes.
Read it (the review) here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/books/review/Darnton-t.html?pagewanted=1 and _r=2 and ref=science
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Against Monopoly
Brand name product piracy has long been with us and continues to grow if one is to believe the New York Times magazine section link here.
The story focuses on sneakers produced in huge quantities in South China where the product range is broad and the copies range from very good to shoddy.
The [...]
Against Monopoly
Today’s New York Times editorial page takes up orphaned works covered by copyright, keying off on the bequest of recordings by jazz masters to the National Jazz Museum in Harlem link here. The problem is identifying the performers and finding them to offer them compensation under the current version of the copyright law. [...]
Against Monopoly
Ezra Klein has a smart piece on copyrights today, slamming Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) draft bill to copyright fashion and grandly titled the the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act link here. We really need a lot more op-eds like this if public opinion is to change and we have any chance of [...]
Against Monopoly
For those who think that the “parody” defense has always provided a clear and fair outlet of escape from copyright’s harsh restrictions, you might want to read up on the time in the 1950’s when Jack Benny was banned from airing a parody of the 1942 film (and 1939 play) “Gaslight” for a television [...]
Against Monopoly
David Post over at the Volokh Conspiracy has thoughts on the matter worth reading here:
http://volokh.com/2010/08/18/the-high-cost-of-copyright/
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Against Monopoly
The attorney general of Connecticut is investigating whether e-book makers Apple and Amazon have engaged in pricing fixing with book publishers. In this article on the investigation, I am quoted saying:
Alleged price-fixing agreements in cases like this have but one source: the government’s monopolistic grants to e-book makers and publishers through so-called intellectual property [...]