IPcentral Weblog: March 2005 Archives

March 2005 Archives

(previous | next)

03.31.2005

Grokster and Ethics

I just had an interesting email discusssion with student (I think) Rick Thackeray about Grokster and filesharing. His comments and questions are in italic; mine in Roman.

Continue reading Grokster and Ethics . . .

posted by James DeLong @ 5:27 PM | Internet: P2P, Search Engines...

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly | Email a Comment | TrackBacks (0)| Post a Comment (0)

Musicians Speak Out

Yes, I'm on again about artists being properly compensated in the digital age, but this time I'm going to let the artists speak. You'll find two recent testimonials below.

Continue reading Musicians Speak Out . . .

posted by Patrick Ross @ 2:36 PM | Internet: P2P, Search Engines...

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly | Email a Comment | TrackBacks (0)| Post a Comment (0)

Standards

Ray Gifford has turned his talk in Milan as part of Digital Europe 2005 into "Standards in the Digital Age," Progress on Point 12.2 (March 2005). Blurb:

Because there are undeniable trade-offs from any standard-setting decision," Gifford writes, "governments should: a) be wary of thinking they have sufficient foresight to make proper standard-setting decisions; and b) be deferential to private attempts at standard setting." Gifford says varying models of open and closed standards with differing levels of interoperability will emerge and compete, with the market determining winners.
This latest paper comes as various local and international governments are weighing the prospects of mandating certain standards in the procurement of software, such as purchasing only open-source software.

posted by James DeLong @ 12:08 PM | Standards

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly | Email a Comment | TrackBacks (0)| Post a Comment (0)

Drug Reimportation

Sam Kazman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has an analogy for proposed laws to allow reimportation of pharmaceuticals that have been exported to price-controlled territories: they are like rent control.

Anyone familiar with rent control, characterized by the economics profession as "the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing," knows that Kazman does mean this as a tribute to the rationality of reimportation.

posted by James DeLong @ 7:25 AM | Pharma

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly | Email a Comment | TrackBacks (0)| Post a Comment (0)

03.30.2005

The Trial of Hank Rearden

I haven't been a student for years, so I'm a bit removed from Ayn Rand. However, a student-authored blog called FreshPolitics has an interesting post by Taylor W. Busey that compares the Grokster debate to a scene from Atlas Shrugged, and emphasizes the parallels between real property and IP.

posted by Patrick Ross @ 5:54 PM | Internet: P2P, Search Engines...

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly | Email a Comment | TrackBacks (0)| Post a Comment (0)

Grokster stories

C|News' story is here. Declan McCullagh posted pix of the outside activity here.

And the Seattle Post-Intelligencer weblog rounds up blogging coverage.

posted by James DeLong @ 9:10 AM | Internet: P2P, Search Engines...

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly | Email a Comment | TrackBacks (0)| Post a Comment (0)

Grokster: WaPo Gets it Right

The Washington Post today editorializes on Grokster.

It recognizes the difficulty of the dilemma:

If Grokster can . . . be held liable for piracy, defenders argue, what about iPods and other new technologies that can be used either for legitimate uses or for piracy?
This caution is a fair one, and it is critical that the court not adopt a broad rule that threatens liability for manufacturers of technologies whose misuse might enable piracy.

But WaPo also comes down in the right place (i.e., the same place at which PFF came down in its amicus brief), arguing that technology must be protected but that business models can be scrutinized:

A company that builds its entire business model around facilitating illegality should not be immune from liability because of the possibility of innocent use. Drawing a clear distinction between such a product and an iPod would protect both innovation and intellectual property.

posted by James DeLong @ 8:56 AM | Internet: P2P, Search Engines...

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly | Email a Comment | TrackBacks (0)| Post a Comment (0)

The Equal Opportunity Web

Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute discusses the Internet, blogging, and diversity.

One (of many) good paras:

[The Web] is a world without gatekeepers and with no other significant barriers to entry. Imagine someone coping with real discrimination — a black tanner, say, in 1897 Alabama. To expand his business, he needs capital and access to markets beyond the black business corridors in the south. Every white lender has turned him down, however, and no white merchant will carry his leather goods, even though they are superior to what is currently on the market. Tell that leather maker that an alternative universe exists, where he can obtain credit based solely on his financial history and sell his product based solely on its quality — a universe where race is so irrelevant that no one will even know his own — and he would think he had died and gone to heaven.

posted by James DeLong @ 8:27 AM | Internet: P2P, Search Engines...

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly | Email a Comment | TrackBacks (0)| Post a Comment (0)

03.29.2005

'You Guys Hate Technology!'

In case anyone was wondering, I'm still searching for the middle ground, but I sure didn't find it today on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, where the justices were considering MGM v. Grokster. That was a naive place to look for it, I'll admit. Still, I was disappointed by the excess of bombast and the absence of thoughtful dialogue I saw among two groups competing for the attention of the phalanx of TV cameras.

Continue reading 'You Guys Hate Technology!' . . .

posted by Patrick Ross @ 5:33 PM | Internet: P2P, Search Engines...

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly | Email a Comment | TrackBacks (0)| Post a Comment (0)

Grokster, Innovators & Lawyers

An argument made repeatedly in the briefs in Grokster is that technological innovators will be hobbled if they are forced to consult lawyers about possible copyright infringement issues, especially if the issues are not subject to crystal clear tests.

The problem is indeed worthy of concern, but I am increasingly inclined to think it deserves less weight than it is now receiving.

The reason: PFF has become more involved in patent issues lately, and it is clear that technological innovators are already up to their necks in lawyers, that they are making decisions about zillion dollar investments on the basis of patent issues and doctrines of stupefying opacity.

This is not an argument for making things more opaque or convoluted, of course. But we are not in danger of introducing the serpent of law into a pristine Eden. We are talking about incremental adjustments.

Naturally, both patent and copyright should be rationalized and made as predictable as possible. Lowering the transaction costs of innovation is indeed desirable. But, as Justice Kennedy noted during the Grokster oral argument, this should not be interpreted as giving innovators carte blanche to build business plans based on the capital value of expropriated property.

posted by James DeLong @ 2:12 PM | Internet: P2P, Search Engines...

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly | Email a Comment | TrackBacks (0)| Post a Comment (0)

03.29.2005

Grokster Day

posted by James DeLong @ 1:34 PM | Internet: P2P, Search Engines...

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly | Email a Comment | TrackBacks (2)| Post a Comment (0)

03.28.2005

New AEI Book

posted by James DeLong @ 1:29 PM | General

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly | Email a Comment | TrackBacks (0)| Post a Comment (0)