Archives for January 2007
Google Book Search the new MP3.com?
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“The suits that have been filed are a business negotiation that happens to be going on in the courts,” [Google’s] Marissa Mayer told me. “We think of it as a business negotiation that has a large legal-system component to it.” According to Pat Schroeder, the former congresswoman, who is the president of the Association of American Publishers, “This is basically a business deal. Let’s find a way to work this out. It can be done. Google can license these rights, go to the rights holder of these books, and make a deal.”
Lawrence Lessig points out that while a settlement would be good for both parties, it could create a practical precedent that if one wanted to start a book-scanning project, one had to license the books–a lot like the precedent set by the MP3.com case that was ultimately settled out of court.
Another interesting bit about the technology itself is how Google plans to rely on linking from the wider web to give the information in books the context its search algorithms need to produce good results:
“Web sites are part of a network, and that’s a significant part of how we rank sites in our search—how much other sites refer to the others.” But, he added, “Books are not part of a network. There is a huge research challenge, to understand the relationship between books. … We just started, and we need to make these books networked, and we need people to help us do that,” [Google’s Dan] Clancy said.
Cross-posted at TLF. You can leave and read comments there. →
Brownback, FCC to stop TV from making kids fat
Is Sam Brownback the answer for limited government types in the Republican party? He bills himself as a “full-scale Ronald Reagan conservative,” which implies a leave-us-alone attitude. Doing research at the FCC’s site today, I came across a press release (PDF) announcing the formation of something called The Task Force on “Media and Childhood Obesity: Today and Tomorrow.” Co-sponsor of the “task force” is Brownback.The Task Force will produce a report that will recommend “voluntary” steps advertisers and broadcaster will be able to take to protect children from getting fat. Again, these suggestions will be completely voluntary, but the FCC just wanted to make sure to remind you on its obesity website that it has adopted children’s TV rules including “the requirement that television broadcasters, cable operators, and satellite providers protect children from excessive and inappropriate commercial messages,” and they can do so again.
Republican Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate is “elated” about the task force, but shows her conservative principles, saying (PDF), “Government cannot and should not be responsible for solving every societal problem; however, this affects not only our nation’s health but our budget as well.” Right.
“Given the saturation of media in our children’s lives, we need to understand how media impacts their health and behavior,” said Brownback. “Because parents have no control of how much media saturates their children’s lives, nor how it impacts their health,” he didn’t say, but he might as well have.
Cross-posted at TLF. You can leave and read comments there. →
First world microloans
Awesome, awesome, awesome. The WaPo reports about Prosper.com, a site that connects individuals who need to borrow money with individuals who have money to lend. God, I love markets:Lenders, who can finance small pieces of many loans, get a chance to earn higher returns than they might find elsewhere, but it’s not simply a numbers game. They get a borrower’s story, how much money they want to borrow, the interest rate they’re willing to pay, and the reason they need the money, along with monthly income and expenses. Often, pictures of borrowers, their dog or their children accompany the pitch.
According to the story, in one year the site has originated about $33 million in loans and less than 1 percent of its loans have defaulted.
Wikipedia, courts, and anonymity
Wikipedia has been cited in more than 100 judicial opinions since 2004, including 13 from federal circuit courts of appeal, according to the NYT. The article implies this is a trend:A simple search of published court decisions shows that Wikipedia is frequently cited by judges around the country, involving serious issues and the bizarre — such as a 2005 tax case before the Tennessee Court of Appeals concerning the definition of “beverage” that involved hundreds of thousands of dollars, and, just this week, a case in Federal District Court in Florida that involved the term “booty music” as played during a wet T-shirt contest.
The article then cites pro and con takes. Judge Posner has cited Wikipedia in at least one opinion, and thinks it’s O.K. as long as it’s not used to support a central fact in the case. That’s a completely reasonable stance and Cass Sunstein seems to agree with Posner even though he’s more skeptical of the practice.
I’m not sure this is a trend at all. The NYT was able to find 100 instances of citation to Wikipedia from all courts, including district courts and special masters. But consider that the federal appeals courts (excluding the Fed. Circuit and the Supreme Court) published 29,913 opinions in the 12 month period ending Sep. 2005.
I think Wikipedia is a great resource and it’s the starting point for lots of my own research, but I think that’s how self-respecting judges and scholars will use it, as a staring point. It’s not that the information on Wikipedia is necessarilly inferior. It’s not. In my view the problem is that it’s anonymous. If you rely on a book or an article for a fact, you know who to hold accountable if the fact turns out to be erroneous–the author. An author has a track record and a reputation. This is something you can scrutinize, and something the author has an incentive to protect. This is doubled when an article is peer-reviewed, and tripled when you consider publications also have reputations to uphold.
I understand Wikipedia has a bias toward correcting errors, but fairly or unfairly its reputation is inscrutable. Sure, it may have a 99% accuracy rate today, but what about tomorrow? Wikipedia is great to link to in a blog post, but in more serious published writing, a writer will also be concerned about his own reputation. Getting context from Wikipedia is very helpful, but when it comes to citation I’ll take the extra time and find another source to cite to. This is why I love that Wikipedia has begun to include its own footnoted citations for the sources of the information included in its articles. (Hat tip Joe A. for the link.)
I’m blogging
Bush and Baby Einstein
Nick Gillespie writes of the State of the Union speech, “Most nauseating moment for me personally beyond all the foreign policy stuff: The shout-out at the end to the creator of the Baby Einstein videos, Julie Aigner-Clark.” He objects to “the way Bush tries to take credit through association for the $200 million company she built[.]” When I saw that shout-out, I thought to myself, does he realize she’s probably responsible for the autism epidemic in this country? I wonder if he can get credit for that, too.For markets, for fair use
In an op-ed in The American today (and also in comments to National Journal on the reintroduction of the Boucher fair use bill), PFF’s Patrick Ross writes that those of us who advocate reversing the DMCA and strengthening fair use rights have little faith in markets. According to him, curtailing the DMCA means government intervention in emerging markets.What arguments like Patrick’s ignore is that copyright is unlike other property rights, copyright is a different animal. This is evident in the fact that the power to create copyright is one of the enumerated powers of Congress laid out in the Constitution. Copyright would not exist but for the grace of Congress. If Congress decides to create copyrights, it has complete discretion (within constitutional bounds) to set the outlines of copyright. Congress can decide, among many other parameters, that copyright is for only one year or for 100 or for any length of time in between. Therefore, whatever market in copyrighted works emerges once Congress has created copyright, it must conform to the shape of the copyright Congress created.
Patrick writes:
It’s easy to forget that when we purchase digital content, we are in fact purchasing a set of rights to that content, rights shaped by current technologies, as well as the expectations of both creators and consumers. When those rights are sold to us, there are some uses that the creator does not authorize. As we discover new ways of using content, those uses begin with the creator, who can then decide the terms on which he wants to sell them.
As I have shown, though, the shape of these rights are not just set by contract, but by Congress as well. (The reason why is a bit beyond the scope of this blog post, but suffice it to say it’s because ideas, unlike tangible property, are not scarce, and copyright is less property right than government grant.) Patrick continues:
I can see why a consumer, having paid for a song or a movie once, wouldn’t want to pay for it a second or third time in order to use it on another platform. However, when the market offers sets of flexible rights, consumers will be able to buy only the rights they want. If you want to listen to music only on your home stereo, say, but not in your car, then in the future you may be able to pay less–you won’t have to buy (and then not use) the right to listen in your car, as you do today.
What Patrick is arguing against here is a notional fair use right to format-shift or place-shift. I wonder if he’s also against a right to time shift since you could contractually limit consumers to only watch your content from noon to one on Tuesdays.
Patrick writes that “Congress should only alter the state of a market when there is a sign of market failure.” Quite true. However, another legitimate rationale for Congressional intervention is government failure. First carved out by common law courts and later codified by Congress, fair use is one of the outlines of copyright. To the extent one has to circumvent an anti-copying measure in order to make fair use of a work, the DMCA has hobbled fair use (and, some free-marketers would say, replace it with rent-seeking and barriers to competition). Repealing the DMCA will affect markets for copyrighted works just as its enactment did. This is because, in effect, Congress shapes the market. It is within its constitutional power to do so. Those of us who favor a less-restrictive interpretation of fair use are in fact seeking more vibrant markets in culture.
Cross-posted at TLF. You can leave and read comments there. →
Richardson the anti-Hillary?
The “most dangerous” Dem presidential candidate could be Bill Richardson, Ed Morrissey points out in the Examiner today. If experience is what you’re looking for, Morrissey says, Richardson’s your man: congressman, U.N. ambassador, energy secretary, and governor — and apparently more than competent at each stint. The way I see it, Hillary, like Al Gore, can’t keep up a warm, unrobotic schtick for a whole year, and Obama is a newcomer to national, hardball politics and could have a Dean moment of some kind. Richardson, to me, looks like the anti-Hillary everyone was hoping Mark Warner would be.Something else I don’t get
I’ve explained before that I don’t get MySpace and am afraid I might be getting old. Something else I don’t get is Twitter. What am I missing? Liz Gannes at GigaOm today:Your phone buzzes, and you learn your pal Suzie is out at lunch. It buzzes again, and you find out your web calendar going through an outage. The wonders of invasive-by-choice technology!
As Steve Jobs would say, “Yech!”
Record Labels Contemplate Unrestricted Digital Music
There’s been much talk this week of (at least one of) the record companies finally coming to their senses and considering selling music online as unprotected MP3s. There are two reasons why this makes eminent sense:- iTunes is the dominant online music retailer and the labels resent that they are beholden to Steve Jobs (and his refusal to employ variable pricing) for access to the iPod. But they don’t have to be. The iPod plays unprotected MP3s. If they set up shop in a form that is at least a little bit as elegant as iTunes, then they could easily do a run-around Apple. They would then also have great leverage next time they have to re-negotiate with Jobs. Apple likes DRM because it solidifies their hold on the MP3 player market.
- But won’t unprotected MP3s expose their music to pirating? Wake up and smell reality, folks. DRM does nothing to stop music piracy. Every song in creation is already available as an unprotected MP3 on P2P services such as Kazaa. Selling unprotected files doesn’t mean that they will all of a sudden make available to pirates music that the pirates have never been able to get their hands on. The fact is, the recording industry has been selling music in an unprotected forever in the form of CDs.
Think diffident
I have a new article up at American.com on Apple’s controversial $1.99 charge to upgrade consumer’s Wi-Fi cards. Snippet: “The rule that made Apple’s mess predates Sarbanes-Oxley—but Sarbox’s stiffened penalties may well have changed Apple’s calculus. What was previously an accounting principle that could have, in a special circumstance like this one, been benignly neglected with the use of an explanatory footnote, the Act now makes rigid. The possible criminal penalties that can now attach to any unusual accounting mitigate the incentives to account for things elegantly, when the elegant way of keeping track of things requires some added explanation.”For rent
Jeremy Lott writes in the American today that as far as he’s concerned renting beats buying a home–even at his 30ish age. This is especially interesting to me because, approaching my 31st birthday, I’m beginning to consider buying an apartment or condo. His argument is mainly one of quality of life: freedom from debt means greater freedom in one’s personal and professional life. That I understand and appreciate.What I don’t get is this statement: “Home loan payments are usually structured so lenders get double their money back over a 30 year period. So a $300,000 house with a minimal down payment will cost you $600,000. The interest is deductible from your taxes but it still seems a hefty price to pay.” If interest is deductible, then you’re just paying $300k, and this objection is a non-starter, right? What am I missing? I really want to know.
Blog influence on Capitol Hill
Here is the senior honors thesis (PDF) from GWU student T. Neil Sroka on blog readership on Capitol Hill. The bottom line is that blogs really aren’t that regularly read by members or their staffs. Nevertheless, it’s a very interesting read. I would be interested in a similar survey of federal agencies, where I think single-issue blogs might have more influence.New tech to find orphan works
Just as Bridget and I predicted in our orphan works paper, entrepreneurs are creating systems to track down infringing use of copyrighted works on the web. According to a press release by Infoflows, the company is launching a new software platform to do just that. CEO Steve Stone: “”For the first time in history, a content owner can identify where its content exists anywhere on the web at any time. In one stop the content owner is empowered to protect it and recover revenue if the intellectual property is being illegally used … In an alpha pilot conducted in 2006, one Fedmark crawl returned over 500 instances of unlicensed photographs being pirated by one end user. Needless to say our beta client was thrilled with this outcome and was able to act upon our results to recoup significant revenue.”AFF fusionism debate
You’re all invited to an AFF special event on the future of fusionism on Thursday, Jan. 25, at 6 p.m. (See the full info here.) The debate will feature Jonathan Chait of the New Republic, David Boaz and Brink Lindsey of the Cato Institute, and National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru. Can the conservative coalition be kept together after years of Republican excess? Can traditional conservatives and libertarians be kept in the fold? Or will libertarians instead forge a new coalition with liberals? This promises to be a great event and I hope you’ll make it!Circling the Oval Office
The WSJ has a great chart with info on all the presidential contenders, declared and potential. Great to keep track of all 28 of them. From Duncan Hunter to Chris Dodd.Singapore teen first to be sentenced for wireless piggybacking
AFP reports: “A Singapore teen has become the first in the city-state to be sentenced for piggybacking on someone else’s wireless Internet connection.” I hear Time Lee is public enemy number one in Singapore.SOX sucks: The case of Apple
At an Apple Store a few weeks ago a clerk had to take down info from my driver’s license so that I could qualify for the education discount that previously only required that I flash my school ID. “Sorry, Sarbanes-Oxley,” she said. Really? “Yeah. Also, if you buy a custom Mac now, you have to have it shipped to your home; you can’t pick it up at the store anymore.” Whah?Well, if you need one more reason to believe that the unintended consequences of SOX really suck (especially for Mac people, it seems), today comes word that SOX may force Apple to charge Mac users for a feature that would otherwise be free. See, Wi-Fi comes in three flavors: 802.11b, g, and n, each respectively faster. The “n” standard is still a draft, but it’s almost complete. Apple has been shipping computers with unadvertised “n” capability that they have left dormant. That is, you buy a notebook with what you think is just a “g” Wi-Fi card and three months later, when the standard gets ratified, Apple sends you a software update that unlocks it into an “n”. Voila, surprise instant upgrade and a happy customer.
Unfortunately, the word is that Apple will charge $4.99 for the upgrade, which is a suspiciously un-Apple thing to do. iLounge editor Jeremy Horwitz offers an explanation: “Because of the [SOX] Act, the company believes that if it sells a product, then later adds a feature to that product, it can be held liable for improper accounting if it recognizes revenue from the product at the time of sale, given that it hasn’t finished delivering the product at that point. Ridiculous.”
Update: Houman Shadab took this story and ran with it. He posts a great explanation (via iLounge) of how SOX accounting rules could result in the $5 charge. I’m posting it in full after the jump. Continue reading this post »
iPhone a book reader?
Kottke points to a Booksquare post on how the iPhone, with its high-res screen, PDF support, and iTunes integration, is well-suited to be a viable ebook reader. Add to that, as I’ve noted here before, that Apple has been rumored to have already made deals with book publishers, and you get a new market Apple might be moving into.American entrepreneurship
From today’s WaPo: “About 25 percent of the technology and engineering companies launched in the past decade had at least one foreign-born founder, according to a study released yesterday that throws new information into the debate over foreign workers who arrive in the United States on specialty visas.” Just the wealth created by Sergey Brin (Google), Jerry Yang (Yahoo!), and Steve Chen & Jawed Karim (YouTube) is astounding.-
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