/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ the politics of IP en-us wex@hovir.com 2013-06-18T13:42:13-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/06/18/two_things_about_past_stories.php I found a couple of pieces online related to past posts, and thought they were worth sharing. First, I continue to noodle around the idea that the vast majority of creative people aren't making (enough) money and that's been true for a very long time. Then up pops an item from NPR's Planet Money blog that shows how the 1% in performing entertainment are hoovering up an ever-increasing share of the concert dollar. Pitched as a piece about income inequality, it takes off from a talk by Princeton economist Alan Krueger in which he argues that “The music industry is... 76487@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ IP Markets and Monopolies 2013-06-18T13:42:13-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/06/13/analyzing_netflixs_economics_misses_netflixs_long_game.php Trying to guess Netflix's content economics seems to be a popular pastime this year; however, as Felix Salmon describes, these analyses are missing the forest for the trees. The latest entry in this game is a nicely written in-depth piece by Matthew Ball for Ivey Business Review. Ball looks at the cost of Netflix producing original content, and in particular what do those costs pay back in terms of building Netflix's subscriber base. This is a natural follow-up to Netflix's recent restart of Arrested Development. The show built up a following while it was on Fox but those who still... 76476@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ IP Markets and Monopolies 2013-06-13T12:50:08-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/05/29/cable_is_still_dying_or_so_they_say.php It's been a while since I've seen another of the "Internet streaming is killing cable" stories that were popular last year. Today's entry comes from Chris Rancourt on Pando Daily and is based on the premise that streaming video has already killed cable. Yeah, maybe. In fact, Rancourt's body text is more circumspect than his lede, saying "...we might be heading into a world where streaming killed the cable star". Yeah, maybe. It's true that online subs cost less, and it's true that Netflix's latest numbers look good, though profits remain elusive. The kicker is still original content which right... 76443@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ IP Markets and Monopolies 2013-05-29T12:38:26-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/05/17/nintendo_decides_it_can_own_fans_youtube_content.php The games comment sites are a bit buzzed this week as Nintendo has made a very heavy-handed move to claim so-called "monetization" rights on fan-created content. The basic idea is that if someone makes a video of themselves playing a Nintendo game and uploads it to YouTube any ads shown with that video will be of Nintendo's choosing and revenue from it will flow to Nintendo. Ads may appear beside the videos or actually be inserted before and after the video when people go to play it. The problem here is that "Let's Play" style videos are a pervasive form... 76423@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ IP Markets and Monopolies 2013-05-17T16:47:13-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/05/08/while_you_werent_looking_aereo_has_been_busy.php After sending out last month's press release, Aereo expanded its plans to cover another 21 cities by the end of 2013. That earned it the further ire of broadcasters led by CBS who vowed - as I predicted - to sue Aereo wherever it went. Not content simply to play defense, Aereo went back to court in New York and filed suit against CBS and various CBS affiliates. The suit seeks a declaratory judgment that Aereo does not infringe CBS's copyrights, which is what the 2nd Circuit said. The suit is filed in New York in part because that's where... 76398@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ IP Markets and Monopolies 2013-05-08T08:53:02-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/05/03/tor_sees_no_increase_in_illegal_copies_after_one_year_drmfree.php Julie Crisp, Tor's UK Editorial Director, took to their blog to post about some results of their one-year anniversary being DRM-free. The key headline is that removing DRM did not appear to increase the illegal copying of Tor e-book titles. When I posted about this back in December, I noted that we didn't have financial data to support this decision on Macmillan's part. Those data are key, because even though it's clear - and Crisp's column reinforces this - that removing DRM delights both authors and readers - it's still a business. Tor and Macmillan need to continue to make... 76388@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ IP Markets and Monopolies 2013-05-03T09:20:24-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/04/23/who_should_be_using_broadcasttv_spectrum.php "Aereo’s very existence is testimony to the silliness of the status quo" - or so says Felix Salmon in a blog post this week. Salmon joins the lineup of those predicting the death of broadcast TV, a scenario about which I'm not entirely certain. See the analysis by Skip Sauer that I linked to back in January. Using Aereo's odd business model as a jumping-off points, Salmon looks at the reality that what we currently think of as "broadcast" television channels are currently getting more revenue from retransmission fees paid by cable companies than from direct advertising (though he doesn't... 76362@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ IP Markets and Monopolies 2013-04-23T10:26:17-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/04/09/books_on_board_shuttering.php Books on Board, one of the few independent e-book retailers, is closing up shop. The site remains open for people who purchased e-books to download their purchases and then will likely cease operations entirely. BoB was a victim of several things, among them the agency pricing conspiracy of 2011 which shut them out of being able to retail major publishers' titles entirely and then when that was broken up they suffered from not having the deep pockets to compete against outlets like Amazon that have the ability to offer deep discounts (and take losses) despite publishers' insistence on keeping e-book... 76333@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ IP Markets and Monopolies 2013-04-09T11:08:06-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/04/01/redigi_loses_round_one.php After last year refusing to shut down Redigi on the Cartel's say-so, Manhattan District Judge Richard Sullivan has handed a win to Capitol Records on almost all counts. Sullivan's decision (PDF here) is a grant of summary judgment after oral arguments on the motions were heard last October. (thanks to Doug Pardee for the pointer to the decision PDF) Sullivan's ruling appears to rest on his belief that Redigi in fact creates new copies of the digital files, despite its efforts to avoid doing so. Creating a new file would of course be an infringement and thus would not invoke... 76319@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ IP Markets and Monopolies 2013-04-01T17:45:39-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/04/01/aereo_wins_in_the_second.php Somewhat to my surprise, Mike Schroeder of Aereo wrote to me today to let me know that they had won a round at the Second Circuit. Specifically, the Circuit ruled that there was no evidence that the Cartel was likely to prevail at trial which would support a preliminary injunction. This means things move forward on two fronts: without an injunction that would shut it down, Aereo is free to go on building its business. However, as Stelter points out in that Times story, the next step is almost certainly for the studios and networks that wanted the injunction to... 76318@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ IP Markets and Monopolies 2013-04-01T16:59:17-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/03/25/name_your_price_webcomic.php I'm pretty sure I'm indebted to Warren Ellis for this pointer: The Private Eye comic. It's a story-based comic by Marcos Martin (Daredevil, Spiderman, art) and Brian K. Vaughan (Saga, Ex Machina, writing) that is being put out in DRM-free, pay-what-you-think-it's-worth style. You can preview on the site, or direct download the unencumbered files. The creators are quite honest with a simple pitch: you pay us to make this comic and we'll make more. There's no charity or fancy rewards. This makes it much more like NoiseTrade, except for visual artistry. It's refreshing to see more people trying out these... 76301@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ IP Markets and Monopolies 2013-03-25T11:07:46-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/03/19/indian_court_upholds_compulsory_licensing_scheme.php According to a Reuters story earlier this month filed by Anupama Chandrasekaran, an appeals board in India has upheld a scheme permitting a generic local version of a patented anti-cancer drug to be manufactured. The local maker, Natco Pharma, is required to pay the patent owner Bayer AG, a 7% royalty on its sales but will be allowed to continue vastly undercutting Bayer's monopoly prices. Natco's manufacturing is protected under an Indian national compulsory licensing scheme that follows the guidelines set out under TRIPS, a WTO-governed international trade agreement. Bayer has said that it will continue to fight against Natco... 76286@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ IP Markets and Monopolies 2013-03-19T08:30:20-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/03/19/authors_and_used_ebook_panic.php Ever since the announcement that Amazon had been awarded a patent on reselling used electronic goods there's been ongoing consternation from some authors that this will herald some new version of the end of the world. John Scalzi famously declaimed that he'd rather people pirated his books than give more money to Amazon by acquiring legal used copies. Presumably he feels the same way about Apple, which claims to have its own patent on a digital objects marketplace, and ReDigi which - while being sued over its plans for a used MP3 marketplace - has also made noises about applying... 76284@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ IP Markets and Monopolies 2013-03-19T07:28:30-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/03/06/taking_stock_of_the_farmer_v_agribiz_case.php IPWatch blog has a fairly neutral summary up following oral arguments in Monsanto v Bowman. My money has long been on Monsanto in this case, but I don't like that answer. It seems that most of the parties in this case also don't like that answer, and for good and sensible reasons. I was particularly taken by Bowman's lawyer's argument that a finding for Monsanto would elevate patent rights over personal property rights. This is a powerful point and highlights some of the great contradictions we've built up in our current maximalist system. I wonder how my libertarian friends see... 76261@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ IP Markets and Monopolies 2013-03-06T16:06:33-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/02/26/peerjs_disruptive_pricing_secret.php My colleague art medlar sent along an interesting point on the way PeerJ is accomplishing its disruptive pricing. ETA: I am editing this article to correct errors of fact. As always, any mistakes here are my own fault. In a word, they're socializing the cost. The price PeerJ charges you is, in effect, a fee to submit. There's no guarantee that your article will be published, only that by paying the $99 fee you'll get it reviewed. ETA: Peter Binfield, the publisher of PeerJ and Jayson Hoyt, the CEO, have written comments you can read below kindly letting me know... 76240@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ IP Markets and Monopolies 2013-02-26T12:32:47-05:00