IP Laws Found Harmful

Hal Varian (yeah, the guy who wrote your college econ textbook) writes a piece for NYT explaining how having no IP laws has actually been beneficial for the fashion industry. Particularly relevant now as the US hammers China on its "weak" IP protection. Lost in the debate is whether the firms that are clamoring for legislation are actually providing products that are valuable (by that I mean have a good cost to value ratio) to the consumers in China. Most people in Asia are not likely to drop $25 for a DVD when they make a hundred dollars a month - no matter how many laws you pass and how many illegal DVD sniffing dogs you train.

Einstein and Religion

"God does not play dice with the universe."

"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish."

These oft repeated quotes have led people to generally believe that Einstein was a religious man. The truth of the matter is a little more nuanced than that. This article on Time sheds a little more light on his spiritual profile. Couple of very interesting quotes:

"I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."

"The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man."

US Stats on Religion

Newsweek poll results.

Viacom, Google, and Intellectual Property

Viacom's WP editorial on the YouTube lawsuit. Michael Fricklas puts out the standard argument that copyright holders cannot be burdened with policing sites for violations of their property. What piqued my interest in the piece was a section at the end which says "Google and YouTube wouldn't be here if not for investment in software and technologies spurred by patent and copyright laws." This is a dubious claim at best because Google's success is a successful confluence of ideation(the pagerank algorithm), scaling (the massive decentralized infrastructure), and a disruptive business model (free advertiser funded software). Note that Google did not file a patent for their technology and sit back and sue competitors, but rather built an infrastructure and business model that has such tremendous scale that it becomes virtually impossible for others to replicate it. The way that copyright holders and patent trolls are wielding IP and patent laws recently, it is holding back innovation and growth - not fostering them. And I have already blogged about the NYT article on how IP laws unfairly tax the developing nations. And here's Google's response to the article.

Painting Obama

Profile of David Axelrod, a strategist for Obama on NYTMag. Some useful insights into the presidential politics (esp the bit about Hillary towards the end) and a couple of great quotes (What is a good reporter anyways but a writer who is able to distill a story into a few thematic quotes?).

“One of the reasons Bush has succeeded in two elections, is that in his own rough-hewn way he has conveyed a sense of this is who I am, warts and all.”

“So many consultants are fighting the last war, but David is fighting the next one, and that makes him very, very dangerous”

“What David is basically doing — and this is somewhat new for Democrats — isn’t trying to figure out how to sell policies. It’s a matter of personality. How do we sell leadership?”

“I know that there are people who wouldn’t vote for a black candidate, but I don’t know if they would vote for a Democratic candidate anyway. But I think that in a sense Barack is the personification of his own message for this country, that we get past the things that divide us and focus on the things that unite us. He is his own vision.”

Karl Rove helped George Bush win two terms as president by “understanding that every election is a reaction to the last president” and then in 2004 by “figuring out how to make Bush’s stubbornness into a political virtue.”

World Press Photo Award - Outstanding Images

Great shots (esp the resisting settler ). Reminds me of a similar great image from Nepal.

Reverse Foreign Aid

Cheap credit, Intellectual Property and Copyright tithes, and tax holidays for large corporations - the unwitting gifts of third world to the first. (From NYTMag).

The Host

A huge hit in Korea, the Host is getting a limited release in the US, and we watched it last night. While it seemed to be a straightforward horror movie on the surface, somehow I thought there was a lot of messages floating around in the background. Such as

• The unhealthy US influence on Korea


• How family ties transcend individual imperfections


• The gullibility of the Korean government


• The helplessness of individuals in a fascist environment


• Some more servings of evil US influence and propaganda

At some points, the movie is comedic - and some parts in the middle drag on, and the scares are minimal. It was a big success in Korea, so I get the feeling there is a lot of cultural context I missed out on. A good break from the standard American thrillers nevertheless.

Incentive to Piracy (image from flickr)

Funny

The Immigrant Experience

Just watched Mira Nair's The Namesake. This piece is quite different from her previous work - Salaam Bombay and Monsoon Wedding. The Namesake follows an indian immigrant family as they adapt to America. The story is simple (as most lives are), but still touching nonetheless. A little slow in the beginning, the movie becomes coherent towards the end - and so does Kal Penn's performance. Not a seismic event by any means, but still worth watching.

Mixtapes, Creative Commons, and Derivative Arts

In an age where we expect congressmen to parrot industry lines about how draconian copyright laws are necessary and good for society, we now hear a sane voice in washington - amazing. Another article that touches on the mixtape mess and how it is indicative of the problem with IP laws.

Oxley Repentant

Senator Oxley admits that the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation was passed in a hurry, and looking back he would do things differently. And given that laws are easier to pass than repeal, this one's going to continue to hurt US businesses for a while. I know of at least one company that is spending a lot, and jumping through a lot of needless hoops because of Sox: mine.

Advertising Ecosystem

Lengthy treatise from Safa at Piper Jaffray (450 pages!) about the internet advertising industry. As most investment banking papers, its more breadth than depth and has the usual dosage of pontification. Nevertheless, a pretty good intro to someone who is looking for an overview. And it has all kinds of stats and metrics that are pretty useful.

DRM and Economics

Mike at Techdirt tries to use economic thinking to explain why DRM is bad for the economy. The argument is a little hard to follow, but what is abundantly clear is that DRM tries (although not successfully) to take a non-scarce resource and makes it scarce. And as I see it, any business built around that concept is bound to fail.

Sunday Creationists

Doonesbury Hilarity

Protecting the Children

The folks over at Techdirt frequently make fun of legislation meant to "Protect the children". This article explains why their ridicule is justified.

Women Discriminated by ... women?

An article on the Sunday Times points out an interesting flavor of sexism. I believe this is just a specific instance of a more general phenomena - the self discrimination among a minority population. Havent we seen instances of racism where an individual belonging to a particular race or nationality actually try to hold back the rise of others?

The Inverse of Praise

A new Po Bronson article. How children deal with different kinds of praise and how parents might be growing quitters by praising their childrens' intelligence rather than effort. This definitely touches a nerve -- as a child I was frequently cited as a smart kid, and I did withdraw from activities that I was not good at.

Lessig on the Copyright Decision Ruling

Link to Article

Lawrence Lessig comments on the mistakes that led to defeat on the Eldred vs Ashcroft case that would have put some checks in place for the limitlessly expanding copyright terms. Fascinating read (esp for someone like me with no exposure to how the SC works). Interesting contrast between the classroom and the court / the academic and the pragmatic.

Pandora - Musical Genome Project

Looks like the Musical Genome Project actually has been productized now. I remember hearing about them a couple years ago, and thinking that it sounded like a extremely labor intensive project with unclear goals. But Pandora which is derived from the MGP looks like a solid product. You create a station with your favorite artists, and it streams music from other artists/songs that contain the same musical characteristics. It is great because I like listening to music of a certain "mood", and there is no easy way on my ipod to do that. Would be a great acquisition for Yahoo! Media Group - imagine it integrated with the Yahoo! Jukebox.