David Pogue posts responses to his earlier post on the results of his survey of the responses of the young to copyright protection link here and here. The comments again make the point that the young think they don't need to obey copyright restrictions, particularly since they are so complex that most people can't figure out when they are violating them. They also understand that the artists can make money by other means that CDs, like live performances, and that the prices charged by the record companies are grossly high.

Brad DeLong posted this today and it is fitting link here:

(Ooops--it seems to have disappeared, but I copied and put the URL and time of day when it was posted at the end, so it must have been there)

Perhaps the Best Argument for the Destruction of the Music Companies Ever Made

DymaxionWorldJohn

Cogitamus: The Music Industry's talking points: "Hey, we're obsolete.": via Matt, the RIAA gives consumers holiday advice:

Watch for Compilations that are "Too Good to Be True": Many pirates make "dream compilation" CDs, comprised of songs by numerous artists on different record labels who would not likely appear on the same legitimate album together.

So, if you see an album with all of your favourite artists on it, performing the songs you love, for the love of God don't buy it -- it's probably pirated!

, this is their press release. And in it, they explicitly state that pirates are putting together products that people want more than the legitimate variety. This, of course, is why teenagers should be sued in to penury, rather than something as revolutionary as the music industry putting together its own compilations that people want to buy.

Source: Grasping Reality with Both Hands: Economist Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal Address : http://delong.typepad.com/ Date Visited: Tue Dec 25 2007 12:09:56 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time)

Patent Troll still anonymous provides a rundown on patent suits for the year against large companies like Microsoft. He then summarizes the situation thusly, "Before I give the list, my conclusions: patent litigation is out of control. Out of the top third of the companies in the Fortune 100 sued for patent infringement over the last two years (plus adding in Apple and Google), these 35 companies were sued 500 times in that two-year period! That's an average of over 14 times per company."

For more details, go to the Tracker's website for Dec 21 2007 link here.

David Pogue ends his latest blog posting, saying "I do know, though, that the TV, movie and record companies' problems have only just begun link here. Right now, the customers who can't even *see* why file sharing might be wrong are still young. But 10, 20, 30 years from now, that crowd will be *everybody*. What will happen then?" His piece is an extended survey of various audiences, using a range of hypothetical situations involving copyright violations, ending with the question, how many in the audience see that practice as wrong. Very few of them do.

I speculate that economics teaching has succeeded in persuading most people that monopoly is wrong and that charging more than the marginal cost for an item is a violation of the free market.

Know hope!!!

For some years now, we have seen the term of copyright protection extended in country after country. The latest to join this move has been South Korea, where the "copyright period for royalty payments will be extended to 70 years from the current 50 years after the original copyright holder dies, as a step to meet the requirements of the 'provisional' free trade agreement (FTA) between South Korea and the United States link here."

It is probably the case that few in South Korea opposed the copyright change, though publishers have complained about increased cost and complexity. To buy them off, the government has promised 160 billion won ($173 million) in aid. There remains considerable opposition to the overall FTA as a surrender of Korean sovereignty and a loss of competitiveness against the economic giant of the West. The strongest opposition is generated by farm groups who do not want to give up protection for their high priced farm sector.

Passage of the FTA remains problematic in both the US Congress and the Korean National Assembly. It will be interesting to see how the just elected conservative Grand National Party presidential candidate, Lee Myung Bak, handles the matter; he is generally thought to be pro-business and was elected on a pledge to get the economy growing faster. If the FTA is not approved, it is unclear whether the copyright extension will remain.

I didn't mention in my earlier post on the Patent Troll Tracker, but its author(s) remain(s) anonymous link here. A well-known patent attorney on the other side of the troll issue has offered a $5000 reward for the Tracker's identity and recently raised it to $10,000. The Tracker is clearly having some success in getting under the Troll's skin. But legally, as Techdirt's Mike Masnick points out, the Tracker has a legal right to remain anonymous. It undoubtedly makes his research easier.

I recently mentioned the patent troll site link here. To give you a sample of its work, here is a paragraph posted today on patent suits filed and the number brought by trolls:

"Here are the cumulative statistics for the first 11 months of 2007, comparing the various districts. Note that I got an email from someone who had numbers run independently, and I am told I have undercounted the number of cases by X and the number of defendants in EDTX by Y. As I said above, this is really a judgment call. I may not have counted all of the bifurcated Judge Clark cases while someone else may have. Either way, even if my numbers are low, they are astoundingly high compared to history:

"ED Texas: 343 patent cases, 1,320 defendants sued (140 troll cases)

CD California: 251 patent cases, 647 defendants sued (17 troll cases)

D New Jersey: 176 patent cases, 329 defendants sued (13 troll cases)

D Delaware: 128 patent cases, 310 defendants sued (16 troll cases)

ND California: 127 patent cases, 240 defendants sued (19 troll cases)

ND Illinois: 125 patent cases, 231 defendants sued (23 troll cases)

SD New York: 95 patent cases, 244 defendants sued (13 troll cases)"

Noam Cohen writes in the NYTimes today about the love-hate relationship between publications and the search engines link here. Some of the publications want to be paid for the use of their texts. At the same time, they exploit the search engines, trying the jigger the search results so that they come up high on the list of sites identified and the sites get more traffic and respect and ultimately, more money. Having given up on fee-based web content, they clearly would like a cut of the search engine advertising revenue.

Cohen moves on to the Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP) which is supposed to replace the currently used robots.txt protocol (RTP). To an outsider, that seems quite flexible and restrictive as matters stand since it is already voluntarily accepted by the search engines. The search engines using RTP agree to be excluded from all or part of a web site. Reading between the lines, the ACAP advocates will want to exclude access for any search engine not paying up.

It is not clear how much clout the ACAP has. Its members, principally European, notably include AFP and AP and several book publishers but none of the large American or European papers as best as can be told from the ACAP website link here. They would like you to believe that their only interest is to benefit the consumer and they are coy about what their protocol would actually do, other than to apply "metadata to data."

Where "fair use" plays in all this is not clear, but be suspicious. Expect an attack in Congress to try to impose the ACAP on search engines, an ACAP with real teeth.

We have all been painfully aware of patent trolls, those monopolists who exploit their possession of patents, often of questionable validity, to extract money from users who find it more attractive to pay off the "owner" than to challenge him in court. They now have their own website providing a running record of the damage they impose. Trolltracker link.

Great news. Have a look.

Economist magazine has a great story on Larry Lessig and his attack on copyright extensions link here. Because the article is open, I will not try to summarize it. But the subhead conveys the essence of what Lessig is up to: "Copyrights will not expire so long as Congress is free to be bought to extend them again."

His approach is refreshing. He doesn't oppose copyright but rests his case on the constitution which allows a monopoly limited in time. He argues that in practice there is no limit. Since his appeal to the courts failed to get one, he has chosen the political route, to force legislators to enact one.