Is 6.44% of GDP “Useful” Enough?
Yesterday, Tom Bell posted a piece on the Technology Liberation Front blog entitled, "Unconstitutional Copyrights?". Mr. Bell provided a passage from his upcoming book, Intellectual Privilege: A Libertarian View of Copyright, in which he argues that copyright protection for songs, novels, movies, paintings and sculptures, is unconstitutional because these are merely expressive arts and not "useful arts". Bells logical analysis is as follows: The Constitution requires copyright protection when it promotes the progress of science and useful arts. The first [...]
Masnick’s Interesting Take on Microsoft/Yahoo! and What He missed.
TechDirt's Mike Masnick has an interesting post over at Forbes that suggests the Microsoft/Yahoo deal is much ado about nothing:Looking at Yahoo!'s new deal with Microsoft, it looks like it's still fighting that last battle. It's still playing catch-up. It's still looking for search market share, rather than relevance. The search battle is no longer a battle at all. Microsoft may have built a quality search engine in Bing (the reviews are lovely), but for most people, Google is good [...]
MicroHoo! A Quick Regulatory Analysis
Our friend Andrew Noyes over at Tech Daily Dose is asking the most important DC question about today’s Microsoft/Yahoo search agreement: “Will the MicroHoo Raise Eyebrows on the Hill?” Not to mention the DOJ/FTC/European regulators/State AGs… As Andrew notes: “More than eight months after abandoning its planned advertising partnership with Google amid intense scrutiny from Capitol Hill and the Justice Department, Yahoo is joining forces with Microsoft.” Given that Yahoo’s deal with Google compelled the Justice Department to start drafting [...]
Paying for Free: Security, Privacy, and Sustainability Costs for “Free” Software
Braden Cox & Nora von Ingersleben | June 2009 Today's tough economy creates fiscal pressures for state and federal government budgets. Resourceful policymakers are increasingly looking for ways to reduce or at least maximize their information technology (IT) spending, and utilizing free software and services is one possible direction. But what does "free" really mean? Some solutions are "free" in the sense that there is no up front license fees to use the software or online service. Companies often provide or [...]
Microsoft Proposal to the EC Seems to Protect Developers
In May, we submitted our official response to the European Commission’s Statement of Objections regarding Microsoft’s integration of Internet Explorer into the Windows operating system. Our submission focused on the collateral damage that would be inflicted on software developers if Internet Explorer's underlying technology was torn out of Windows. In fact, 74 SMEs from throughout Europe signed onto our submission.On Friday, Microsoft released the details of a proposal it has made the European Commission to resolve issues in the Statement [...]
Unweildy European Patent System Smothering Inventive Small Firms: The Economist
The Economist has a great article on why innovative European companies, particularly small and medium-sized ones, need a single patent office and a unified court system for defending their inventions. The article even quotes a couple of ACT's European members.According to a recent paper, “Lost property: The European patent system and why it doesn’t work”, by Bruno Van Pottelsberghe, a senior research fellow at Bruegel, a think tank, it can cost between four and ten times more to get a [...]