DISQUS

Something tells me McCarthy should have put in a winking emoticon to let us all know she was poking fun at the authors of the study.

A couple of weeks ago I did an end-of-the-year cleanup and got rid of a bunch of app files. It took me an hour or so to root through and delete them. Total disc savings was well under 50 megs. Then I spent an equal amount of time sifting through my iTunes library and whacked about a gig and a half of unused stuff. Most users will get more benefit and far less risk of an "oops" event by confining their pruning to the low-hanging fruit.

I use Analytics for two different sites. Analytics for both reports zero traffic for July 29, and reduced traffic for July 28.

As Mike mentions, they've already lost the DVD battle. But when your business model is under attack and you're unwilling to adopt a new approach, every new distribution technology looks like yet another threat. Based on what the music and movie industries have been doing over the past several years, it seems they've been very good at recruiting risk-oriented lawyers, and very bad at recruiting opportunity-oriented entrepreneurs. All they see is threats, even when there are new opportunities staring them in the face.

Regarding Richard's comment about them knowing that Apple doesn't care if they get ripped off or not, I'm not sure that's correct. Perhaps in the "Rip, Mix, Burn" days Apple was unconcerned, but now that they're the 5th largest music retailer in the US, they may be a lot more wedded to DRM. Something tells me if any company is going to sound the death knell on DRM, it isn't going to be Apple. I would think the content owners would recognize this, but maybe I'm missing the big picture.

I'm just glad there weren't any Adobe documents attached to that blog you just wrote. Well, enough here. Time to go get some money at the ATM machine.

I agree with Mike T. Most adult Americans likely feel like they're always playing catch-up with technology. To kids everything is new, so they take it in stride. However, the underlying basis of computer technology can't just be learned through everyday use. You still have to play with code, read books, take classes, or otherwise immerse yourself in learning. Just because everyone believes that 12 year olds know more about technology than adults do doesn't make it true.

To me this statistic is really about the poor job the high technology industry has done in creating products that not only can be used for daily tasks, but also encourage deeper exploration and power use. I'm taking law school classes with recent college grads, and I'm continuously amazed at how little most of them know about computers. They simply haven't been given any meaninful instruction about the basics of computers or the Internet, and to learn more requires a big investment in time.

Back to the 12 year olds. Jakob Nielsen's latest book on web usability ("Prioritizing Web Usability") mentions that in user tests he has found that children and teenagers are less adept than most people realize. "Teens are much more apprehensive about technology than it might seem," he notes in a brief section called, "Teenagers: Masters of Technology?"

As for members of Congress, I know it's fashionable to assume that Congresscritters are morons, but crafting intelligent technology policy is a radically different task than watching skate videos on YouTube. I like to hope that for every Ted Stevens there's a Zoe Lofgren.

This reminds me of the (supposed) origins of the term "sabotage." Fear of automation and specialization has been around for a long time. There are other things that might be disturbing about having too many robots around; humans ceding too much decisionmaking authority, for example. But having robots do mindless, repetitive tasks seems to militate in favor of pushing human advantages (creative thinking, insight, flexibility, empathy) into the foreground in the workplace. Does anyone really enjoy filling out TPS reports, or pulling fries out of a vat?

I wonder what triggered the spam filter. Thanks for catching it and taking the time to comment back, Tim.

There's an interesting discussion of the issue over at AntitrustProf Blog.

If you buy the notion that it's a good idea to protect boat hull designs, then why not extend protection to fashion? On the other hand, if we protect boat hull designs and dresses, why not patent storylines and plots, or extend copyright to protect a hairdo. Maybe Tyra Banks can gain IP protection for her figure (not just her persona, but her figure). In order to protect himself against infringement, Walter Payton should be able to secure the rights on his running moves, so no NFL rookies will be able to steal from him.

Getting back to reality, protection of industrial designs is not new. The Copyright Office prepared an interesting report about proposed protections for fashion design. They conclude with this:

As stated above, the Office does not yet have sufficient information to make any judgment whether fashion design legislation is desirable. Proponents of legislation have come forward with some anecdotal evidence of harm that fashion designers have suffered as a result of copying of their designs, but we have not yet seen sufficient evidence to be persuaded that there is a need for legislation. We look forward to the Subcommittee's hearing, at which proponents of the legislation will have an opportunity to make their case and at which the voices of other affected parties can be heard.

It is worth noting that the fashion industry has tried to gain IP protection for a long time. They tried the courts, but that didn't work. Cheney Brothers v. Doris Silk Corp. was decided in 1929. As Judge Learned Hand put it in the opinion:

To exclude others from the enjoyment of a chattel is one thing; to prevent any imitation of it, to set up a monopoly in the plan of its structure, gives the author a power over his fellows vastly greater, a power which the Constitution allows only Congress to create...

I find it a bit ironic that a 2003 opinion piece by David Bollier and Laurie Racine made the case that the massive economic success and vibrant creativity of the fashion industry is due to the fact that it is not impeded by IP protections. If the lords of fashion get what they want, in a few years they may find themselves hankering for the bad old days.

I brought up this question with a video game developer friend of mine, and he made an interesting point. In many ways, video games are like office or content creation applications. They're executables, and video and audio files are treated as mere resources files by executables.

While many people pirate applications, it still doesn't seem to be as socially acceptable as p2p filesharing of music and video. Perhaps this is because people perceive applications as requiring more effort on the part of the companies that produces and distributes them.

The perception may be that content producing companies like Time-Warner are simply packaging the effort of artists, while game development requires a huge affort on the part of a multitude of artists and programmers.

Of course, this logic fails in many respects. Just ask the thousands of people who were involved in making The Lord of the Rings movies.

I don't buy the argument that DRM pushed consumers into pirating music. Distribution of ripped MP3s was not a reaction to DRM, it was a reaction to high prices and an outdated distribution model. Perhaps it was also a manifestation of the belief that in cyberspace, laws don't (and shouldn't) apply.