April 30, 2008

IP, Post-Bush

Here's an Adobe PDF version of a talk that Professor Sunder and I just gave before a joint meeting of the American Constitution Society and the Information Society Project.

It characterizes some of the principal elements of a progressive IP agenda, post-Bush, and then examines the IP-related platforms offered by the three leading Presidential candidates.

Download IPPostBush.pdf

Posted by Anupam Chander on April 30, 2008 at 11:20 AM in Digitization | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 29, 2008

Is a Web Site Affiliate "physically present" in New York for tax purposes?

Link: New York State Girds for War With Amazon - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog.

Posted by Anupam Chander on April 29, 2008 at 08:15 PM in Digitization | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 25, 2008

9.5 Theses for Technology Policy

Link: CFP: Technology Policy '08.

Yale's Information Society Project has presented its (our) recommendations for technology policy for the next administration.

It's a powerful statement, produced in a bottom-up manner by the ISP.

The statement has 9.5 theses--and recognizes that it is incomplete. Please critique or expand the list at the Computers Freedom and Privacy website.

Posted by Anupam Chander on April 25, 2008 at 04:50 PM in Digitization | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 23, 2008

Some Universities Oppose Patent Reform

Link: Patent reform tackled before hitting the floor - Chris Frates - Politico.com.

After news spread about the bill moving forward, the president of the University of California dropped a letter to the state’s Democratic senators — Judiciary Committee member Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer — to reinforce concerns the system had shared at the staff level.

Colleges and universities continued to oppose several provisions because they worried they would hurt their ability to license patents for commercial development, said an Association of American Universities official.

Posted by Anupam Chander on April 23, 2008 at 11:22 AM in Digitization | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 18, 2008

Privacy for Your Video History Alone

Link: Blockbuster sued over Facebook ad feature - SiliconValley.com.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - A Texas woman has sued Blockbuster Inc. alleging the video rental company transmitted her personal information to Facebook.com through the Web site's Beacon marketing program.

Cathryn Elaine Harris, of Dallas County, Texas, claims that Beacon, which Facebook launched in November, got information on her movie renting and buying habits from Blockbuster through computer tracking programs without her permission.

In her complaint, filed April 9 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Harris claims that Blockbuster violated the Video Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits a video store from disclosing information about a person's video rentals or purchases.

Posted by Anupam Chander on April 18, 2008 at 07:24 AM in Digitization | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 16, 2008

Protecting the Rights of Corporations to Century Long Royalty Streams

Link: FT.com / Columnists / John Kay - Lennon was right about music and the man.

Yes, of course, the songwriter can sell this longer royalty stream and hope to price the extension, but I suspect that the extra 50 years of protection proposed will heighten sale values substantially for few artists. The greatest benefit will be to the current corporate holders of such works, who will receive a windfall.

Posted by Anupam Chander on April 16, 2008 at 05:31 AM in Digitization | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 15, 2008

Can Apple Prevent You from Loading Its OS X on Your Non-Apple Computer?

Link: AppleInsider | Mac clone maker vows to test Apple on OS X licensing terms.

Psystar Corporation, which this week began selling a series of Mac clone systems without Apple's blessing, is determined to challenge the Mac maker in court over the licensing terms for its Mac OS X operating system.

Speaking to InformationWeek, a Psystar employee identified only as Robert said his company sees Apple's end-user license agreement, which prohibits third-party installations of Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware, as a violation of antitrust laws.

"What if Microsoft said you could only install Windows on Dell computers?," he said. "What if Honda said that, after you buy their car, you could only drive it on the roads they said you could?"

As such, the Psystar representative implied that the company is eager to bring the matter before a court, where it believes Apple will have a tough time defending its stringent licensing terms.

As part of its defense, the Miami-based reseller also appears to be accusing Apple of price gouging its customers with each Mac OS X-based computer it sells.

"They're charging an 80 percent markup on hardware," Robert told InformationWeek.

He said Psystar plans to continue selling its $400 OpenMac clone and insisted that the company isn't "breaking any laws."

Ironically, Psystar on Monday evening changed the name of its offering from "OpenMac" to "Open Computer," presumably to avoid charges that it was indeed violating trademark law.

Posted by Anupam Chander on April 15, 2008 at 05:28 PM in Digitization | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A Little Bit of the Ottoman Empire in California Tax Returns

Link: Mavi Boncuk: Ottoman Turkish Empire Settlement Payments.

The California tax code exempts settlement payments received (presumably from Turkey [correction: see note below]) as a result of persecution under the Ottoman empire:

Ottoman Turkish Empire. If you received settlement payments as a person persecuted by the regime that was in control of the Ottoman Turkish Empire from 1915 until 1923, your gross income does not include those excludable settlement payments, or interest, received by you, your heirs, or estate for payments received on or after January 1, 2005.

UPDATE: It appears that the settlement payments may actually be made by a life insurance company:

The descendants of some 1.5 million Armenians who were killed nearly 90 years ago in the Turkish Ottoman Empire will share in a $20 million settlement of a lawsuit for unpaid life insurance benefits.

The settlement with New York Life Insurance Co. announced Wednesday will help bring justice to survivors of those killed during "a deliberate, systematic and government-controlled genocide that began in April 1915," said state Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, who helped negotiate the agreement.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/29/national/main596570.shtml

Posted by Anupam Chander on April 15, 2008 at 06:11 AM in Globalization | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 09, 2008

U.S. Justice Department Easy on Corporate Wrongdoing; South Korea, Not So Much

Link: In Justice Shift, Corporate Deals Replace Trials - New York Times.

In 2005, federal authorities concluded that a Monsanto consultant had visited the home of an Indonesian official and, with the approval of a senior company executive, handed over an envelope stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. The money was meant as a bribe to win looser environmental regulations for Monsanto’s cotton crops, according to a court document. Monsanto was also caught concealing the bribe with fake invoices.

A few years earlier, in the age of Enron, these kinds of charges would probably have resulted in a criminal indictment. Instead, Monsanto was allowed to pay $1 million and avoid criminal prosecution by entering into a monitoring agreement with the Justice Department.

In a major shift of policy, the Justice Department, once known for taking down giant corporations, including the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, has put off prosecuting more than 50 companies suspected of wrongdoing over the last three years.

Instead, many companies, from boutique outfits to immense corporations like American Express, have avoided the cost and stigma of defending themselves against criminal charges with a so-called deferred prosecution agreement, which allows the government to collect fines and appoint an outside monitor to impose internal reforms without going through a trial. In many cases, the name of the monitor and the details of the agreement are kept secret.

Contrast South Korea's treatment of Samsung officials, also accused of corruption:

Samsung Chief Questioned for 11 Hours

By  KELLY OLSEN  –  4 days ago

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Special prosecutors probing claims of corruption at Samsung Group took their investigation to the very top, quizzing its chairman in a lengthy interrogation over allegations the conglomerate paid bribes and engaged in other illegalities.

Lee Kun-hee, who has run South Korea's biggest industrial group for two decades, emerged early Saturday after nearly 11 hours spent in the office of the independent counsel examining the claims raised last year by a former Samsung lawyer.

Surrounded by a throng of waiting reporters, the 66-year-old tycoon appeared to backtrack from the strong denials he made Friday afternoon upon arrival for questioning, when he said he had nothing to do with either directing the setting up of a slush fund or ordering the payment of bribes.

"This is all due to my carelessness," Lee said. "I am responsible for everything and must take responsibility."

Posted by Anupam Chander on April 9, 2008 at 06:54 AM in Globalization | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 06, 2008

Mattel Offers Its Own "Scrabulous," Minus the Fabulous Part

Link: Scrabble Tries to Fight a Popular Impostor at Its Own Game - New York Times.

The case raises a number of wonderful theoretical questions:

It raises the issue raised in the French Yahoo experts report that led to disagreement among the experts (with Vint Cerf dissenting): whether individuals who want certain access in cyberspace are likely to volunteer information that will lead to that access being denied:

In recent weeks, Gamehouse, a division of RealNetworks, introduced “Scrabble by Mattel” on the social networking site Facebook. The game, an online version of Scrabble, is technically available only to players outside the United States and Canada, though it relies on users to be honest about their location to make that distinction.

That issue raises of course the question (if one does not believe that it is likely that users will honestly self-report) as to whether Mattel is violating Hasbro's U.S/Canadian trademark to "Scrabble."

The dispute even includes a sort-of anti-commons problem:

The rights to Scrabble are owned by multiple and competing companies, a situation that seems to be hobbling the game’s introduction to Facebook and other social networking sites, and complicating negotiations with the creators of Scrabulous.

As of Sunday, the official Scrabble game had attracted fewer than 2,000 daily Facebook users, in contrast to more than 600,000 on Scrabulous.

Facebook Scrabble takes a long time to load, does not always quickly update to show recent moves, and the words the game will accept do not reflect standard Scrabble dictionaries, or even the English language. In a recent game, for example, Scrabble by Mattel accepted "feen" and "ami" but not "zen." There is no way to challenge opponents’ moves at this time.

Posted by Anupam Chander on April 6, 2008 at 08:36 PM in Digitization | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack