Posts filed under 'intellectual property'
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August 27th, 2008, 01:51pm
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The combination of Ning and WidgetLaboratory (WL) was a story that had wikinomics written all over it. The former is a platform that enables anyone to create their own social networks focused on anything they want, and they actively encouraged individuals and companies to innovate on top of the platform and make it even better. WL did just that, and in a big way - they sold a number of widgets (for around $30 / month) tied to the Ning platform, supporting somewhere in the range of 2,000 networks and 1,000,000 individuals. WL was the most popular widget creator on the platform.
If I was writing this post a week ago, it probably would have been a feel good story about wikinomics, but the wheels have recently fallen off the proverbial bus. This is a development equally worthy of exploring in relation to the challenges that come with embracing wikinomics principles - and particularly those that emerge when you only embrace a few of them. Of greatest interest to me - if more stories keep popping up like this, it could be a dramatic blow to more open, collaborative innovation processes. That would be a shame.
TechCrunch picked up the story on August 22nd, when Ning suddenly removed all of the WL widgets, without warning to anyone, from their network. This decision which clearly angered the company, as well as the thousands of customers who had spent time and money with WL in order to optimize their offerings. Based on the emails that WL has published on the web, this is the gist of Ning’s complaint:
Over the past few months, WidgetLaboratory’s applications have caused multiple and significant technical degradations to the Ning Platform. In point of fact, your code has broken numerous times and has negatively affected a large number of Networks in addition to the Ning Platform.
Read More »
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August 18th, 2008, 10:31pm
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I suppose it was only a matter of time before something like this came along and I have been anxiously waiting to see how this one pans out. Launched in July, on seemingly razor-thin legal ice, it appears that beta site mygazines is still alive and kicking (not to mention enjoying the spotlight gained from a widespread AP news release).
The site provides member-scanned full digital copies of magazines, which can be browsed, shared, archived and even re-assembled to create aptly-named “mygazines”. The site is hosted by Stokholm-based PRQ, “the world’s least lawyer-friendly hosting company“, which is also host to (and owned by two founders of) well-known bittorrent tracker, The Pirate Bay.
Interestingly, the site tour appears to be targeted at publishers, pitching itself as multi-faceted growth opportunity, but most industry leaders asked aren’t exactly jumping at the “opportunity”.
- Our article-level search and archiving ability allows your audience to find the content they’re looking for faster
- Increase your distribution and advertising revenue by exposing your publication to more eyes
- Keep control of your publication: Mygazines will not allow for downloading or printing of your publication. Your original source file is never accessible.
- Save the trees - no paper will be used in the making of your virtual publication
It’s absolutely free! Read More »
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August 11th, 2008, 07:20pm
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Late last week, newly-famed MIT students Zack Anderson, R.J. Ryan and Alessandro Chiesa were court-ordered to cancel their Sunday presentation entitled “Anatomy of a Subway Hack” at DEF CON , the world’s largest hacker conference. The banned presentation highlighted security weaknesses in the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s fare system that would potentially allow enterprising individuals with the appropriate technology and process (as intricately outlined in the presentation) to add monetary value to their existing CharlieCard or CharlieTicket to receive free transportation.
The injunction has ignited a debate over the ruling’s merit, which names each of the students as well as MIT in the temporary restraining order. The MBTA has taken issue with the fact that the “students offered to show others how to use the hacks before giving the transit system a chance to fix the flaws”, while the students’ representative from the Electronics Frontier Foundation (EFF) says “the students were simply trying to share their research and planned to omit key information that would make things easier for anyone who actually wanted to hack the payment system.”
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July 14th, 2008, 12:31am
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Whether you’re a regular reader, or just pop in occasionally, it’s not always easy to keep up with our Wikinomics blog content. With this in mind, we have created the Wikinomics Roundup: Week in Review, to try and capture in brief, some of the thoughts, discoveries, and discussions that graced the blog from the past week.
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July 8th, 2008, 12:17pm
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Interesting story in the Wall St. Journal about language training company Rosetta Stone suing a competitor who has bought Google Ad words that encourage users to visit sites such as “Don’t Buy Rosetta Software,” and “Rosetta Spanish a Scam?”
From the article:
some of Google’s biggest advertisers are growing angry over “piggybacking,” a practice in which smaller advertisers use the trademarked words of big brands in the text of search ads to divert traffic from the sites of bigger advertisers to their own sites.
Now Rosetta Stone — the company that runs print ads about a small-town boy who must learn Italian in time to impress a model — is taking its gripe to court. But rather than going after Google, Rosetta Stone is suing Rocket Languages (and others), the company that it claims is “piggybacking” its Internet advertising on Rosetta Stone’s name.
In a complaint filed in California federal court, Rosetta Stone alleges that members of an advertising program affiliated with Rocket Languages purchase and use, without authorization, the Rosetta Stone trademark, or confusingly similar variations. Rosetta Stone also alleges that affiliates of Rocket Languages use their Web sites to post “comparison reviews” of Rosetta Stone products and competing foreign language software products, without disclosing that the sources of the reviews are paid by Rocket Languages.
Being clever with Google adwords is one thing, but piggybacking in this manner (including fake reviews and calling your competitor’s product a scam) is beyond the ethical line. Rosetta Stone pays a lot for traditional advertising (full page ads in major magazines), kiosks in airports etc. Rocket Languages, in effect, gets auxilliary benefit from these expenditures because it creates demand for the whole market. Not happy with that, they are launching sneaky attacks.
Wikinomics blog readers, what are you thoughts? Is all fair in (Adwords) love and war?
By the way, the Wikipedia entry for the actual Rosetta Stone is quite well written.
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June 23rd, 2008, 09:02am
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Last week, YouTube introduced Screening Room: a program that broadcasts independent films on YouTube and gives their creators a majority share of the ad revenue generated. This is a fantastic idea, and one that I believe will be central to the 21st century business model for media. I am anxious to see what the Wikinomics community has to say about this, but let me share a few of my observations.
YouTube plays the role of editor in the new program, selecting films from a pool of applicants. An interesting role for them to adopt, but one I am guessing they will abandon in due course by providing revenue sharing to all their content providers (or at least those who attain a sufficient audience).
Its interesting that this program is being rolled out with independent films and not mainstream TV and movies. I’m curious to know the reasons behind that. But what’s so crazy is that it means that its easier and cheaper (and more legal in many cases) for me to watch an independent movie from Norway (one of the films currently featured) than anything the major studios are creating. Could this be another nail in the coffin for the “established” content providers?
So what do you think? What does YouTube’s Screening Room signify in our evolving media environment?
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June 17th, 2008, 05:31am
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Here’s an interesting little story from TorrentFreak - when Mr. Suitcase published an album last year, he started receiving payments from Stim (the Swedish Performing Rights Society), which is funded via a tax on all recordable media in Sweden. This is often referred to as the “Pirate Tax”, as it is designed to compensate artists for having their creative output “stolen” in various ways. To quote Mr. Suitcase on how he responded:
“First, I got a bit put off by receiving the money because to me, that kind of arbitrary hand-out of alms is a ridiculous system. Then I thought, why not see it as an opportunity and earmark the money for something creative. And since the money came from piracy, I had to use it for more piracy, right?”
So he created a new album, fully funded by the tax, by using other people’s music and putting it through some old effects boxes he acquired. In turn, the end result is what some might call a pirated mash-up album, fully funded by an anti piracy tax. I’m sure not everyone would agree with his approach, but one (or at least I) have to love the mindset he took to get there:
“To me, ‘Frauds’ is a statement. There’s so much negativity in the debate. ‘File sharing means artists can’t…’, ‘File sharing means nobody will ever…’ I think it’s the opposite, I think the beautiful aspect of the digital era is that anything recorded can be remixed, tweaked and modified.”
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June 16th, 2008, 12:21pm
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David Meyer has posted an interesting story on ZDNet, where Dr. Ari Jaaksi (Nokia’s VP of software) argues that open source developers targeting the mobile space need to learn business rules - including DRM. Here are a few of his relevant quotes:
“There are certain business rules [developers] need to obey, such as DRM, IPR [intellectual property rights], SIM locks and subsidised business models.”
“Why do we need closed vehicles? We do. Some of these things harm the industry but they’re here [as things stand]. These are touchy, emotional issues, but this dialogue is very much needed. As an industry, we plan to use open-source technologies, but we are not yet ready to play by the rules; but this needs to work the other way round too.”
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June 12th, 2008, 01:48pm
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Those of us who make predictions about the future can often run into a particularly frustrating problem – being right, but being right too early. This is something I’ve been through a few times, particularly with the Naked Corporation – I thought, and continue to think, that it’s a great book about the future of the enterprise and transparency, but when it was published in 2003 it never really gained the traction I hoped for. Fast forward to 2007 – while I was particularly happy about how well Wikinomics was (and continues to be) received, when I saw this cover of Wired Magazine that came out around the same time… let’s just say I couldn’t help but wonder how the Naked Corporation would have fared if the timing worked out better.
Such issues of timing and prediction underlie Paul Krugman’s excellent Op-Ed piece in the NY Times called “Bits, Bands, and Books”. He opens by quickly recapping the technology bubble of the late 1990s, the inevitable collapse, and then jumps to the recent oil and food shocks that have reminded us we still live in a “material world.” But it’s what he says next that is most important:
So much, then, for the digital revolution? Not so fast. The predictions of ’90s technology gurus are coming true more slowly than enthusiasts expected — but the future they envisioned is still on the march.
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May 29th, 2008, 06:15pm
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Proposed details of ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), a treaty being negotiated between a number of international partners including the US, Canada, and the European Union to help fight intellectual property theft, were leaked last Thursday via Wiki Leaks.
Highlights from the Orwellian document include:
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May 28th, 2008, 02:51pm
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Kevin Kelly is covering a story about how Japanese comic book (called manga) companies are embracing fan created content (known as dojinshi) :
Dojinshi often feature copyrighted characters and material; amateur writers riff on established works, remixing the plots and characters, and creating new storylines (for instance a series called BLEACH centers around the chaste relationship of the main characters, but dojinshi versions feature the characters hooking up). How do fans repurpose copyrighted material without drawing legal fire? Via an unwritten, implicit agreement between dojinshi writers and established media companies, what Pink refers to as “anmoku no ryokai” (literally: “agreement or understanding”).
I’m not a big fan of comics, either North American or Japanese, but this strikes me as a much more enlightened relationship between media companies and fans. (Though, from what I gather, these dojinshi are pretty racy and feature characters doing things ..er.. outside of their normal realm of activities — kudos to the manga companies for being so tolerant.) It would be great if instead of slapping YouTube users with c&d’s for remixing their content, media companies just silently paid attention, then picked the best content to develop for larger use. Maybe some day!
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April 14th, 2008, 06:39pm
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It can be argued that fashion is one of the most innovative industries in the world. New styles come out four times a year and stores such as Zara and Forever 21 can design, produce and distribute a new garment in as little as 15 days. However, unlike many other creative industries, fashion designers have had very little intellectual property protection. Although this may be disputed by our friends in the music industry, it seems that the lack of IP protection may have actually increased the pace of innovation as opposed to ruining the industry altogether.
However, this may all change. A growing number of designers are placing trademarks and patents on their designs in an attempt to keep competitors from copying their work. An anti-piracy bill, called the Design Piracy Prohibition Act, has also been proposed to curtail fashion retailers from selling rebranded versions of high end products.
This seems like a step in the wrong direction. A low priced, rebranded copy of a garment or a purse is a compliment to the designer’s ingenuity. Making styles and fashions more accessible to the average person drives the designer’s popularity. After all, not everyone can afford a Hermès bag, but seeing many similar ones on the street may entice those who have the means to buy the original. Even knockoffs, which are illegal, may help rise the popularity of a certain style. After all, who heard of Luis Vuitton before replicas of the company’s purses became mainstream. In the end, designers should stick to what has worked best for them throughout the years – new ideas and rapid innovation. The surest way of staying ahead.
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April 3rd, 2008, 12:26am
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It was looking like a good week for wikinomics in terms of digital content - EMI headhunted Douglas Merrill, the CIO of Google, which a few years ago would have seemed as likely as Exxon headhunting David Suzuki. When the hiring was announced Douglas Merrill said “I have two passions. One is creating platforms and tools that make it easier for consumers to achieve their goals. The other is music.” If you mash up a decent platform with music… well let’s just say I like where this is going. Maybe, just maybe the music industry is really, finally heading in the right direction - and just in time, because if this article (Internet Piracy will drive authors to stop writing) is any indication some people in the book publishing industry are getting set to take their place.
Now the very notion that Internet book piracy will drive authors to stop writing seems patendly absurd. Read More »
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March 24th, 2008, 09:28am
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In order to combat automated robots and other forms of cheating, World of Warcraft comes bundled with a rootkit (which has since been named Warden) that monitors your computer for signs of “suspicious” activity contrary to their EULA (End User License Agreement).Greg Hoglund first identified Warden in October 2005, a rootkit installed by World of Warcraft that monitors your machine every 15 seconds to identify programs that are attempting to hack or interfere with the operation of WoW that would be against the EULA (bots, unauthorized interface hacks, etc). The rootkit acts similar to spyware, and according to Hoglund:
“Besides Monitoring the WoW process space and keeping track of DLLs running in that space, the Warden pokes around into other processes, doing things like reading the window text in the title bar of every window and doing a scan of the code loaded for every process running on your computer (which it then compares against known cheat code).”
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March 18th, 2008, 02:31pm
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In 2006 my colleague (Deepak Ramachandran) and I did a piece of research entitled Competing with the Asian Business Revolutionaries as the move up and out. The key idea then, as it is now, is that while many Asian upstarts (particularly in China and India) were growing rapidly by mimicing what U.S. competitors were doing while capitalizing on their lower cost structures, increasingly we were seeing signs of true innovation starting to emerge. Hon Hai and ICICI bank were among the earliest examples, there have been many more since, and it is these companies that the “old guard” really has to worry about.
Forbes published an interview with Rebecca Fannin today that delves into this exact topic with an acute focus on China, promoting her new book Silicon Dragon: How China is winning the tech race. In it, she argues that companies like Baidu and Alibaba foreshadow a new generation of Chinese start-ups that have moved beyond imitation and are competing based on new, home grown ideas and innovations. A few of the companies she highlights are Pingco (mobile messaging), Maxthon (browser), Oriental Wisdom (mobile financial services), and Lingtu (digital maps).
However, it is her other commentary that is the most interesting. Read More »
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March 7th, 2008, 11:33am
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So, you thought stealing music was bad…
The very unfortunate John Sullivan was executed in for stealing intellectual property - a forged bank note worth about $1. Sure the news is about 200 years late (Sullivan’s execution occurred in 1798), but given that this occurred just two blocks from our office (where the plaque pictured below stands) I thought it’d be interesting to share. Read More »
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February 25th, 2008, 12:43am
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Although there are many things China can learn from its North American counterpart in this new world economy, there’s at least one thing North Americans can learn from the Chinese.
China has developed a reputation for bootleg products (CD’s, DVDs, software etc.). So here’s a crazy thought, instead of refusing to change and opting to take measures such as suing their customers, or coming up with crazy DRM policies…. the Chinese music industry is – adapting. Albeit, not by choice, Chinese record companies have given up trying to fight piracy like their European and American counterparts and instead, are looking at different business models.
Read More »
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January 31st, 2008, 12:24pm
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I recently had the pleasure of stumbling across this movie on the internet. A little behind the ball on this one, Good Copy Bad Copy is a documentary originally created for the Danish National Broadcasting Television network that was eventually released for free on the internet in 2007. It first appeared on The Pirate Bay and then was officially released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license.
GCBC is a insightful documentary about copyright and culture in the context of Internet, and is directed by independent Danish directors Andreas Johnsen, Ralf Christensen, and Henrik Moltke. The film goes around the world, showing the changing attitudes toward art and culture in Nigeria, Sweden, Brazil, the UK, and in the US. It features interviews with many people with various perspectives on copyright, including copyright lawyers such as Lawrence Lessig from Creative Commons, Tiamo and Anakata from The Pirate Bay, music producers, and controversial music artists such as Girl Talk and Danger Mouse who, as we all know, created the Grey Album by mixing The Beatles’ White Album with Jay-Z’s Black Album.
Even MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) CEO Dan Glickman makes an appearance. He briefly comments on the MPAA’s involvement with the raid on The Pirate Bay. Glickman states that although he knows piracy will never be stopped, they will try to make it as difficult and tedious as possible.
Amongst the most interesting segments include a trip to Russia to look at the rampant bootlegging that occurs there, the perspectives of the Nigerian film industry and the Techno Brega musical movement in Brazil, which has been using a business model for years that was originally considered to be pioneered by The Pixies, Metallica, and Phish back in 2004.
What becomes obvious progressively throughout the film is the death of the current business models used by the record industry and the lack of control which is becoming more prevalent in the current consumerist climate. The old vanguards are fighting to retain their revenue while people are endlessly re-using and recycling copyrighted material in order to create new art-forms.
I would highly recommend this light-hearted and neutral account of the current state of copyright to anyone. The link to download GCBC can be found here. Feel free to donate something to the makers of the documentary if you enjoy watching it.
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January 30th, 2008, 01:01am
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Oddly enough, the RIAA has never sponsored any of our research programs. Who knows why? Perhaps it’s posts like this, this, this, this, this, and this. Trust me; when we use terms like “house of cards”, we mean that in the most positive possible light.
A couple of items piqued my interest this week. This article describes how, for the first time, weekly album sales have fallen below 7 million and the #1 album by Alicia Keys has the second lowest sales for a top album in history. If I moved next week to Pitcairn Island, I might well be the best hockey player in town. Doesn’t mean that I have a decent wrist shot.
A more distressing article appeared in the Economist (and received wide play on the blogosphere) that discussed how free CDs do not appear to be a good enought deal. From the article:
… EMI, the world’s fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free. “That was the moment we realised the game was completely up,” says a person who was there.
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January 15th, 2008, 02:07pm
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As reported yesterday, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and IBM (the leading earner of US patents for the past fifteen years) are partnering with Nokia, Pitney Bowes and Sony to release a portfolio of dozens of innovative and environmentally responsible patents to the public domain. This portfolio of IP is entitled the “Eco-Patent Commons” and is available on a website hosted by the WBCSD.
According to the WBCSD, the patents are searchable by anyone through a search engine on their website and global participation from businesses in diverse industry sectors are welcome. It will be fed with initial and subsequent patent pledges by companies that become members of the Commons. Through the Commons, the patents will be made available for free use by all, subject to defensive termination.
The objectives of the Eco-Patent Commons:
- To provide an avenue by which innovations and solutions may be easily shared to accelerate and facilitate implementations to protect the environment and perhaps lead to further innovation.
- To promote and encourage cooperation and collaboration between businesses that pledge patents and potential users to foster further joint innovations and the advancement and development of solutions that benefit the environment.
Examples of environmental benefits patented inventions may provide:
- Energy conservation or efficiency
- Pollution prevention (source reduction, waste reduction)
- Use of environmentally preferable materials or substances
- Materials reduction
- Increased recycling ability
It is fantastic to see big business making such great strides to help the environment. Not only will these patents help the public domain to share economical and environmentally sustainable practices directly, but the concepts and specific information in these patents could inspire others for formulate new ideas and methodologies for other products and services.
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