Another interesting link from Jeffrey Racine...first an email response he received

From: Mihkel S. - Skype support To: racinej@mcmaster.ca Subject: Re: MA002: Skype on ipod touch in Canada??? <<#2340203-3458322#>> Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:14:29 GMT (12:14 EDT)

Hello Jeff,

Thank you for contacting Skype Support.

We apologize for the inconvenience you've experienced while trying to download Skype for iPhone. Unfortunately, the Skype for iPhone application is not available for use in Canada at this time. There is an ambiguous restriction in one of the standards-based technology licenses, and we are looking into it. The issue is not related to Apple, nor is it specific to Skype.

Once again, we apologize for this inconvenience and would like to assure you that we are working with the regulators to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

Thank you for your understanding and we hope you enjoy using Skype on your iPhone in the nearest future.

Best regards,

Mihkel S. Skype support

More details here

Shocked, shocked to hear that Of Mice and Academics: Examining the Effect of Openness on Innovation by Fiona Murray, Philippe Aghion, Mathias Dewatripont, Julian Kolev, Scott Stern #14819 (EFG).

(hattip Jeff Racine) MIT is aggressively taking on the commercial academic publishers with a new open access policy for publication by MIT faculty. This seems to be pretty formidable

each Faculty member grants to MIT a nonexclusive, irrevocable, paid-up, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of his or her scholarly articles, in any medium, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit, and to authorize others to do the same. The policy will apply to all scholarly articles written while the person is a member of the Faculty except for any articles completed before the adoption of this policy and any articles for which the Faculty member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy. The Provost or Provost's designate will waive application of the policy for a particular article upon written notification by the author, who informs MIT of the reason.

And since when is any vote of any faculty unanimous?

You can also find an article about this on Ars Technica

Now the rest of us need to get to work imitating the innovator.

Just a quick link...an article on SHRM on our book with some additional comments by Michele and me. As you can plainly see we are now business leaders.

Jim Griffin who has tried for many years to migrate the music industry to a mandatory licensing scheme has received backing from Warner for a plan called Choruss. Mike Masnick is skeptical of the details; Griffin for some reason has responded on private forums rather than public. The "interchange" the two is interesting - you can read about it on Mike Masnick's blog.

Thanks to Glenn Kerbein of the Pirate Party for pointing this one out:

I'm guessing that these guys don't file a lot of copyright and patent lawsuits. Funny how despite the lack of patents and copyright there is so much innovation in malware.

From the abstract of Words Matter: Economics & A Literal Reading of Mars, American Seating, and Monsanto-Ralph by David Blackburn and Phillip A. Beutel of NERA Economic Consulting:

Because of their sometimes straightforward and plain language, these cases threaten to create potholes along the road to rational and appropriate damage awards.

At a guess that means "less money than we'd like to squeeze out of people that work for a living."

The short version

The long version

The really long version

The not so long version of the really long version

No I'm not talking about Bernie Madoff suing the people who invested with him...I'm talking about the RIAA. The story is here. I've warned repeatedly that the "media" industry - a pipsqueak little industry not even the size of the IBM Corporation, and controlling a grand 10% of the entertainment market - is the tail wagging the dog. Why? Because they threaten innovation in all industries. Their theory basically is: we want money, someone should give it to us. Unfortunately they have enough money to purchase Congress and the Supreme Court.