Into Tech

Earlier this year, we wrote about how some research journals so hated the legal requirement that NIH-funded research be published openly in PubMed one year after published in a journal, that they were putting a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080729/0206121824.shtml”ridiculous hurdles/a in the way of researchers. The whole thing is actually a bit sickening. The NIH funds nearly $30 billion in research every year, using taxpayer money to pay for basic research, and these journals get free labor (researchers don’t get paid by the journal, peer reviewers don’t get paid by the journal) and then get ipaid/i to take the copyright away from the researcher (yes, the researcher has to hand over the copyright and still pay the journal for the privilege of publishing the content). This is a complete appropriation of taxpayer funded basic research that could be used to derive important advances in medicine and science — and it’s locked up by journals who want to protect an old business model.
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So it caught our eye when a bunch of readers started submitting an Ars Technica piece about a bill from John Conyers, called The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, which would a href=”http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/open-access-science.ars” target=”_new”forbid government agencies from making any research grants contingent on the work being published/a. As the writeup notes, this actually appears to have been more of a turf battle, where the House’s subcommittee on IP was annoyed that the whole NIH thing didn’t include them in the process. The complaints from publishers is fairly bogus. After all, they’re receiving a ton of free benefits from federally funded research, and are whining that they can’t come up with a business model and now need the gov’t to protect their old business model (which actually stifles the dissemination of knowledge). Passing such a bill would be a horrible precedent, which is why so many folks are up in arms about it (without even getting into the a href=”http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/09/unintended-consequences-of-publishers.html”bad unintended consequences/a).
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However, for now, it looks like folks up in arms over this missed the fact that the bill is a href=”http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6596784.html?nid=2673″pretty much dead in the water this year/a. Right after the hearing last week, it was made clear that nothing is going to happen on it this year, and the bill’s own sponsor, Rep. Conyers, seems a bit confused over his own support of the bill (he seems much more interested in the turf war over who has a say in the matter, than in what the bill actually means). That doesn’t mean it’s not worth paying attention to, as next year it could come back. But, for now, it’s not going anywhere.
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pspan class=”mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image” style=”display: inline;”img alt=”sanyo lp-z3000.jpg” src=”http://uk.gizmodo.com/sanyo%20lp-z3000.jpg” width=”587″ height=”372″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”" //span/p pIt ain’t pretty and it’s as big as a 1980’s VCR but, if the specs on the new Sanyo LP-Z3000 HD projector are anything to go on, then you won’t really care because everyone watching the movie will be too busy drooling with amazement and envy to notice. /p pIt’s a Full HD beamer with 1980 x 1080 resolution, features 120Hz processing and the industry’s first ‘5:5 pull-down’ which will make 24fps [frames per second] content run smoother and more accurately than most other projectors out there in its class. /p pThe contrast ratio is a claimed 65,000:1 which is very high indeed and well above the LP-Z2000’s 15,000:1 [in itself quite impressive]. /p pIt can project movies from as small as 40in up to a whopping 300in, has a bright 1,200 Lumens lamp and boasts a super quiet 19dB fan noise which means it’s just above breathing and well below popcorn munching. /pimg width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’http://feeds.uk.gizmodo.com/c/552/f/9581/s/1e8108a/mf.gif’ border=’0′/div class=’mf-viral’table border=’0′trtd valign=’middle’a href=”http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/sendemail2.html?title=http://uk.gizmodo.com/2008/09/17/sanyo_lpz3000_hd_projector_is.htmllink=Sanyo LP-Z3000 HD Projector Is Ugly, But Beautiful Where It Counts” target=”_blank”img src=”http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/emailthis2.gif” border=”0″ //a/tdtd valign=’middle’a href=”http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/bookmark.cfm?title=http://uk.gizmodo.com/2008/09/17/sanyo_lpz3000_hd_projector_is.htmllink=Sanyo LP-Z3000 HD Projector Is Ugly, But Beautiful Where It Counts” target=”_blank”img src=”http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/bookmark.gif” border=”0″ //a/td/tr/table/divbr/br/a href=”http://da.feedsportal.com/r/19258720061/f/9581/c/552/s/31985802/a2.htm”img src=”http://da.feedsportal.com/r/19258720061/f/9581/c/552/s/31985802/a2.img” border=”0″//a

We’ve seen a bunch of similar studies over the years, but the folks at the Pew Internet and American Life Project are out with their latest study noting that a href=”http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7619372.stm” target=”_new”video games don’t turn kids into isolated angry loners unfit to deal with the real world/a. Yeah, that seems obvious, but you wouldn’t know it listening to some of the rhetoric from politicians and anti-video game activists. What the study found, instead, was that nearly every child (both boys and girls) now plays some form of video game, and many of them use video games as a social activity to interact with their friends. Also, video gaming doesn’t take away from other social activity. And, finally, video games are often useful tools for teaching kids decision making and how to approach moral dilemmas. Most of this shouldn’t be all that surprising, but it’s nice to see it confirmed by yet another study. Hopefully this means we’re on the tail end of Congress blaming video games for things, and we can move on to the next a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080711/0218421649.shtml”technopanic/a.
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We’ve been a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080609/0319221344.shtml”asking/a for months why the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) treaty is being negotiated in near total a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080603/1247531301.shtml”secrecy/a, allowing the entertainment industry to effectively a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080703/0301501586.shtml”rewrite international copyright law/a in substantial ways with almost no legislative review. Basically, various trade representatives, together with industry insiders, have been crafting ACTA to their own liking, with a plan to push it through for approval, claiming it’s a trade agreement that shouldn’t involve any legislative overview. It’s an incredibly one-sided affair, from what’s been leaked so far, and would substantially change copyright law around the globe in favor of protecting the entertainment industry’s business model.
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The entertainment industry had hoped to keep the whole process secret, and trade representatives have basically ignored all calls to open up the process, claiming that such trade agreements are always negotiated in secret. Of course, that doesn’t make it right — especially when this trade agreement isn’t so much a trade agreement as it is a chance to sneak through legislation around the globe that is designed solely to protect a particular business model — without any input from those who recognize that legislating business models harms both the competition and consumers. Now, a href=”http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/09/secret-counterfeiting-treaty-public-must-be-made-p” target=”_new”over 100 public interest groups have teamed up to demand that the process be opened/a and that questions get answered about ACTA
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While those involved in negotiating the document will continue to do what they’ve done all along (i.e., ignore the requests), hopefully some politicians will start to notice the complaints and begin asking questions. It’s one thing for the entertainment industry to lobby politicians directly or pre-write their laws for them, but it’s another to sneak widespread, sweeping — and totally unnecessary — changes to copyright law through without significant legislative review.
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Jean Savoye, a reader here at Techdirt, sent in a submission using the provocative title that “Hugh Cornwell Is Still Not A Taxi Driver,” and wrote about how former Stranglers’ frontman, Hugh Cornwell, appeared to be embracing some of the a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070503/012939.shtml”concepts/a we talk about here as a business model. On his a href=”http://www.hughcornwell.com/” target=”_new”official website/a, he’s offering up his latest album as a completely a href=”http://www.hooverdamdownload.com/”free download/a. However, he’s pairing that with a much more complete business model. Like a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080302/234646401.shtml”Trent Reznor/a, Cornwell is also offering a few different options for those who want tangible (scarce) goods as well — such as a CD, DVD or vinyl.
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But Cornwell seems to be going even further in recognizing the power of selling scarcities. The DVD mentioned above is actually a film showing much of the recording process that went into the album. However, the film itself was also shown in some theaters — with Cornwell iattending/i each of the showings and doing a Q#038;A session at the end of each one. In other words, he’s recognized yet another important “scarcity”: access to the artists and (once again) that means much more than touring, as seen here.
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As for the title of the post? Well, back in 2001, Cornwell was doing an interview with a website, and the interviewer showed him Napster and explained it to Cornwell. While Cornwell didn’t react totally negatively (he seemed to think it was cool for rare or live tracks), he was very much against his studio recorded songs being up there:
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I cannot condone the posting of music that I spent money making, being given away for free…. When I see that my new album has been posted, and everyone can get that for free, if that carries on I’m going to go out of business…. Napster is good in some ways, but if maybe just one track was posted from a commercial record, as a taster, because I know a lot of people who go to Napster are real fans who want the original artwork, want the real article, and are not happy having something that’s downloaded. But then there are other people who are getting it for free, they are not giving me anything, and there has to be some sort of royalty paid or bI’ll have to become a cab driver/b.
/i/blockquote
Well, seven years later, Cornwell is posting his own music, and having it given away for free — and he hasn’t gone out of business or become a cab driver. He’s figured out a business model that takes advantage of that free sharing of his music. Always nice to see musicians progressing along that curve.
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While Metallica is claiming (this time around) they a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080904/0349242167.shtml”don’t mind/a that the latest album is being shared online, someone forgot to tell the band’s representatives. TorrentFreak notes that the band’s European record label, Universal Music (in the US, the label is Warner Brothers Records) a href=”http://torrentfreak.com/metallica-interview-canceled-after-pirate-bay-row-080914/” target=”_new”has canceled the band’s scheduled interview with a Swedish newspaper/a after a reviewer for the paper reviewed a remixed version of the album that he admitted he had downloaded via The Pirate Bay.
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Universal’s claim was that this is “totally unacceptable” seems destined to backfire. This is only going to provide a lot more attention to the fact that there’s a different remix of the album available online that many people find better than the official version. Plenty of other artists ilike/i and iencourage/i others to remix their music, because it tends to get fans much more involved with the music and can help attract new fans while making existing fans more connected to the band. For all of Metallica’s a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080528/1929071251.shtml”talk/a of really embracing online fandom this time around, it keeps showing that it puts up roadblocks all around, rather than really connecting with the fans.
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Apple is getting an awful lot of attention for blocking a podcasting app from the iPhone App Store because it a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080915/0136292268.shtml”competes/a with iTunes, and the more details come out, the worse it looks for Apple. In the original post on it, I had wondered, as an aside, if the app had useful functionality that Apple refused to provide — and, indeed, that’s the case. CNET is pointing out that the app a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10042127-2.html?part=rss#038;subj=news#038;tag=2547-1_3-0-20″ target=”_new”is much more useful, since it lets you download podcasts directly to the iPhone/a — something iTunes doesn’t currently allow. Yet, Apple has no incentive to add this very useful feature, because it can just block out anyone who tries to do it for them. In the meantime, the developer of the app is forced to use a a href=”http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Snubbed_by_Apple__Podcaster_Developer_Turns_to__Ad_Hoc__Distribution”very limited workaround/a to offer the app to folks who want it (knowing that Apple could just come in and shut it down). Again, these moves are all well within Apple’s right to do — but it’s going to piss off developers (and customers) if these sorts of activities keep up.
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We recently pointed out Nicholas Carr’s troubling suggestion that Google was somehow unique in being able to a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080909/0334362212.shtml”leverage complementary markets/a to make its core market significantly more valuable. As we pointed out, this shouldn’t be unique to Google at all, but should be a key focus for ievery/i business out there. Umair Haque has now come along and written what should be seen as the flipside to Carr’s piece, looking at a href=”http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/2008/09/where_is_the_chrome_in_your_st.html” target=”_new”how plenty of other businesses can and should leverage complementary markets/a — often in extreme ways. As a starting point, he notes how Google’s Chrome browser is doing exactly that.
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Basically, he starts from the same point as Carr: Google is doing things that don’t ilook/i to be related to their core business, but those actions significantly influence complementary markets which have the end result of igreatly/i enhancing the core business. Haque sees multiple steps out in terms of how these complementary markets can be applied in many industries, while Carr does not. If the two were playing chess against each other, I’d bet on Haque any day.
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For example, Haque throws out a few “radical” suggestions for certain industries:
blockquotei
Imagine what would happen if GM and Ford collaborated to invest in the components and architecture of a better public transport network — and then licensed it for free to cities, states, and countries.
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Imagine what would happen if pharma players directly invested in better hospitals and clinics — instead of in trying to own the relationship with doctors, and furiously outspending one another when marketing blockbusters.
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Imagine what would happen if Wal-Mart invested in town squares and parks — instead of just in featureless warehouses draining what little vitality remains in already bleak exurbs.
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Imagine what would happen if P#038;G and Unilever invested in people’s opportunities for education, global mobility, and meaningful, authentic relationships with others — instead of just trying to control distribution channels, and then push-market more stuff to you.
/i/blockquote
Each one of those examples is about radically changing a complementary market, which might not seem to have a direct impact on the primary business, but which would all eventually create a much better primary business — just as Google is trying to do with Chrome. And, of course, it’s not hard to build a a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070503/012939.shtml”framework/a for how you go about doing this in your own business. It simply requires companies to a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070125/004949.shtml”really understand/a what business they’re in (focusing on the ibenefits/i, not the products) and to then a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070315/013313.shtml”understand the complementary markets/a, recognize how changing those complementary markets shifts around the rest of the market, and then make sure you understand a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080822/0336542063.shtml”where the money flows/a if those complementary markets are disrupted.
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Google has figured out how to do this quite well, and there are a few other companies who are doing it in less obvious ways — but there are many more on the way. And, of course, if you want some help in figuring out how to do this in your business, a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/contact.php”give us a call/a. We can help.
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Last week, we wrote about yet another problem with Sequoia e-voting equipment where the company was a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080912/1346342255.shtml”vehemently denying/a the problem was with the machines, even saying: “There’s absolutely no problem with the machines in the polling places. No. No.” Of course, this came right after a report revealing how easy it was to a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080909/2333082218.shtml”hack/a their machines, as well as a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080404/085851751.shtml”numerous/a other a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061103/095309.shtml”problems/a with Sequoia machines. Yet the company consistently employs the same exact strategy: it couldn’t possibly be the fault of the machines.
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You may recall the story earlier this month about the Sequoia optical scanning machines in Palm Beach County that supposedly a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080904/0318472165.shtml”couldn’t reach the same vote tally/a if different counting machines were used. At least that was the original claim — but it was later changed when election officials admitted they had simply misplaced some ballots. Well, the latest report claims that the recount is now not showing lost ballots — a href=”http://www.wptv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=a07a3599-e75c-4c69-89a2-75e800ca8905″ target=”_new”it’s showing itoo many/i ballots/a. Fantastic. Election officials think they’ve traced the problem to the fact that some votes on Sequoia’s e-voting machine cartridges weren’t properly transferred, which kicks off Sequoia’s standard PR response:
blockquotei
The company’s representative, Phil Foster says “the cartridge is fine. Why it didn’t read I do not know,” suggesting another human error made on election night.
/i/blockquote
You know, when you keep saying that, and the problems keep occurring, at some point, people are going to stop believing you. Even if the problem really is human error every one of these times, people might begin to wonder why you don’t design your systems to iavoid/i such human errors.
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We’ve already explained how screwed up NBC’s Olympic coverage policy on the web turned out to be. Its use of proprietary technology and annoying restriction severely a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080826/0503422099.shtml”limited/a its online audience — even though the company admitted that its own research found that the more people watched online, a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080814/0150071972.shtml”the more/a they watched it on TV as well. So, given all that, you have to wonder why NBC Universal’s Rick Cotton is somehow a href=”http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2008/09/a_surprise_vict.html?campaign_id=rss_blog_techbeat” target=”_new”claiming a “victory” in preventing other sites from showing Olympics coverage/a. After all, his own company admitted that online viewing didn’t cannibalize TV viewing, but only encouraged more of it. By that measure, Cotton’s efforts to prevent clips of the Olympics being shared elsewhere on the web actually ishrunk/i NBC’s audience. Yet, according to Cotton: “It was a great, great success.” Then again, this is the same Rick Cotton who once tried to convince Congress that it had to stop movie piracy to a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070621/004352.shtml”help poor corn farmers/a and claimed that no one at NBC Universal could come up with a working business model for TV content a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080115/153752.shtml”without government help/a, so logic might not be a strong point.
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