Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled

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• Intellectual Property
• Net Neutrality
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• Things that bother me

• Being better than free when copies are ubiquitous

  The digital world fundamentally changes what a copy means for copyright. I wrote about this in the past from the legal perspective, suggesting an implied license to reproduce and a greater reliance on other rights. Kevin Kelly has a great post up about the Internet's role as a super-distribution center and how to make money in the face of this ( via Andrew ). Yet the previous round of wealth in this economy was built on selling precious copies, so the free flow of free copies tends to undermine the established order. If reproductions of our best efforts are free, how can we keep going? To put it simply, how does one make money selling free copies? I have an answer. The simplest way I can put it is thus: When copies are super abundant, they become worthless. When copies are super abundant, stuff which can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable. When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied. In other words, money is no longer in the distribution, but "rather... Posted Feb 22 2008, 10:15 AM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Intellectual Property, Copyright, Business, Law

• Net Neutrality, Abuse of Market Power, and Conflicts of Interest

  Craig Newmark on Net Neutrality back in Oct 2006 ( via 37 Signals ): Here's a real world example that shows how this would work. Let's say you call Joe's Pizza and the first thing you hear is a message saying you'll be connected in a minute or two, but if you want, you can be connected to Pizza Hut right away. That's not fair, right? You called Joe's and want some Joe's pizza. Well, that's how some telecommunications executives want the Internet to operate, with some Web sites easier to access than others. For them, this would be a money-making regime. As I've mentioned in the past, I'm generally against regulation on the Internet, but I feel strongly that the Internet should remain neutral. Hopefully, that can be achieved through the market, but if not, then regulation may be necessary. The troubling thing for me here is the power this gives to the gatekeepers. If they decide they like Yahoo! more than Google (e.g., for personal or political reasons), they can make it happen - even if... Posted Apr 04 2007, 07:28 AM by Tim with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Things that bother me, Business, Law, Net Neutrality, Politics