Comments for IP in the Digital Age

Comment on DRM and the First-Sale Doctrine on the Kindle by Mauricio R.

Mauricio R. — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 19:09:24 +0000

Hi Brian,

What a great article.

I have aquestion though; is there anyway in which I could remove DRM restrictions from content like ebooks and digital movies without breaking the law?… From my perspective, DRM certainly violates my first sale doctrine rights but it looks like this is something that has never been actually brought up in legal system…

What law is the one that actually says it is illegal to remove DRM restrictions from content that I’ve bought legally?

Comment on Final Project, the Presentation of Webcomics by Carter Schonwald

Carter Schonwald — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:06:17 +0000

Hey Brian,
Thanks!
Regarding your question, its not so much a question of if they sell enough merchandise, but what fraction of them sell enough. There are clearly documented cases where the merchandise is the primary revenue source, but thats not telling us any overall trends. This comes down having the data available for these, and it just isn’t available

Comment on The End of an Era: Yale’s Contributions to and Use of Open Source Software by Andrew Petro

Andrew Petro — Mon, 18 May 2009 23:38:49 +0000

I’m saddened to see Technology & Planning disbanded. I greatly enjoyed working for Technology & Planning as a student employee studying Computer Science in Yale College and after I graduated for a year. The community source projects were excellent — CAS, uPortal — in the opportunities they afforded to collaborate with and share with developers at other higher education institutions but most of all it was a pleasure and a privilege to work with Susan Bramhall, Howard Gilbert, Drew Mazurek, and Andy Newman, following in the footsteps of Shawn Bayern. In some ways those were some of the best months of my life.

The lasting good that the Central Authentication Service has done to Yale University and to many institutions of higher education and beyond in easily, effectively securing web applications with support for multi-tier authentication is not to be discounted. In CAS is a perhaps largely accidental investment in technology that has paid deep dividends far and wide.

Thank you for this excellent video.

Comment on The End of an Era: Yale’s Contributions to and Use of Open Source Software by Michael L

Michael L — Mon, 18 May 2009 01:26:09 +0000

How sad…Technology and Planning’s done a lot, it’s a shame they’re being disbanded….

Comment on Two Thoughts on Copyright Reform by Matt D

Matt D — Sun, 17 May 2009 15:37:26 +0000

Thanks very much for the clarifications! Sorry I wasn’t able to delve into your specific points in the post–my typing speed is subpar, especially while eating lunch at the same time.

I haven’t really considered the dangers of over-regulating in this space, since the reality today is so divorced from that concept. Are there any other examples of prominent copyright regimes that imposed too much of a regulatory burden?

Comment on Final Project – Reputation Economies: Identity, Status, and Property by Brian L

Brian L — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:31:03 +0000

This was really neat! It has been interesting to see how some of the reputation economies you discussed have adapted and evolved. eBay recently removed the ability of sellers to leave negative feedback for buyers since buyers could previously face negative repercussions (to their feedback score) if they gave less-than-favorable feedback to a seller, thus stifling the provision of helpful, honest feedback. In response to the trend of people selling very inexpensive digital items (like ebooks) as feedback boosters, eBay created a new category for digital items and the feedback given for such items does not contribute to one’s overall eBay feedback rating.

I also came across an article on Amazon’s review system (http://www.uie.com/articles/magicbehindamazon/z) discussing how, by asking, “Was this review helpful to you?”, Amazon is able to display the most helpful reviews first and reduce the impact of reviews that may have been written by a product’s creator/author or friend and do not accurately evaluate the product in question.

Comment on The End of an Era: Yale’s Contributions to and Use of Open Source Software by Brian L

Brian L — Fri, 15 May 2009 02:22:06 +0000

This was really well done! I found it very interesting that Yale’s open source developments first emerged out of necessity when there were not even off-the-shelf operating system available to run on the university’s equipment. Perhaps the thriving industry of higher education software has made it easier for Yale to justify its disengagement from open source projects. From your documentary, it’s pretty clear that this is a poor decision, seeing as Yale and its peer schools truly reap major benefits from being able to collaborate on things like CAS and SAKAI that are made by universities for universities with the programmers (who can make modifications relatively easily when need be) working in-house. I really hope Yale will see the light!

Comment on Final Project, the Presentation of Webcomics by Brian L

Brian L — Fri, 15 May 2009 02:08:11 +0000

Cool project, Carter. I was in another class where we discussed the existential threat facing newspapers, mostly focusing on the implications for the quality of news coverage. I had never thought about the way in which things like comics, which, as you point out, traditionally could only be lucrative if syndicated in newspapers nationwide, are threatened by the decline of the traditional media.

One question I had about your section on selling merchandise is whether you think these web comics attract a large enough audience to sell enough merchandise to remain viable?

Comment on OA@Yale by Brian L

Brian L — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:55:41 +0000

Great work! I think your group presents a very strong, compelling case for OA and your statistics show that there is considerable support and interest in adopting OA policies at Yale.

I have one question for your group. In your proposal. you say that the “The Provost’s Office may make the article available to the public in an open-access repository.” Does this mean that all scholarly articles should be published in a centralized Yale-administered open-access repository or that the Office of the Provost should be charged with ensuring that articles are uploaded to any of the already existent depositories (like http://arxiv.org/, for example)?

Comment on OA@Yale by Adi Kamdar

Adi Kamdar — Tue, 12 May 2009 00:18:31 +0000

We’re on Open Access News!

http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2009/05/student-campaign-for-oa-at-yale.html