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Apple and Amazon E-Book Most Favored Nation Clauses

TOTM Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal has reportedly contacted Apple and Amazon concerning their pricing arrangements with publishers (WSJ, CNN): Mr. Blumenthal said he has sent letters . . .

Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal has reportedly contacted Apple and Amazon concerning their pricing arrangements with publishers (WSJ, CNN):

Mr. Blumenthal said he has sent letters to Amazon and Apple asking them to “meet with his office” to address his concerns that agreements in place may restrict rivals from offering cheaper e-books. For instance, he said, “both Amazon and Apple have reached agreements with the largest e-book publishers that ensure both will receive the best prices for e-books over any competitors.”

A “most favored nation” (MFN) clause is a contractual agreement between a supplier and a customer that requires the supplier to sell to the customer on pricing terms at least as favorable as the pricing terms on which that supplier sells to other customers.

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Antitrust & Consumer Protection

The Oberholzer-Gee/Strumpf File-Sharing Instrument Fails the Laugh Test

Scholarship Abstract I examine the key instrument (German kids on vacation) used by Professors Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf in their analysis of the impact of file-sharing on . . .

Abstract

I examine the key instrument (German kids on vacation) used by Professors Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf in their analysis of the impact of file-sharing on record sales, published as the lead article in the Feb 2007 JPE. Their measured relationship between the instrument (German students on vacation) and the variable that it is instrumenting for, American downloading, is seen to have outlandish implications in the often overlooked first stage regressions. The coefficient implies that if German secondary students all go to school, American file-sharing would drop to zero. A nonsensical result of this sort indicates an important error somewhere in their data or analysis. The instrument is also shown to be related to American record sales, contrary to the claims of Professors Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf, and contrary to the requirements of their analysis. Further, their measurement of downloading varies wildly from week to week and is inconsistent with downloading data from Big Champagne. In addition, their data on file-sharing, which Professors Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf state is representative of worldwide file-sharing, is actually biased according to some of their own statistics which they failed to examine, considerably overstating the share of German files. Finally, I demonstrate that German students on vacation cannot have a measurable impact on American downloading (and thus American record sales) negating its potential usefulness and implying that the approach taken by Professors Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf could never have provided useful information about the impact of file-sharing on record sales.

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Intellectual Property & Licensing

Art and Politics

TOTM When I first met my father in law, he spent hours trying to convince me of the cultural superiority of his tastes. Some of these . . .

When I first met my father in law, he spent hours trying to convince me of the cultural superiority of his tastes. Some of these were indeed triumphs. I’m thinking here of “Dr. Strangelove,” “The 400 Blows,” and the music of Richard Wagner. (Others were not. I’m thinking here of “Children of Paradise,” a movie about mimes.) His love of Wagner is curious; he was born in Israel and almost his entire family was murdered in the Warsaw ghetto. This is not a trivial issue. Hitler loved Wagner too, and used his music for political ends. Wagner was himself a hater of Jews. Accordingly, Israel banned public performance of Wagner’s music nearly six decades ago, and the taboo was not broken until 1995 when “The Flying Dutchman” was played on Israeli radio. Six years later Daniel Barenboim (a Jew) led the Berlin Staatskapelle in a performance of an overture from “Tristan und Isolde” at an Israel Festival, which only reignited the controversy.

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Intellectual Property & Licensing

Of Broken Windows and Broken Policy

TOTM Today the Obama administration announced with great pride that its economic stimulus plan created or saved about 650,000 jobs.  “Thank goodness!” reads the subtext.  If . . .

Today the Obama administration announced with great pride that its economic stimulus plan created or saved about 650,000 jobs.  “Thank goodness!” reads the subtext.  If not for all those new and protected jobs, the unemployment numbers would be really bad!

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Intellectual Property & Licensing

Is Apple Dumb?

TOTM The Economist seems to think so, relying on evidence from this new paper by Joel Waldfogel and Ben Shiller.  Waldfogel and Shiller find that, relative . . .

The Economist seems to think so, relying on evidence from this new paper by Joel Waldfogel and Ben Shiller.  Waldfogel and Shiller find that, relative to uniform pricing at $.99, alternative pricing schemes including two part tariffs and various bundling schemes could raise producer surplus by somewhere between 17 and 30 percent.  Those are large numbers, which raises the obvious question: why is Apple leaving so much money on the table? Or are they? I doubt it.

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Intellectual Property & Licensing

We’re Kinda Worried About the Monopoly Thing

TOTM That’s from Firefox chief software architect Mike Connor in an interview with PCPro.  Here’s an excerpt suggesting that Mozilla fears that its recent success might . . .

That’s from Firefox chief software architect Mike Connor in an interview with PCPro.  Here’s an excerpt suggesting that Mozilla fears that its recent success might lead to antitrust liability in the United States or elsewhere…

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Intellectual Property & Licensing

Randy Picker on the Google Book Settlement

TOTM Randy Picker has posted The Google Book Settlement: A New Orphan Works Monopoly? to SSRN.  I have not been following the antitrust issues related to . . .

Randy Picker has posted The Google Book Settlement: A New Orphan Works Monopoly? to SSRN.  I have not been following the antitrust issues related to the settlement as closely as I should be and so I’m really looking forward to reading this.

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Intellectual Property & Licensing

Professor Carrier’s Response

TOTM First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Josh Wright. Only because of Josh’s creativity and tireless, flawless execution did this blog symposium come about and run so smoothly.

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Josh Wright. Only because of Josh’s creativity and tireless, flawless execution did this blog symposium come about and run so smoothly. I also would like to thank Dennis Crouch, who has generously cross-posted the symposium at PatentlyO. And I am grateful for the attention of the communities at TOTM and PatentlyO, which have patiently scrolled through countless pages and posts to learn about my book.

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Antitrust & Consumer Protection

Kieff on Carrier’s Innovation in the 21st Century

TOTM I, too, join the rest of the participants in congratulating Michael Carrier on this great book about this great topic.  I have enjoyed reading Michael’s work in the past and I enjoyed meeting him at a conference last year.

I, too, join the rest of the participants in congratulating Michael Carrier on this great book about this great topic.  I have enjoyed reading Michael’s work in the past and I enjoyed meeting him at a conference last year.  He is a wonderfully warm, bright, and engaging person.  Although I wish that I had more of an opportunity to fully read his impressive text before the date of this on-line symposium, I am grateful for the opportunity to read a great deal of the book and to at least skim the remainder.  The wonderful conference that Damien Geradin and his colleagues hosted on these same issues in Amsterdam these past few days was a pleasant distraction.  (For Damien’s conference click here).

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Antitrust & Consumer Protection