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I do not believe that this distinction between the market for goods and the market for ideas is valid….producers who are found to be so unscrupulous in their behavior in other markets can be trusted to act in the public interest whether they publish or work for the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune or CBS.
—Ronald Coase, on his presentation of The Market for Goods, and the Market for Ideas in NYC in 1974: via Time Magazine
Today, though, markets are far more competitive than ever, just as conservatives maintain, but they’re also hugely more wasteful. The apparent paradox is resolved once we recognize that market failure stems from the very logic of competition itself. As Darwin knew, when individual and group interests diverge, competition not only fails to promote the common good, it also actively undermines it.
—Robert Frank, economist, Cornell, remarking on market failure and the sometimes perverse effects of competition: via NYT
Audubon, American Badger
Expert networks are everywhere. The “idea” site, PSFK, appears to have launched its very own, which they named purple list. The name appears to derive from the color-scheme on PSFK while providing a new spin on expert networks – a go-to source for new
ideas and inspiration.
Purple List has a similar look and feel to Quora, G+, or Focus, and it’s organized along the lines of Intota’s directory model. The about section suggests that they will charge the respective expert for listings, and those needing new ideas and inspiration can peruse profiles for free.
Sadly, a paid listings model will probably limit the opportunity of this marketplace. It’s just hard to say what an expert would get for their $20 profile.
The Internet is absolutely one of the most important inventions of all time
—Newton Minow, former FCC chair, author of the vast wasteland speech, of which he said today, “I paid no attention to the phrase ‘vast wasteland’ but NYT put it on the front page & many people thought I was right”: via Berkman Center talk
News stories glue portfolio managers and analysts to their screens. Each story feeds into a positive or negative bias. What if I could automate that? What if I could read everything as it comes out and sort it according to positive and negative news for a company? I could react systematically, quickly and across more stocks. I might even replace the role of the analyst.
Machine-readable news starts with exactly this economic intuition.
Disaffection with existing quantitative trading signals has brought it to investor attention. Advances in linguistic processing and the steady decline in computing costs have made it better and cheaper than before. And a raft of academic and industry papers have guided the way. Read the rest of this entry »
To rent or to own. The record labels may soon find that they have been renting all along. The 1976 Federal Copyright Act included a provision for termination rights, so artists could claw back the underlying economic rights to their songs and music after thirty-five years. Because the 1976 Act did not pass until 1978, 2013 is the magic year, and both sides of the table have already begun their preparations.
As far back as 1999, Mitchell Glazier, then copyright counsel to the Republican head of the Judiciary Committee, inserted language into an omnibus bill that would redefine sound recordings as work for hire. Reclassified as such, the work of musical artists would no longer include termination rights. It would equate them to rank and file employees of the the record labels. The bill and the amendment passed quietly, with little outside recognition of its contents or consequences. Says William Patry (via NYT), “That amendment was essentially passed in the middle of the night.” Within a year, however, artists learned of the change and successfully lobbied Congress to roll it back. Glazier would go on to be the Chief Lobbyist at the RIAA.
Today, with 2012 looming, the field has been set. The recording artists and the recording industry have each dug into their positions. With bulwarks made, the battle is set to begin. Was Springstein’s Darkness on the Edge of Town a work for hire, as the recording industry claims? Or as June M. Besek, executive director of the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts at the Columbia University School of Law, says, “Where do they work? Do you pay Social Security for them? Do you withdraw taxes from a paycheck? Under those kinds of definitions it seems pretty clear that your standard kind of recording artist from the ’70s or ’80s is not an employee but an independent contractor.”
Don’t expect the debate to be resolved by an unnoticed bill passing in the middle of the night.
correlation, causation – via Google Labs ngram viewer
Stilltitled 