In a very interesting post, Geoffrey Manne makes the case that the Judge in the Apple eBooks trial got it wrong and that a successful appeal is possible. His analysis in lengthy but this hits at the central premise of his argument: While the opinion asserts that each publisher "could also expect to lose substantial …
Of flying cars and tweets
In a provocative piece, Peter Thiel wrote: "We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters." This framed a discussion at the NBER Summer Institute on Monday as to whether we are about to run out of ideas. (By the way, apparently only Bob Gordon thinks we are or, perhaps like Tyler Cowen, the ideas …
The Open Internet Advisory Committee at one year
Today I would like to make a little shout-out for recent work at the FCC to improve policy making for the Internet. To do that I need to put my preferences front and center. There are policy debates, and then there is actual policy making. The former grabs headlines on occasion, while the latter rarely …
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Apple found guilty of price fixing: Initial thoughts
Apple have been found guilty of price fixing in the US. Judge Cote found that Apple and five publishers had conspired to raise the price of eBooks. Basically, Apple used the iPad launch to "solve" the publisher's problem with Amazon's $9.99 retail pricing by assisting and, perhaps, insisting, that they engage in a coordinated move …
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Information Technology in the Desert
Every summer my wife and I take the children west to experience nature at its grandest. Though these trips are designed to foster “quality family time,” invariably they teach us about more about ourselves than merely about nature. In previous posts I have used these trips to learn something new about the role of information …
Digitopoly 