willbates’s Comments

• Nov 17th, 2010 @ 12:24am

  Need to try it

  on Perhaps It's Not The Entertainment Industry's Business Model That's Outdated
  It would be very interesting if they actually tried this. Surely a large entertainment company would try this strategy on one of their smaller projects as an experiment. They need to get their merchandising and other revenue stream strategy right.
• Nov 12th, 2010 @ 3:22am

  (untitled comment)

  on Netflix Cancels Plans For New Netflix Prize As Part Of Privacy Lawsuit Settlement
  I'm usually one to be fairly liberal with information sharing but there has to be decent degree of privacy protection and sharing peoples searches with just anyone isn't really on in my book.
• Nov 12th, 2010 @ 3:18am

  (untitled comment)

  on Content Creation Is An Evolutionary Process
  It is a really tough one because there is clearly a massive grey area with this. Sure, if someone copies something 'word-for-word' style that is clearly against copy-write but when it comes to infringements it gets very messy.
• Nov 12th, 2010 @ 3:02am

  Revenue channels

  on How Can The Music Industry Be Dead When More Music Is Being Produced And More Money Is Being Made?
  It is too easy for people to download music for free for them to focus on that as the main source of revenue generation. They need to develop other sides of the business, mainly around the musicians as 'starts', meaning massive gigs and merchandising etc.
• Nov 12th, 2010 @ 2:59am

  (untitled comment)

  on Noncompete Agreements Are The DRM Of Human Capital
  This is really interesting stuff and makes complete sense. The notion of idea transfer fits in very well with the 'standing on shoulders' model of economic growth, have a look.
• Nov 12th, 2010 @ 2:52am

  (untitled comment)

  on Another Battle: Can Teachers Sell Lesson Plans?
  Or is it more of a case of lazy teachers who can't be bothered to do their preparation properly? In any case, if they created those lesson plans in work time whilst being paid by the school then it is act actually not theirs to sell, it is the schools!
• Nov 12th, 2010 @ 2:49am

  Ownership too

  on Kodak Says Intellectual Ventures Behind Patent Lawsuit Filed By Shell Company
  It is really interesting when you start looking into shell companies, especially with regards to who they own and who owns them. It is often very difficult to track, clearly things to hide!
• Nov 12th, 2010 @ 2:39am

  Come in....

  on Two People Arrested In England For WiFi Theft
  Sure, people should protect their networks but some of my friends think that if a network isn't protected they don't mind their neighbours using it! At the very most it should be a fine.
• Nov 12th, 2010 @ 2:33am

  (untitled comment)

  on Mike McCurry: Will You Pay Google's Bandwidth Bills For The Rest Of This Year?
  Haha, paying that bill would surely make him eat his words!!
• Nov 12th, 2010 @ 2:30am

  Not cool

  on Shepard Fairey Destroys Evidence, Goodwill; Harms His Case For No Good Reason
  Firstly, making a poster of a photo can't infringe copy right in my view. However, destroying evidence and lying isn't only stupid, it's an infringement of the law, silly!
• Nov 12th, 2010 @ 2:17am

  The trick

  on A Reminder Of Why We Shouldn't Write Off New Business Models Too Early
  This is the trick for entrepreneurs, having the vision for other ways to do things and monetising them. Stoll clearly made a big mistake, mainly through lack of vision.
• Nov 12th, 2010 @ 1:46am

  Worth a look

  on Professional Unions And The Labor Struggles Of The 21st Century
  Interesting points, obviously there are massive differences between unions and trade organisations but it would be interesting to see the analysis of similarities. Could there be cross-firm strikes? I doubt it but there is definitely an incentive to limit labor supply to drive up wage. The issue is that competition legislators should, if independent, maintain a level playing field and trade organisations shouldn't have enough power to significantly influence.
• Nov 12th, 2010 @ 1:28am

  (untitled comment)

  on The Grand Unified Theory On The Economics Of Free
  Very good points, they may very well make higher profits this way. It would be an interesting experiment anyhow. I particularly like your thoughts about a 'free' good feeding into paid goods. Just be careful when you try to get technical about economics because some of the finer points are not really true, for example, music downloads (even if free) are not strictly speaking infinite as it is a function of population, download speed, duration of popularity etc. I know this may seem picky in this example but an economic theory has to have multiple (if not universal) application. Just be careful rigidly arguing a good is infinite. very nice ideas though.
• Nov 12th, 2010 @ 1:08am

  Not economics

  on Infinity Is Your Friend In Economics
  The definition of economics is the study into the efficient allocation of scarce resources, so if the resource isn't scarce it isn't economics. In any case, there can be a price of zero and scarcity if there are no clear ownership rights, which is economics. I don't think we have trouble with infinity, it just doesn't make logical sense because (as a planet) we have limited resources.
• Nov 12th, 2010 @ 12:52am

  Re: GoogleTV

  on Google To TV Industry: 'Yes, Yes, Cord Cutting Is A Myth; Google TV Is Nothing To Fear'
  If Google doesn't was to create content then they needed to have tried harder to partner with cable providers. I think long-run this content will go online, it will turn out very much like the current situation in print media. As long as content providers have intellectual property they will still be able to generate add revenue, which is all they will get.
• Nov 12th, 2010 @ 12:36am

  Re: Whether its legal or not

  on Rolling Stone Sued For Text Messaging Spam
  It definitely should be illegal but in any case I have no idea why companies would do it, it's just annoying and makes consumers hate their brand!!