3 Strikes and we’ll download more

Record industry: ignore that French piracy study!.

A recent study of 2,000 residents of a French town found that more admitted to downloading copyrighted music and video than before the 3 strikes law.

I’ve been writing lately (for my diss) about how laws are most often communicated by non-official sources, like the recording industry.  This type of information dissemination often comes with the spin or coloring of whomever is doing the speaking.  This story is a great example of how that process might backfire.

Internet OS

The State of the Internet Operating System – O’Reilly Radar.

I like the way that O’Reilly ties together all of the things that make the Internet of today so different from the Internet of 5 years ago (positioning, voice recognition, etc).  I think he’s put his finger on the reason why I knew I had to get a smart phone–something new is afoot.

It’s unfortunate that he sees many of these things that should be standardized as “battlefronts.” A bit of agreement on open standards for things like directory info and status updates would increase competition and enable innovation (on top of the common standard).

I’ve been busy with work lately, but I hope to get back to regular blogging…

Investing in Innovation

Op-Ed Columnist – A Word From the Wise – NYTimes.com

This opinion piece by Thomas Friedman is a few days old, but it hits right on a topic that I’ve thought about quite a bit lately. He quotes the Chief Executive of Intel.

Otellini noted that a 2009 study done by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and cited recently in Democracy Journal “ranked the U.S. sixth among the top 40 industrialized nations in innovative competitiveness — not great, but not bad. Yet that same study also measured what they call ‘the rate of change in innovation capacity’ over the last decade — in effect, how much countries were doing to make themselves more innovative for the future. The study relied on 16 different metrics of human capital — I.T. infrastructure, economic performance and so on. On this scale, the U.S. ranked dead last out of the same 40 nations. … When you take a hard look at the things that make any country competitive. … we are slipping.”

We live pretty comfortably here in the States. I would argue that much of that comfort is built on an investment in a number of commons networks like the interstate, postal service. Other social policies like education (which Friedman focuses on) and intellectual property also have played a part in our ability to innovate, which ultimately helps business and our standard of living.

While he doesn’t come right out and say it, I think Friedman’s argument could be extended to say that the relentless focus on short term profit (immediate gratification) is harming our long term ability to compete globally. This unfortunately is no easy mindset to change, as it appears to pervade politics and business.

I can’t think of any reasonable way to respond, but it’s good to know that I’m not the only one feeling this way.