Innovation Journalism

The Chinese Car Industry is Not a Threat – It’s an Opportunity

2010-01-31T16:06:00.002+01:00

In this Gapminder chart you can compare the infant mortality rate vs the income per capita over time. China is today at the same level as Sweden was just after the Second World War.

It’s only natural that Volvo will be a Chinese company and Saab is transformed to a luxury high-tech sportscar company. In 2008, China surpassed the United States to become the world's second largest auto-making nation behind Japan. And in December 2008, for the first time ever, there have been more cars sold in China than the United States.

Reading Swedish news articles on the Volvo-Geely deal, you get the impression that most journalists, politicians and governmental agencies still picture the country as “developing”. To call China a “developing” country is absurd.

The majority of the world’s inhabitants now have higher average income than they ever had. Unlike a few decades ago, most people today live in mid-range income countries. Half of the world’s population lives mainly in Brazil, Russia, India and China. They accounted for about 22 percent of the world economy in 2008, up from 16 percent a decade earlier. Real economic growth from 1999 through 2008 averaged 9.75 percent in China, 7 percent in both India and Russia, and 3.3 percent in Brazil.
Today, Chinese earn on average as much as the typical Swede did in 1945. It was at that time Volvo car production got full stream in Sweden. It is not a surprise that Volvo Cars today is bought by a Chinese company. Few would claim that Sweden was a developing country after the Second World War.
Even in terms of education, several low-income and most middle-income countries compare with the richest countries. For example you find the world’s best chemists in India, where labor costs also are lower than here. And it makes sense for the pharmaceutical industry to locate their operations where the best chemists are.

Should we still compete with these countries, or should we try to find out what they need, that we are good at? Duh!

iPad – Good hype, Apple. Bad job, NYT

2010-01-30T10:32:00.000+01:00

iPad – 14,800,000 hits on Google. Good hype, Apple.

Steve Jobs showed the New York Times home page in the iPad at the launch. The newspaper had the world’s best marketing opportunity and they chose to do ... nothing.

You couldn’t get a better demonstration of the Big problem in the news media industry. To sell their material on tablets, they have to adjust all parts of their digital strategies. Consumers simply don’t use the tablet’s browser to get the same content free on the Web.

Phew.

The UK IP Office: Creativity and Innovation More Important Than IP

2009-11-07T12:47:00.003+01:00

The UK Government is going from strength to strength. First Hack the Government and now the UK IP Office has published a very thoughtful and critical report on the future of intellectual property, “The Way Ahead : A Strategy for Copyright In The Digital Age”.

The UK IP Office is the official government body responsible for Intellectual Property (IP) rights in the United Kingdom.

Apart from the compulsory background chapter – the history of IP and a description of the current legal situation – it contains a pragmatic and surprisingly neutral analysis of the consequences of the current legal system.

“Technology means the capability to create, use and distribute copyright works is now in the hands of the individual.” (page 22)

The UK IP Office’s conclusion is that the current IP laws have a low legitimacy in the public’s eye and needs to be reformed to get accepted. They also conclude that recent politics and heavy lobbying from the IP industry have undermined the public’s trust in the law’s principle of equality of justice.

“The copyright system suffers from a marked lack of public legitimacy. [...] The system is often unable to accommodate certain uses of copyright works that a large proportion of the population regards as legitimate fair and reasonable. [...] Our consultation has revealed that the public legitimacy of copyright has also been impacted by difficulties identified in the relationship between authors and rights holders, for instance those who do not receive a fair reward from those who exploit their works. [...] These difficulties have a very real impact on perceptions of the copyright system. The copyright system must be seen as fair to authors and users if it is to command greater public respect. This perception of unfairness to authors has wider currency. There is a persistent belief among consumers (as well as among some authors) that authors get relatively little from deals with major rights holders. This seems to reinforce attitudes that copyright infringement is a victimless crime ‘because the author won’t see a difference’.” (page 28-29)

For a legal system to retain its legitimacy, the public must believe that laws differ from politics. Laws must be separate from and “above” politics, economics, culture, and the values or preferences of judges.

A legal and political system whose essential principles, procedures, and styles are created by those with strong financial resources and substantial property, sooner or later will show that everybody is not treated equally.

The survival of state institutions depends on the public’s perceived legitimacy. Most people obey governmental authorities not just to avoid punishment, but because they believe those authorities have the right to make demands and because they feel that complying is the right thing to do.

For the most part, the public polices itself. We feel an obligation to follow the decisions of group authorities and group rules. But an increasing political cynicism has undercut current IP law’s legitimacy. The introduction of HADOPI and other new IP related laws have diluted the public’s trust in the public system as well as the authorities that uphold these laws. There is a widespread discontent with the current system. The opinion is that these laws are not fair. They are designed only for those with money and resources.

“The Government observes that the muscular language of enforcement emphasising theft is unhelpful and problematic. It would be useful for everyone to recognise that a loyal customer base is alienated when the distinction between criminal liability and civil infringement is not made clear. The ‘cooperation not criminalisation’ approach of the Featured Artists Coalition is encouraging.” (page 47)

Our Visby Agenda - a new ICT policy in EU

2009-11-04T15:28:00.004+01:00

The European Union is about to form a new ICT policy agenda replacing the current i2010 vision. They're discussing the most important policy questions for the period 2010-2015 (and beyond) and they need our help to get it right.

Therefore I think we should ask ourselves five short questions:

What do you think the e-society will look like in 2015 and beyond? What has changed for worse and better? (i.e. the role of technology in society, or the role of society in technology)

How would you like it to have evolved? (If you could rule the world)

What do you think politicians should do about this? (what is needed to make sure that 2 is realized instead of 1?)

What do you think politicians should not do in order to fulfill your vision?

Which five other people do you think should answer this meme?

My answers to 1-4 are:

I won’t predict, but I hope that e-society will be of benefit to the citizens and stimulates innovation and use without put democratic values at risk.

An ICT policy agenda should focus on general topics and not comprise different policies for each and every sector or trend in society. There are definitely conflicting issues and a balance between individual rights with those of the public, but in general it should supervise people’s natural rights and ensure that these rights are executed fairly, without infringement by another individual or organization or company.

I’m concerned about most governments’ narrow-mindedness. Today they mostly to stand up for big content owners such as record companies and Hollywood studios. Today they are mostly concerned about restricting transparency and public access to governmental documents.

Most high-level proposals today focus on forcing ISPs around the world to spy on their subscribers and turn them off if the content providers think they violate some copyright law. They only satisfy the needs of those who can afford expensive lawyers and lobbyists. It is not reasonable that the wealthiest people can dictate the laws with intellectual property as a strategic business tool. The rights are more often used to keep potential competitors away, than to protect the value of individual achievement or innovation.

A democracy is dependent on the citizen’s possibility to influence the policy. Without public access to information, there is no real democracy. In societies without transparency decisions are taken behind locked doors. That is a good environment for conspiracy theories, populism and extremism. Transparency and public control is a fundament for democracy.

E-policy should facilitate the growth of individuals, organizations and communities that are capable of managing their own continuing transformation, and not to control and direct. E-policy should put less stress on to know what’s best for a particular individual, community, organization, in a particular place, at a particular time, but try to make the best use of local knowledge and the learning experiences. (That’s governmental speech for “crowd sourcing” and all that)

5. I think these should respond to this meme:
http://karlsigfrid.se/
http://www.erikjosefsson.eu/
http://www.eriklaakso.nu/
http://minamoderatakarameller.blogspot.com/
http://www.bodstromsamhallet.se/

(This meme originated at Our Visby Agenda)

Copy Paste Will Never Die

2009-07-05T20:52:00.007+02:00

After the Almedalen Political Week I feel exhausted by all piracy/copyright debates. But the political landscape has cleared up – and polarized. Most of the traditional political parties are going Pirate Party Bashing instead of taking a serious discussion on the big issue: integrity and how to relate to the inevitable “digital culture” society.

For the integrity part my opinion is crystal clear: a free flow of information is a condition for free democracy, free research and innovation. Let me repeat that: a free flow of information. Even the OECD has agreed on that at the 2008 conference “The Seoul Declaration for the Future of the Internet Economy”: The further expansion of the Internet Economy will bolster the free flow of information, freedom of expression, and protection of individual liberties, as critical components of a democratic society and cultural diversity.

The inability among policy makers like President Nicholas Sarkozy or the Swedish Moderate Party to understand that is alarming. Eric Besson, Minister of State for the Development of the Digital Economy in France, was one of the key speakers at OECD conference. Hello!!?!

We live in a world in which the copy predominates, evading all attempts to outlaw it. There are today 130 million total works estimated under the Creative Commons license. Most of those creative works are remixes and mashups, or are simply built on earlier works like it always have been, and they also need some protection. That number will increase, not decrease. But the copyright laws prevent the creation of remixes and mashups. Hello!!?!

The traditionalists just cannot see, or don’t want to realize, that the copyright is changing. Whether they like it or not, in ten years time we will be far ahead into the structural transformation of the creative industry and cultural policy. If the creative community mindset changes, the laws have to change concurrently. What and how you protect will change, whether they like it or not.

The lawyers, of which the most outspoken on this subject also are lobbyists for the Big Media, obviously have to say they believe in today’s copyright laws – it’s in their financial interest to protect them. The real target for change is the policy makers. It’s true that changes in legislation takes a long time, like ten years, but nevertheless the copyright laws will change. The Pirate Bay, the entire code and all the torrents – Information which accounts for half the traffic on the internet – fits on a single USB stick. Imagine what will happen when cloud computing really take off. The Pirate Bay verdict could for example impact nearly every online service that suddenly becomes liable for making a buffer copy on its own servers based on something you do on your computer. Lots of cloud computing services could suddenly face massive copyright liabilities. Trying to stop a groundswell like this is just pointless.

I strongly believe that in ten years time the discussion on a specific “digital culture” will be obsolete. “The digital” will be integrated in the whole cultural sphere and not treated as a separate issue. File sharing will be a natural part of that. And the survivors will be the companies that change their business models accordingly.

Otherwise we’d have a scenario where content companies are killing off innovation because they’re unable to adapt themselves – and that’s a really sad outcome.

Why Sweden Should Accept More Immigrants, Not Less

2009-06-29T15:47:00.005+02:00

The Chinese are filtering and blocking internet information. The governments in a dozen other counties are also internet enemies: Bahrain, Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Egypt, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Yemen.

And the Iranian government has installed a national firewall that blocks almost everything of value.

These countries are not really the Innovation Hall of Fame.

Some don’t care if they aren’t on the list, but some do. For example the Iran government claims they are a high-tech country. Saudi Arabia has an innovation policy and I’ve been briefly involved in a project to build an “innovation city” outside Medina. But they got cold feet when we insisted that women were prerequisite for innovation.

None of these countries can ever explore innovations. All of them can imitate, but create new radical innovations? No.

To begin with most of them discriminate half of the population. Secondly they think you can buy innovation or create innovation by organization. And thirdly they don’t understand that a free flow of information is absolute necessary for innovation, as well as free research and democracy. And by the way they all use western technology, such as Nokia, Siemens, Google and Microsoft, to filter the Web and emails.

China is today the factory of the world. But with their censoring mindset they can hardly move to become the world laboratory for innovations. Once you start censoring the internet, you restrict the ability to imagine and innovate. The Chinese government is telling young Chinese that if they really want to explore, they need to go abroad.

We should be taking advantage of this. For example in Sweden the medical education at universities are dominated by immigrants. It’s the same trend as in Silicon Valley. Not bad, right?

Recessions have always been a time when new technologies and companies get born. We might be able to stimulate our way back to economic stability, but we can only invent our way back to prosperity. Europe in general and Sweden in particular should have the borders wide open to these immigrants.

Photo: http://www.blameitonthevoices.com/2008/07/made-in-china_24.html

Koenigsegg-Saab will be a success, I’m sure

2009-06-16T23:34:00.001+02:00

There are suddenly so many self-appointed automotive experts commenting Koenigsegg buying Saab from GM. Including Deputy Prime Minister Maud Olofsson. So why not add myself?

I think the agreement is very promising. Saab has been in the red from the very beginning of GM’s ownership, and hasn’t been able to develop new much needed innovations. I know from close inside sources that GM has only been a burden.

Koenigsegg will not only keep production in Sweden, but also liberate Saab from the heavy GM administration that efficiently has prevented Saab from inventing. Saab really needs to renew the innovation vigor it once had.

Almost all wanna-be authorities have dissed the agreement. I am convinced it will be successful.

This type of restructuring has happened in other line of businesses. Take the PC companies no one trusted as “serious”, which bought the old mini computer companies: Compaq successfully bought Digital Equipment for example. Or Dell that bought EMC.

Sweden Officially Introduce Creative Commons License for Music

2009-05-27T23:15:00.005+02:00

The board of STIM – the Swedish Performing Rights Society, has decided to introduce a noncommercial Creative Commons license (CC) during a trial period of two years. STIM protects the interests of authors and publishers of music in Sweden. On their behalf, STIM administers and licenses rights to music and text. Through its international network, STIM also represents rights to the worldwide repertoire of musical works. In addition, STIM promotes the creation and dissemination of new Swedish music.

The Danish equivalent, Koda – Komponistrettigheder i Danmark, already offers Creative Commons licensing to its members, making it the second country worldwide to do so. A similar pilot project was initiated in 2007 by Buma/Stemra in the Netherlands.

It shows that collective rights management and licenses can be combined to the benefit of artists, by taking noncommercial online distribution into their own hands.

Famous Swedish Author Vote for Piracy Party

2009-05-27T12:04:00.004+02:00

Lars Gustafsson is voting for Piratpartiet. Lars Gustafsson, one of the most important living Swedish authors, is perhaps best known for his slim novels and story-collections, but he is also a respected poet.

An American citizen since 1983 and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at University of Texas, Austin, Lars Gustafsson has gained international recognition with literary awards, such as the Prix International Charles Veillon des Essais in 1983, the Heinrich Steffens Preis in 1986, Una Vita per la Litteratura in 1989, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for poetry in 1994, and several others.

He has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. His major works have been translated into fifteen languages.

(In Swedish: http://www.expressen.se/kultur/1.1583792/darfor-rostar-jag-pa-piratpartiet)

The Music Industry Does Not Deserve To Survive – Part 2

2009-05-22T10:27:00.003+02:00

I was surfing for the monthly music download at random. And as usual I got the message “This album is unavailable for download in your country (Sweden) at this time.” *sigh*

OK, you oligopoly morons. I want to buy the record, I have the money, but you do not want to sell. What do want me to do?

Until you give me a credible answer, I’ll go to TPB and download the stuff. They are the only one who provide what I want to buy. And presently free of charge. Sort of.

How hard can it be?

The music industry does not want me to buy. They definitely do not deserve to survive.

(And anyway, I got the LP so I already bought the record once. So when exactly did Emerson, Lake and Palmer become cool? Oh… right. They didn’t.)

Piracy Through History – Why it’s good for Society

2009-05-18T09:21:00.005+02:00

Thomas Alva Edison in his early piracy days.

I met with Matt Mason last week at the Thinking Digital conference in Newcastle, UK. We discussed the Swedish TPB trial and he had some made very interesting observations: Trace the origins of music, radio, movies, TV and almost any industry where intellectual property is involved and you find piracy at the beginning.

When Edison invented the phonographic record, musicians branded him a pirate out to steal their work, until a system was created for paying them royalties. Edison, in turn, went to invent the movie projector and demanded a licensing fee from those making movies with his technology. This in turn caused a band of filmmaking pirates, among them William Fox, to abandon New York for Hollywood. The reason was more hours of sunshine (most movies in those days was shot in out-door studios), cheap land, weaker unions, more liberal labor laws, and proximity to the Mexican border. When the police raided the pirates they could quickly flee over the border until the coast was clear.

They thrived unlicensed until Edison’s patent expired. These pirates continue to operate in Hollywood legally. William Fox’s startup have became one of the largest in media business: 20th Century Fox.

When cable TV first came about in 1948, the cable companies refused to pay the networks for broadcasting their content. For more than 30 years they operated like a primitive illegal file-sharing network until Congress decided that they, too, should pay for content.

In Europe it was prohibited to have commercial TV and radio – In Sweden as long as until 1987. Radio Luxembourg was the world’s largest commercial station in the 1950s. As it is virtually impossible to prosecute someone in another country (radio or internet) Radio Luxembourg could blanket most of Europe with radio programs for a target group with great spending power and that the traditional national radio stations didn’t care about: the teenagers.

Offshore pirate radio exploded in the 1960s. The Dutch government legislated heavily against radio pirates in 1964 and raided Radio Nordsee by air and sea attack from the Dutch armed forces. That was unsuccessful. Later they became Televisie Radio Omroep Stichting, a Dutch television and radio organization, now part of the Netherlands Public Broadcasting.

The British government legislated heavily against radio pirates in 1967, but BBC launched Radio 1 which mission was to compete with the pirates. They hired the former pirate DJs, like John Peel.

Swedish TV3, owned by MTG Modern Times Group, started out as a pirate. The channel was broadcast from London in order to avoid the tight Swedish advertising rules. When they started TV commercials were prohibited in Sweden and there were serious proposals in 1980s to ban satellite dishes and VHS recorders in Sweden.

There are many more examples of successful pirates become legal successes. (But they would hardly admit they once started out as pirates.)

The pirates are on the wrong side of the law, but they are invaluable for innovation and development in society. By refusing to conform to regulations they believe are unfair, pirates have created huge industries from nothing. But because lax law enforcement these pirates could cut some slack and actually add value to a stagnated monopolized industry. Eventually compromises were reached and new laws created and as a result a new industry developed: the record companies, the Cable TV, the movie industry.

If monopoly laws, like copyright, had stopped all these pirates we would probably live in a world that today look like a giant fundamental religious or political community. No recorded music, no cable TV, no free radio, and a selection of films I rather won’t think about.

Photo copyright: Public Domain, Brady-Handy Photograph Collection (Library of Congress)

A Perfect Example of Traditional Business Models Meet the New Order

2009-05-17T10:44:00.003+02:00

The Swedish Writers’ Union just said fuck you to the largest Swedish publishing house Bonnierförlagen. (photo left) The quarrel is about the Google Booksearch Settlement. Bonniers turned down the Google offer, as many other European publishing houses have done. Logical as they want to negotiate the offer first.

But Bonniers realized that they didn’t own the copyright to the eBook version of most of their titles. The rights are entirely owned by the authors. So the authors are free to sign private deals with Google.

Most of the books are in-copyright, but out of print. And they are “orphan works,” that is, works for which it is virtually impossible to locate the appropriate rights holders to ask for permission to digitize them.

Therefore Bonniers introduce their own eBook offer to their authors. But it turned out that the Bonniers’ offer was a lot worse than Google’s. The new Bonniers deal builds on a traditional copyright – the right to copy and distribute on paper.

Google’s model builds on a Creative Common license, shared between the author and the publisher, developed for the Internet. Bonniers’ model is unsuitable for the electronic media. Funny, as the settlement is about eBooks.

It’s a perfect example of where traditional business models meet new ones.

Google Booksearch Settlement	Bonniers deal
Non exclusive	Exclusive
Cancellation on notice in advance	Forever
63% royalty to the author on sales	24 % royalty to the author on “net revenues” (unspecified)

Bonniers can pick and choose which books they will publish, without the author’s permission or any renumeration.The Sweders Writers' Union understood the Bonniers deal’s lack of common sense. For the authors it should be a no-brainer to choose.

(Photo copyright: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bonniers_dinner.jpg)

An open letter to Piratpartiet

2009-05-13T18:44:00.002+02:00

Concerning the handling of Acta, Hadopi, Ipred, 138/46 and other democracy restricting regulations.

Integrity and transparency goes hand in hand. Sweden has since 1766 had the act on Public access to governmental documents.

The act has been of crucial importance for the Swedish democracy. Swedish citizens have been able to obtain full insight into the background of intended policy decisions and have been able to influence the public debate before the decisions have been made.

In order to fully benefit from freedom of speech, you must have information about what is happening in society. Freedom of information means the freedom to obtain and receive information and otherwise to acquaint yourself with the statements of others. The idea behind the Swedish freedom of the press is that in order to ensure free interchange of opinions and enlightenment of the public, each Swedish citizen shall have the right in print his thoughts and opinions, to publish official documents and to make statements and communicate information on any subject whatsoever. The principle that official documents are made public can be considered a part of freedom of information.

A democracy is dependent on the citizen’s possibility to influence the policy. Without public access to information, there is no real democracy.

In societies without transparency you easily get the impression that decisions are taken behind locked doors. That is a good environment for conspiracy theories, populism and extremism. Openness and public control is a fundament for democracy.

A year ago the EU commission introduced a proposal for changes in the EU regulations: “COM/2008/0229 FIN, Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents”

The changes will mostly be restrictions in the public access to official EU documents. The proposal consists of 16 changes of which 11 are increased restrictions to public access, four are transparency neutral and one supports a more open access.

There is no doubt the proposal restricts the transparence and consolidates the public authorities’ position against the citizens.

The proposal will introduce restrictive exceptions for whole classes of documents. It will change the definition of what an “accessible document” is to only comprise documents that can be printed on paper or copied electronically. And member countries will have the possibility to veto handing out official documents.

Public access to official documents is fundamental for democracy. As a citizen it is important to be able to procure information regardless of whether or not you are involved in the matter and regardless of what the bureaucracy does.

It is also important to know that the policy makers have an incentive for thoroughness and carefulness in dealing with a matter. We can for example expect a greater adherence to the rule of law if the documents they produce are public.

And the bureaucracy will probably be more efficient, as better informed public discussions can be based directly on the documents. (SOU 1966/60, p 72)

The legislation on freedom of information continues to fulfill important functions in the Swedish welfare and interventionist state.

In order to hold governments accountable for its actions, citizens must know what those actions are. The government must act openly and transparently to the greatest extent possible. This require making its data available online and easy to access. If government data is made available online in useful and flexible formats, citizens will be able to utilize Internet tools to shed light on government activities. Like mashups that highlight hidden connections between different data sets, or crowdsourcing where the public is invited to systematize or analyze large amounts of data.

The EU should release public information online in a structured, open, and searchable manner and make these available in a useful form to the public.

The EU proposal COM/2008/0229 FIN is a sad step in the wrong direction.

(This text Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike)

The Traditional Media Industry Does Not Deserve To Survive

2009-04-24T23:00:00.007+02:00

I’ve been following The Pirate Bay reality show in detail for a week, both professionally and by personal interest. The many turnabouts only strengthen my opinion that the traditional media industry does not deserve to survive. They are in desperate need of a restructuring. It has happened in all other industries. The media industry is no exception.

It also strengthens my opinion that politicians either do not care or just do as they are told by the multinational media companies. Just look at all the latest directives and law proposals: IPRED, ACTA, HADOPI, Q6/17. There are no proposal, except amendment 46/138, aiming to secure democracy, freedom of expression, or free information flow as a base for research and innovation.

Remember: A free flow of information and freedom of expression is an absolute condition – a sine qua non – for innovation and democracy. Without it copyright, patents and trademarks are irrelevant.

The worst stupidity is HADOPI. It’s ironic that it is a law proposed in France, the very origin of “intellectual property”. The term is a direct translation of the French legal term “droit d’auteur”.

The Swedish government do have commissioned an official report on changes in the intellectual property law: ”Översyn av vissa frågor om upphovsrätt (dir. 2008:37)” There are some interesting proposed changes, but the directive avoids the real challenges. It just routinely refers to international conventions, agreements and the EU, and does not show any intelligent opinion on how it should act in the information society.

The Swedish government is hopelessly lost in translation. They show a passive and apathetic political leadership on intellectual property issues. Apparently they don’t have any interest at all in economic or technological development.

I cannot stress this enough: it cannot be reasonable nor fair that solvency – the capacity to pay – determine how society is formed. But that is what is happening. All proposals are to protect the investments the big companies have done – none are to protect innovation or democracy.

We cannot let the ethical and moral development of society only be guided by money.

The Pirate Bay verdict - It's so obvious the money won

2009-04-17T22:36:00.004+02:00

It’s so very, very obvious. This trial is not about justice, it’s a fight about who can afford to defend a case.

First let’s make things clear about linking and linking:

The Pirate Bay does not itself host audio and video files, but provides links to torrents hosted elsewhere on the internet. So does Google.

But the majority on The Pirate Bay links to files which point to illegal content. While Google may find torrent files, it is a search engine designed to find anything on the web, illegal or not. Google can’t be held responsible for the content of the whole web. The Pirate Bay’s search facility is a lot narrower in scope.

And The Pirate Bay encourage people to download copyrighted material, which makes them a special case.

What upsets me is that The Pirate Bay gets to pay 30 MSEK in damage. (Swedish, English) In penalty terms this is a hefty sentence. A rape victim gets like 100 000 SEK if she is really hurt. The verdict shows that the jury in this trial is in favor of the part with the most resources, the best lobbyists and the most persistent. Which means where the money is.

The IPRED (Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive) is a European Commission directive which Sweden has fully embraced. It give copyright holders the ability to request information from internet service providers about individual users tied to IP addresses through which copyrighted material has been downloaded.

This law, and the numerous other similar ones that seem to be getting passed around the world, is dependent on the ISPs we subscribe to. Turning them into a tool of the law, and insisting they give up details on their customers, is an insult to an honest customer-business relationship, democracy and trust in society.

It’s so very, very obvious that the EU policy makers only speak for the big multinational companies – those who can afford expensive lawyers and lobbyists.

It is not reasonable that the wealthiest people can dictate the laws. That leaves out the poor, the young, the old, the crippled.

I know that The Pirate Bay does not speak for these groups, but it’s a matter of basic democracy and principles. Art have not been defended at all in this case. It’s the business and the monopoly of reproduction that has been defended.

Remember: copyright and patents are strategic business tools, not only to protect intellectual property. The tools are more often used to keep competitors away, like The Pirate Bay.

Technology drives change and creative people will respond. The reason the distributors are screaming so loud is because they realize that their future reduces their role and they are scared. It’s so very, very obvious.

The trial has only further polarized the tech community and the policy makers.

PS
There are Swedish politicians who do understand what is happening, but they are rare.

Best selling cars in the US 2008 - No European brand in sight

2009-01-18T14:33:00.003+01:00

Note the red figures in change in sales from last year. Except for Honda Odyssey and Toyota Corolla, the red are US brands. (And also note that the European cars are not even on the radar screen.)

	2008	2007	Rank 2007	change
Ford F-Series P/U	481,146	545,963	1	-11.9 %
Chevy Silverado-C/K P/U	425 379	434 937	2	-2.20 %
Toyota Camry	324 702	302 636	3	7.30 %
Honda Accord	266 848	250 663	5	6.50 %
Toyota Corolla	262 431	274 074	4	-4.20 %
Dodge Ram P/U	246 878	250 144	6	-1.30 %
Honda Civic	230 203	225 212	7	2.20 %
Chevrolet Impala	226 541	197 304	8	14.8 %
Nissan Altima	190 151	154 909	10	22.8 %
Honda CR-V	147 454	103 839	na	42.0 %
GMC Sierra P/U	138 759	142 129	12	-2.40 %
Chevrolet Cobalt	133 101	163 343	9	-18.5 %
Toyota Tundra	124 909	8 916	33	58.3 %
Toyota Prius	124 620	70 447	na	76.9 %
Ford Focus	123 158	126 670	14	-2.80 %
Dodge Caravan	120 055	151 858	11	-20.9 %
Ford Econoline/Club Wagon	118 866	119 829	18	-0.80 %
Toyota-RAV4	117 534	104 133	na	-12.9 %
Ford Escape	116 605	112 968	21	3.20 %
Honda Odyssey	113 803	125 588	15	-9.40 %

Source: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=146894

"You wouldn't buy our shitty cars. So we'll take your money anyway"

2009-01-13T08:06:00.000+01:00

25 BUSD to car makers that have been making the wrong cars?

2008-11-20T21:07:00.002+01:00

Let’s see if I get this right. The U.S. government wants to give 25 BUSD to car manufacturers that have been making the wrong cars. It is to “address the recession caused by the financial meltdown”. Mhm... But since the beginning of the year GM shares have fallen over 90 percent and Ford is also down 80 percent. That was long before the meltdown.

Let’s take a step back for a moment.

The problem: too few want to buy U.S. brand cars, right. This means the car makers are not competitive enough. Will a 25 BUSD in government-backed loan fix the problem? Will the car manufacturers be more competitive? Will the consumers buy more U.S. cars? Probably not. The car makers will continue do business as usual. The loans would be like subsidies to secure the jobs.

Compare with Sweden. There are no Swedish car manufacturers left. GM and Ford own Swedish Saab and Volvo Cars. The production in the Swedish facilities has been focused on the American market. When the economy collapsed the sales of Saab and Volvo followed their parent companies with lay-offs.

But instead of giving government-backed grants, the Swedish government provides large-scale support for vehicle research, using the environment as the foremost reason for supporting this research. The Swedish government nowadays focuses on making the Swedish car industry and automotive research competitive. That is the only efficient way to get sustainable growth, they claim.

The Swedish automotive industry today has never been as large and successful as it is today. The Swedish automotive industry instead is doing what it’s good at: specialised in components developed in cooperation with Swedish universities, such as intelligent control systems, catalytic converters and car and road safety systems. The whole Swedish automotive industry now employs more people than it did 10 years ago, due to the successful specialisation. The Swedish companies in the automotive industry Autoliv and Haldex are good examples.

Why not let GM and Chrysler simply go bankrupt to revitalize the car industry? A bankruptcy would clean out the executives and replace the 30-year veterans at the top with people who live in the present and not in the past.

Well, many jobs are at stake and if the automotive industry goes bust it will harm millions of retirees. 2.5 million jobs in U.S., Canada and Mexico are tied directly to these companies. Is 25 BUSD enough to save GM, with a burn rate of over 9 BUSD a year? In Europe the car industry did go bankrupt: DAF and British Leyland to name a few. Out of the ashes rose a much more vital European automotive industry.

But – and here’s a big but – the condition for that arrangement to work is a universal social welfare system that can handle the lay-offs. Swedish trade unions are aware that they are part of the “system”, together with industry, universities, public authorities etc. It’s in their own interest to have sustainable competitive industries. The management in the Swedish companies also understand this and cooperate with the unions, universities and others. And the Swedish government and Governmental agencies support this.

Automotive research is a strategically important area that is prioritized in the long term to ensure future development. Companies that fail to understand the value of a strong link between research, product development and production risk suffering the same fate as the shipyards.

Windows error sound as remix ringtone

2008-11-08T16:36:00.001+01:00

Get this on your phone for FREE Make your own free ringtones

Windows error sound as remix ringtone. Very cool!

Back in business, under the Swedish press law

2008-10-06T20:45:00.004+02:00

This blog is now a registered periodical under the Swedish press law “the Freedom of the Press Act” (Tryckfrihetsförordningen) and have got an authorization to publish.

Permit number: 2008-085

The Constitutional Protection means that the blog gets censorship protection. The authorities are not allowed to censor the content that is subject to constitutional protection.

Also a reporter has the constitutional right to preserve anonymity of an informer. It’s even illegal to ask for the name. Chapter 3, art 2: “It shall not be permitted to inquire into the identity of an author or a person who has communicated information…”

Interesting comparison between unions (Soviet and European, that is)

2008-01-23T00:24:00.000+01:00

Esko Aho, President of the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra and former Prime Minister of Finland, made a very interesting comment at the European Presidency Conference on Innovations and Clusters, on why many governmental efforts to create growth based on innovation often fail.
The European Lisbon Agenda is an action and development plan for the European Union. The intention is to deal with the low productivity and economic growth stagnation in the EU, by proposing various policy initiatives for the EU member states.
It was adopted in 2000 by the European Council to “make Europe the most competitive and the most dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion, and respect for the environment by 2010.”
What happened was that the EU member states invested more in research, hoping that some innovation and growth should show up.
In October 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. In 1961 the Soviet Union with Comrade Chairman Nikita Khrushchev decided on a plan with basically the same goals: Funding research hoping to create growth and be wealthier than the US by 1971. In April 1961 Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. During the cold war CCCR had more scientists than the U.S.
Today we know the result.
It is two years left until 2010. EU has not even left the starting point. The Lisbon Agenda is also a failure.
The similarities between the plans are striking. We devote plenty of attention and resources to preserving the old, while the needs of creating something new have low priority. In Europe we have a hard time accepting that our social model must change if we intend to become the world’s leading economic region.
The failure also is a proof of policymakers’ lack of understanding of implementation. They don’t take into account local conditions. The government’s excessively rationalist or bureaucratic ideologies prevented this.

Michael Porter outdated at European Presidency Conference on Innovations and Clusters

2008-01-22T16:22:00.000+01:00

Outdated slide from Michael Porters presentation the European Presidency Conference on Innovations and Clusters in Stockholm.

I’m at the European Presidency Conference on Innovations and Clusters in Stockholm. It’s the usual bunch of talking policy heads. Currently Michael E. Porter, Professor at Harvard, is having a lecture on “Clusters, Innovation and Competitiveness”, so boring the watches stops. But that’s ok, he’s an academic. It was very U.S. centric and I can take that too. What irritates me though, is that he is using 11 year old slides and data. And still he has opinions about how we run things in Europe.

He charges more than 100,000 USD plus expenses and is so ignorant of the audience not to understan who you are talking to. For my part, he’s a has-been. Overripe. Nothing new and what he says is not supported in reality.

Confessions of an audiophile equipment junkie

2007-11-18T21:25:00.000+01:00

I must confess. I’m a heavy audiophile equipment junkie. You know: Krell, MacIntosh, B&W, Quad, Infinity. Stuff that are extremely powerful and unreasonably priced. I turn on especially on speakers. In my youth I designed a hybrid 6/12db crossover network filter for Audiotronic CM3. Big Swedish transmission line boxes using Kef B210’ as bass drivers and a Gamma VLD 13ribbon tweeter. At that time, around 1980, I thought they sounded fantastic.

Now they are deported to the garage and replaced with Audiopro Black Diamond. I hate to admit, but they are much cheaper and sound better. Technology does make progress. Today, I cannot stand reading hifi magazines, as they mostly are full of subjective nonsense. I switched over to be a computer nerd instead and have been happy ever since.

Anyway, JVC have launched a speakers kit:
http://www.audiocubes.com/product/JVC-Victor_SX-WD1KT_Wood_Cone_Speaker_Kit.html

Dissed by many:
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/11/14/buildaspeaker-kit-fr.html
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/11/jvc-diy-speaker.html

Wired and other magazines miss the point. With a do-it-yourself kit you can modify it. You'd be surprised how good such speakers can sound for a lot of music. It'll unquestionably beat any plastic box. But if you want any real bass at all you must add a subwoofer/boom box.

(Did you know that the JBL 075 tweeter was introduced in 1956? Incredible. It was the high end tweeter until mid 1980’s. Now Bose have taken all the market share.)

Hey, people actually pay for music!

2007-11-07T08:42:00.000+01:00

AP Telegram: “Throughout his career, Colombian rocker Juanes has insisted he doesn't need to sing in English. Hefty pre-launch online sales from his latest CD, ‘La Vida es un Ratico’ (Life is Just a Moment) prove him right. Universal Music says he has sold more than 6 million digital songs – from legal Internet vendors and mobile phone downloads - from the CD before its Tuesday release.”

Hear, hear. People actually paid for music.

It’s interesting to note that the music publishers have never used anticopyright rhetoric. It’s the record companies that whine. No wonder, they own the distribution chain.

Instead of the useless lawyer gymnastics with consumers, why not get smart and change you business model? But, as I have said before, the record companies are guided by lawyers and accountants. No wonder most of them are losing money. What’s needed is success stories like this one, to persuade them to buy into the digital marketplace.

No surprises in the Skype write-off

2007-10-04T19:19:00.001+02:00

I’m not surprised about the Skype writing off Ebay did. (here also) There is an old well known fact in the media business: it is extremely hard to turn free subscriptions to paid subscriptions.

Skype is for free. And if you have more than 300 million users, which Ebay got with Skype, that can call each other free of charge with a program that is for free, there really is no reason for them to pay for something. Everybody you know already are on Skype, free of charge.

And now MSN Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and AIM offer the same service as Skype; Skype has become one by many.

What is free will stay for free; otherwise the users turn somewhere else. Just look at Napster (of blessed memory). Napster had at its peak 80 million members sharing music over the Internet. When it was under fire for copyright infringement by the RIAA, the German multimedia giant Bertelsmann bought the company. They saw a huge potential market and wanted to convert the members to pay for the music. It didn’t work. Instead the members turned to free alternatives.

I strongly believe the same will happen with Skype if Ebay tries to convert the members to pay for the calls. Members join Napster, Skype or whatever because it is for free. And the majority of consumers don’t choose the product or service with the highest quality; they choose the most easily accessible.

Ignore basic economic principles at your own risk. Technology changes. Economic laws do not.