tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65291902026-03-05T19:47:47.217-05:00An economics blog focused primarily on Intellectual Property issues, with an occasional foray into baseball.Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.comBlogger154125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-62325731535242355202007-02-21T15:15:00.000-05:002007-02-21T15:28:24.015-05:00

I came across this thread today, which catalogs Apple enthusiasts' responses to the rumors of Apple's new product in 2001... the iPod. It's a fantastic read. Some choice predictions from the first few pages:hey - heres an idea Apple - rather than enter the world of gimmicks and toys, why dont you spend a little more time sorting out your pathetically expensive and crap server line up? or are you

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-15073462383997981062007-02-01T08:40:00.000-05:002007-02-01T08:50:08.191-05:00

It seems that we don't have to wait to see whether or not Arlen Specter is as big a baseball fan as he is a football fan. The AP (through ESPN) is reporting that Sen. John Kerry is going to raise concerns about the proposed deal between Major League Baseball and DirecTV which would make DirecTV the sole provider of MLB's Extra Innings package, which allows fans to watch virtaully any

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-79187377136004250842007-01-31T16:54:00.000-05:002007-01-31T17:20:18.417-05:00

President Bush finally recognized the rising income inequality of the US in his "State of the Economy" speech today. From the NY Times article on the speech:''The fact is that income inequality is real. It has been rising for more than25 years,'' the president said. ''The earnings gap is now twice as wide as itwas in 1980,'' Bush said, adding that more education and training can liftpeoples'

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-55145518816146739032007-01-22T14:34:00.000-05:002007-01-22T14:52:55.173-05:00

Well, this sucks.Word on the street is that MLB is close to assigning the rights to its "Extra Innings" package, which allows fans to watch out-of-town games on a nightly basis, to DirecTV on an exclusive basis, similar to the deal that DirecTV has with the NFL and its "Sunday Ticket" package. As a Red Sox fan living outside of New England, who doesn't and won't have DirecTV, this is terrible

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-4500459311573222402007-01-19T09:08:00.000-05:002007-01-19T09:20:25.851-05:00

David Pogue, the New York Times' main technology writer, has written a tune about the RIAA, to be sung along to the tune of, what else, "YMCA". Here's a link to his post. Based on the lyrics, I'm guessing that he won't mind my presenting his work here:“R.I.A.A.”Young man,You were surfing along,And then, young man,You downloaded a song,And then, dumb man,Copied it to your ‘Pod,Then a phone call

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-43709998998448888122007-01-18T10:34:00.000-05:002007-01-18T10:56:58.322-05:00

They watched the season premier of American Idol, with over 37 million total viewers and 41 million people watching the final half-hour, according to overnight numbers reported at Zap2It. What is most amazing is that the season finale last season had only 36 million viewers.Those ratings numbers are just outstanding. There are so many TV programs these days, and so many other entertainment

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-36710949701210445952007-01-12T09:49:00.000-05:002007-01-12T09:58:54.620-05:00

The current issue of Sports Illustrated has a short article on the coach of the boys' ice hocey team at Catholic Memorial High School, Bill Hanson. CM is a top-ranked Massachusetts high school program and routinely wins the MA state title. They have also produced a large number of NHL players. They are the Mt. St. Charles of Massachusetts, making Bill Hanson the Bill Belisle of Massachusetts. (Mt

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-64038496224238124222007-01-05T16:03:00.000-05:002007-01-05T16:15:58.685-05:00

Over at the Freakonomics blog, there's the normal cyptic preview of their upcoming NY Times Magazine piece, including a link to some background research. Included in that is an excel spreadsheet with recent ebay auctions in which gift cards were sold (.xls), which I found fascinating. Some stats:The average gift card included (there are 100), sold for a total cost (price + shipping) equal to

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-75585524903386092892007-01-04T09:49:00.000-05:002007-01-04T09:59:05.561-05:00

We've often pointed to concerns raised about other about e-voting systems. Generally, the amount to someone showing that a machine could be hacked and that there would be no way to know. Then the makers/administrators says "it's not a problem" or "trust us", and as economists we know what to make of that. But today the NY Times is reporting that "trust us" means even less than we thought:A

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-28457528463384713212007-01-02T10:44:00.000-05:002007-01-02T11:11:40.475-05:00

Happy 2007 to anyone still checking Econball.The end of 2006 was very hectic for me, and as you can see, resulted in a scarcity of posts. I'm hoping that in 2007, I'll be able to maintain a more consistent scheudle of 2-3 posts per week. There's still plenty of crazy IP stuff going on out there (see the post below about the RIAA's damage claim against AllofMP3.com, for example), so there should

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-55181356120635396082007-01-02T10:21:00.000-05:002007-01-02T10:41:28.086-05:00

As found in Zero Paid, it appears that the RIAA is finally suing AllofMP3.com, the Russian website which has, for a while now, offered MP3 downloads of songs and albums for pennies per track. The RIAA is citing approximately 11 million songs, and is asking for $150,000 in damages per song, for a total of approximately $1.65 trillion. That's a lot of money.It's also an absurd damages claim. (I

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-1165609873225757682006-12-08T14:45:00.000-05:002006-12-08T15:31:13.816-05:00

The New York Times is reporting today that we should be expecting wholesale changes in the method of electronic voting to be used in 2008, compared to what was used in 2006. Specifically, it seems that there is now a growing movement to eliminate paperless voting systems in favor of systems with paper "receipts." As has been pointed out here (at at the Social Econ Blog, among many other places)

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-1164060439190145632006-11-20T17:05:00.000-05:002006-11-20T17:07:19.206-05:00

Fox has announced that it is canceling the O.J. Simpson special and book.Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of the News Corporation, announced this afternoon that his company had canceled publication of the pseudo-memoir/confessional by O.J. Simpson, “If I did it,” as well as the corresponding television special scheduled to be broadcast on the Fox network next week.“I and

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-1163609277594999522006-11-15T11:38:00.000-05:002006-11-15T11:49:07.506-05:00

I've been a bad blogger recently, as real life has slowed me down. Here's to hoping I can pick it back up again soon. That said, I saw something today that is truly incredible, if not really related to economics at all:Sorry is also what O.J. Simpson is *not* saying:In a stunning announcement, FOX TV says it plans to interview the 59-year-old former football star and actor about "how he would

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-1162838665860721022006-11-06T13:32:00.000-05:002006-11-06T13:44:25.876-05:00

From today's nytimes.com: Bush Trumpets Iraq Verdict to Rally SupportWASHINGTON, Nov. 5 — President Bush on Sunday seized on the conviction of Saddam Hussein as a milestone in Iraq, seeking to rally Republican voters with the issue of national security as some polls suggested that his party might be making gains in the final hours of the campaign.How can the conviction of Saddam Hussein have any

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-1161896833079826492006-10-26T17:04:00.000-04:002006-10-26T17:07:13.100-04:00

In case we haven't harped on this enough, from Arstechnica (via /.), comes a guide to using electronic voting machines to steal an election:What I'll show you instead is a road map to the brave new world of electronic election manipulation, with just enough nuts-and-bolts detail to help you understand why things work the way they do. Along the way, I'll also show you just how many different

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-1161894403570049112006-10-26T16:18:00.000-04:002006-10-26T16:26:43.690-04:00

In the tradition of Ernest Hemingway ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn."), Wired magazine searched out current authors to write their own six word stories. Some are less than interesting, others are quite good. None have the power of Hemingway's story, and several of them rely on well-known stories to provide important context for the six-word stories... those are more sequels than stories of

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-1161803376824055702006-10-25T15:06:00.000-04:002006-10-25T15:10:07.193-04:00

The season 6 trailer for 24 came out last night. In case you weren't watching, here it is:

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-1161698175067615012006-10-24T09:48:00.000-04:002006-10-24T09:56:15.116-04:00

It seems that just like Superman, Captain Copyright has a day job at a newspaper. While Clark Kent worked at the Daily Planet, it seems that Captain Copyright's alter ego (who presumably looks just like Clark Kent) works at the North Country Gazette. From the front page of the paper's website:In accordance with Fair Use of Copyright: WE FORBID ANY REPRODUCTION in part or in whole of The North

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-1161353902324939202006-10-20T09:39:00.000-04:002006-10-20T12:42:41.083-04:00

It's casual Friday in the office today and, for whatever reason, I found myself wondering why we have casual Fridays instead of, say, casual Mondays. The obvious answer is that it's a way to start the weekend early, by letting everyone dress like it's Saturday. The other question is: "why do we have casual Fridays at all?" I think we'd all guess that it's a way of giving employees a little

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-1161283159262553972006-10-19T14:37:00.000-04:002006-10-19T14:39:19.263-04:00

The New York Times today reports that:Advertising sales continues to sag at major newspaper publishers, judging by the quarterly results reported today by The New York Times Company and the Tribune Company, owner of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Newsday. Given today's discussion on the effects on online newspapers, this is not surprising.

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-1161282690698533712006-10-19T14:28:00.000-04:002006-10-19T14:31:30.703-04:00

Entry, Exit and Patenting in the Software Industry (Iain M. Cockburn, Megan J. MacGarvie)We examine the effects of software patents on entry and exit in 27 narrowly-defined classes of software products, using a dataset with comprehensive coverage of both mature public firms and small privately held firms between 1994 and 2004. Reflecting the complex economics underlying the relationship between

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-1161282440428969362006-10-19T14:09:00.000-04:002006-10-19T14:27:20.450-04:00

In a paper that has been around for a few years, but recently came out in NBER working paper form (and also forthcoming in the AER), Matt Gentzkow argues that online newspapers and print newspapers are strong substitutes. In fact, using data from the DC metropolitan area, Matt finds that online newspaper availability reduces print newspaper profits by $5.5 million per year.So, what's the

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-1160573851447672222006-10-11T09:15:00.000-04:002006-10-11T09:37:31.463-04:00

That's what movie piracy costs the U.S. economy, along with 140,000 jobs and over $800 million in tax revenue, according to a new study released by the Institute for Policy Innovation (and paid for, in part, by NBC/Universal and the MPAA). The number is reached at by taking a figure of $6 billion in lost sales of legal DVDs and online films that comes from an earlier report by a consulting firm

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6529190.post-1160141678930162892006-10-06T09:32:00.000-04:002006-10-06T09:34:56.050-04:00

Really, it is a little over-the-top that MIT's buildings all have numbers rather than name....

Tony Vallencourthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06640680964080820351noreply@blogger.com0