It's pretty clearly established at this point that Google bought Motorola Mobility in large part because of the patents. The number being tossed out is that 50% of the price was for the patents. A big part of the reason for those patents was to fend off Microsoft, who has been quite aggressive in claiming patents over things in Android. In fact, multiple sources have reported that thanks to patents and licensing, Microsoft actually makes more money from Android than from Windows Phone. Talk about perverted patent economics.

Of course, the big question that many raised when Google did this deal was whether it would actually push some handset makers away from Android, out of a fear of competing with their own supplier. While big Android players like HTC quickly downplayed that risk, insisting that they were committed to Android, at least some are speaking out about being less willing to bet on Android, and how it might even drive them to look more closely at Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system.

Let's unpack this for a second, because it begins to show just how ridiculous this overall situation is:

• Microsoft, thanks to patents, makes more money from Android phones.
• In order to fend off patent threats, Google buys Motorola to get its patents.
• In doing so, handset makers scared of competing with Google, start looking at Microsoft as a partner.
• The end result: Microsoft may get more handset partners, but less money, since Android is a pure licensing profit center.

So, the Google buy may result in fewer Android devices and more Windows phones... but less money for Microsoft. Whatever happened to the simple system where companies just compete in the market place and the best one wins?

Yet another country is considering a three strikes law, kicking people off the internet based on accusations (not convictions) of copyright infringement. This time, it's Australia, and as always, the question of who is a stakeholder in this discussion seems to involve the government assuming that it's one party and one party only: the entertainment industry. They're the ones "advising" the government on this. And while some ISPs have been invited to be present at a meeting, no one actually representing consumer interests has yet to be invited.

Shakespeare wrote: What's in a name? That which we call a rose. By any other name would smell as sweet. -- but how much does a company's name really matter? Here are a few quick links on corporate logos and some branding twists.

• Graham Smith is swapping the names behind various logos in an ongoing project -- that looks a bit confusing at times. Modified logos are fun -- hopefully, though, the artists behind them won't be sued for trademark violations.... [url]
• The ninth annual LogoLounge report on logo trends is out, covering 2011. This year's colors are lighter and seem to include a lot of leaves. [url]
• Graphic designers from 2007 might remember this catchy song with the refrain: "Make The Logo Bigger!" "I don't wanna tell you how to do your job, but could you make the logo bigger?" [url]
• Coca-cola is going to make its Diet Coke logo so big -- that it won't quite fit on the can. Thankfully, they didn't mess with the formula for Diet Coke. [url]
• To discover more interesting advertising-related content, check out what's floating around on StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

The Public Domain may not be growing (thanks to endless retroactive copyright term extensions) but it still contains a "whopping plentitude." The biggest challenge to users is simply discovering PD works in the first place. Fortunately the Open Knowledge Foundation (one of the best Free Culture organizations anywhere) has just given everyone a leg up with its new web site, the Public Domain Review. From their About page:

The Public Domain Review aspires to become a bounteous gateway into the whopping plenitude that is the public domain, helping our readers to explore this rich terrain by surfacing unusual and obscure works, and offering fresh reflections and unfamiliar angles on material which is more well known.

Go there to find all kinds of delicious images, texts, sounds, and other treasures that, thanks to our collective cultural amnesia, are as fresh and exciting as anything Big Media tries to force down our throats today.

Crossposted from ninapaley.com.

The avalanche of mainstream press stories condemning the state of the patent system (especially when it comes to software) continues. The latest is a column in the Wall Street Journal by former WSJ publisher L. Gordon Crovitz that also condemns the state of the patent system. I don't always agree with Crovitz (in fact, I was just strongly disagreeing with him over his First Amendment views), but it's nice to see another well known commentator point out the problem and pure economic waste created by the patent system:

The costs of our broken patent system are often abstract, but this month Google put a price tag on the problem: $12.5 billion. That's what Google paid for Motorola's U.S. smartphone business and its 17,000 patents. This is $12.5 billion that one of America's most creative companies will not use to innovate, fund research or hire anyone beside patent lawyers.

[....]

The value of patents in software and hardware such as smartphones has everything to do with litigation risk. It has almost nothing to do with technology.

So now we've got This American Life, the NY Times, the Washington Post, the Economist and the Wall Street Journal -- all coming out with articles about how the patent system is massively hindering innovation in the tech industry, and is generally driving money to unproductive and non-innovative parties. So, again, we have to ask, why is Congress still pretending that it's tackling this problem with its current useless patent reform bill that doesn't address the problems raised by all of these articles? Where's the real patent reform, Congress?

We've argued before that the rush by various mobile operators to push for (very low) bandwidth caps is going to backfire. They're trying to get more people using their services, while at the same time making it harder for them to actually make use of those services. Now users have to be a lot more aware of how much bandwidth something is using, which also creates serious mental transaction costs. Verizon recently put in place extremely low data caps (2 gigs?!?) with extremely high overage fees ($10 per gig?). And... just a few weeks later the company announces a (high bandwidth) video on demand offering and set it up so you can't use it over WiFi. In other words, the only way to use this high bandwidth offering is over the network with the low caps and the high overage fee. Have fun paying for those videos you watch. That's going to add up fast.

In the ongoing silly patent battle between Apple and Samsung over the design of competing tablet computers, Samsung is pointing to some interesting prior art. It's claiming that the form factor was recognized well before Apple came up with the iPad design, by pointing to a clip from Stanley Kubrik's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Attached hereto as Exhibit D is a true and correct copy of a still image taken from Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” In a clip from that film lasting about one minute, two astronauts are eating and at the same time using personal tablet computers... As with the design claimed by the D’889 Patent, the tablet disclosed in the clip has an overall rectangular shape with a dominant display screen, narrow borders, a predominately flat front surface, a flat back surface (which is evident because the tablets are lying flat on the table’s surface), and a thin form factor.

Yeah, but without those "rounded corners..."

We're excited to announce today that we've moved in a new direction with the advertising and sponsorships we do on Techdirt, partnering with SAY Media to provide compelling, interesting and engaging forms of advertising and sponsorship. Let me just say, up front, that I recognize that there's a common thread among many who visit this site that all internet advertising is "bad." And I'll be the first to admit that all too often internet advertising is terrible. It can be annoying, intrusive, irrelevant or just plain useless. Because of that, most of us have pretty complete ad blindness. We either automatically ignore all of the ads we see, or we use tools like AdBlocker to avoid even having to deal with the ads.

But, for many years (since before I even started Techdirt), I've wondered what could be done if people realized that the ads were content too, and if you made those ads, by themselves, compelling and useful, then you could do much more with them. For the better part of the decade we've been banging the drum that ads are content too, and they should be treated as such: meaning figuring out ways to make them as compelling as possible on their own. There is no more "captive audience" and if our ads are boring, annoying or irrelevant, we fully expect you to ignore or block them -- and we won't blame you if our ads lead you to do that.

Instead, our focus is on getting marketers to realize how much more effective and compelling their campaigns can be when they stop even thinking about what they're doing as advertising, and begin realizing that the real opportunity is in teaming up to create compelling, useful and relevant content. We don't want you to be annoyed by our ads. We want you, the community, to actually be excited about and interested in the content presented there. And we're thrilled that SAY Media is the perfect partner for this endeavor. Just take a look at the Seven Principles the company articulates on its website: Obviously, number four matched exactly with what we've been saying for nearly a decade. But the other principles match what we've been saying around here for ages as well. We've also been banging the drum for years about understanding what's scarce and what's abundant, and have repeatedly called out that attention is one of the key scarcities out there, and it's our job to do our best to provide you with as much value as possible in exchange for your scarce attention. At other times, we've discussed the importance of storytelling and questioned people who think that influence is just a number.

Basically, this is a company who views the world in a very similar way to the way we do, has a brilliant team of exceptionally creative folks, tremendous reach, extraordinary knowledge and fantastic experience in creating unique, compelling and powerful marketing campaigns.

Of course, much of this is an aspirational goal. We don't expect to be there with perfectly compelling content-filled advertising and sponsorship right off the bat. This is a process, and it's a process we really just started. Beyond figuring out exactly what we can do, there is an education process in helping marketers also recognize the power and value of much smarter campaigns. Also, much of this process involves experiments, and if you want to have the truly exceptional success stories, it means taking some risks... and that means that we will occasionally fail (sometimes spectacularly) in meeting those goals. And we fully expect (even rely on) you in the community to let us know both when we fail and when we succeed. But we promise you this: our goal here is to provide truly compelling and valuable experiences for the community, through true engagement.

Finally, if you're interested in taking part in some truly unique, compelling and engaging marketing campaigns, please contact us. We'd be happy to work together with SAY Media and any company who embraces these same principles, to create truly unique marketing experiences. In the past few weeks, as we've prepared for this shift, our team and the folks at SAY Media have been coming up with a long list of ideas of fun things we can do. We just need the right marketing partners to join us and make these things possible. Hopefully some of you reading this right now are interested in being the right partner for a fun, interesting and compelling campaign.

Thanks for being a part of what's been a fantastic, lively and educational community for so many years. We will always strive to provide as much value back to you as possible, and this partnership will help continue that process.

Not this again. I thought that we were well past lobbyists publishing op-ed pieces in which they flat out lied about how broadband pricing works. Almost exactly five years ago, we called out (then) telecom lobbyist Mike McCurry (a former Clinton press secretary) for his bizarre and ridiculous claim that Google got its bandwidth for free. We asked, if that was the case, if McCurry would agree to pay Google's bandwidth bill. McCurry never responded, though the astroturf group he ran at the time was clearly reading, since they took other comments of mine totally out of context at a later date.

It looks like we're in for a repeat with some other ex-DC folks-turned-sell-out lobbyists. This time, it's former Senator John Sununu and former Rep. Harold Ford Jr., shilling for "Broadband for America," claiming that Netflix gets its bandwidth for free. There are so many things wrong with this particular op-ed piece, which is so dishonest that the Mercury News should publish a full retraction and apology. But, for now I'll just make the same deal that I offered to McCurry five years ago:

If John Sununu and Harold Ford Jr. really believe that Netflix is getting a "free ride" with its bandwidth and this is somehow socially irresponsible and unfair, will they agree to pay Netflix's broadband bills for the rest of this year?

Perhaps they can trade bandwidth bills with Netflix. I'm sure if they're willing to pay Netflix's bandwidth bill, Netflix would have no problem paying for their home DSL lines. Hell, maybe Netflix will even cover their mobile broadband accounts as well.

As for the rest of the op-ed, it's pretty funny. While they play up how Netflix "saves" $0.40 in postage by not having to use the mail, they ignore the fact that in order to stream movies, Netflix has to pay ridiculously high licenses. With disc rentals, it could buy one disc and rent it out many times. Not so with streaming licenses. It needs to pay a ton for those.

Then there's this bit of economic cluelessness:

Netflix argues that the marginal cost to the network providers of streaming a half-hour TV show to a residential customer is "one penny." This ignores the hundreds of billions of dollars in sunken network investments needed to create that one-penny marginal cost efficiency at the customer's end.

Um, yes, it does. And as most any economics professor will tell you, you're supposed to ignore the sunk costs in understanding how a market prices things competitively. Telling the market to do the opposite is the very definition of an anti-market, anti-efficient solution.

Consumers tend to pay more when they consume more goods and services, and pay less when they consume less.

And, contrary to the claims in the article, Netflix pays more when its users consume more. Again, will Sununu and Ford pay Netflix's bandwidth bill?

The reality is that Netflix and similar services want a free ride on the networks built with more than $250 billion in design, engineering, manufacturing, construction and maintenance -- a system that now provides broadband services to 95 percent of American households.

Hey, you know what? I spent a lot of money building Techdirt. All of you now owe me money. Apparently that's how Sununu and Ford view market functions. If one party spends a lot of money on something, everyone else is just required to pay. Of course, back here in the real world, that's not how things work. Various broadband companies (with massive taxpayer subsidies, by the way) built out broadband networks because they knew it would be profitable to do so. They made their bet and made their deal. Now they're trying to change the deal by pretending that someone's not paying. They're lying. What they really want is for service providers to pay twice for the same bandwidth. Netflix is already paying for its bandwidth. Consumers already pay for their bandwidth. Sununu and Ford (and really, the telcos they represent) are really trying to get Netflix to pay again, pretending that they should pay for the bandwidth that consumers already paid for, even though Netflix is already paying for that bandwidth. This is about trying to double charge.

If broadband providers are so hard up for cash, then just let them raise rates. Nothing is stopping them from doing that. But that's not what this is really about. This is about trying to force Netflix to double-pay for consumers' bandwidth as well.

So, once again, John Sununu and Harold Ford Jr.: since you insist that Netflix is getting a free ride, will you pay Netflix's bills for the rest of the year? Or will you pull a Mike McCurry and simply ignore this simple challenge and go on pretending that Netflix doesn't pay?

We recently wrote about a surprising Federal Circuit (CAFC) ruling that might open the door to invalidating a lot of software patents. We received an an interesting comment on the post a few days later from John Pettitt:

So I was thinking - great they invalidated software patents, lets see what crappy patent written by an idiot they picked to do it - then I realized the idiot in question was me :-)

Not sure how I feel about this.

John - inventor of the patent in question.

Pettitt is now running an interesting operation called Free Range Content, which helps companies syndicate content easily. However, a while back, he was the named inventor on patent 6,029,154, describing a "Method and system for detecting fraud in a credit card transaction over the internet." We reached out to Pettitt to ask him a few questions about his views on the patent system and he kindly agreed.

Given his comment, calling it "great" that software patents could be invalidated, we wanted to know if he was completely against software patents. Not surprisingly (and here we agree with him), he notes that the issue is more complex than that:

It's a complex issue. I don't think they are inherently bad, however the loose examination standards and a lack of guidance from the courts let a lot of bad patents through. Patents are meant to protect innovation so they should be held to a high standard. Unfortunately the patent industry relies far too much on patent prior art and ignores the vast corpus of open material. The result is that many patents look stupid on their face to anybody 'skilled in the art.'

This is a good point and one we've raised many times before. So many patents that are issued are ridiculed by people actually skilled in the art, demonstrating how they never should have been issued. But because the USPTO focuses much more on "prior art" (i.e., "is this new?" rather than, "is this obvious?") all sorts of obvious stuff gets patented.

Given that this was his patent, we wondered if his views towards patents had changed over time, and he noted, not really:

It hasn't change much. I've never been a big fan of the broad swath of business method patents and even less of a fan of the process for creating and litigating patents. That said, it's the world we live in. So, like every other Silicon Valley entrepreneur, I file patents.

This is something we hear all the time from almost every entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. Patents feel like a "necessary evil," but no one feels like they need them. This should really wake up Congress. They always talk up how patents help and protect entrepreneurs, but the reality is that they're a complete nuisance for most.

Given that it's his patent and he seemed surprised about it, we wondered if he even knew it was involved in a lawsuit. He noted that he has no relationship with any of the parties any more. While he noted that he knew his patent was involved in a lawsuit somewhere, he didn't know that it had reached the appeals court, which was part of the surprise. We also asked if he ever expected that a patent of his would be central to a key ruling about software patents, and he admitted it never crossed his mind:

No. honestly I expected some of the more extreme software patents to be the test cases.

We closed with the big question. One of the key reasons why CAFC rejected the key claims was because they were merely "mental processes" that someone could do with a pencil and paper, and thus didn't require any actual machine. Noting his stated mixed feelings about this result, I asked how he felt about this reason for rejection, and here he dove in with a bit more detail:

This is where it gets interesting. If you go down this route, any patent that results in purely a change in stored information is invalid. I don't think that would be a good outcome. Taking my patent as an example: yes, you could do everything it says in your head. In fact, that’s how I came up with the idea. However for a practical application of the idea you have to implement it in a computer system. Doing it by hand is too slow. This leads to the interesting question: if I build a machine with the code burned into ROM, making it a dedicated tangible device that could only do fraud detection, would that be ok? What about if it produces a tangible result (say printing a fraud warning?). Now if I put the same code on a general purpose computer would that be ok? Compare it to a medical device that takes metabolic readings and alarms if they go out of bounds: You could do the same by sitting a nurse down to watch the patient, but the automated device only processing information is clearly patentable under current rules. As computing becomes pervasive and everything becomes computer controlled or computer mediated it's still important to be able to protect original, non-obvious, ideas.

This is a fair response, and it's one of the key reasons why I've also been hesitant to fully agree with those who wish to carve out software patents. It just seems like something that would be a lot more difficult in practice (though there could be a few ways to do it).

But that doesn't mean the system isn't really, really broken, and Pettitt outlined the details of the problem and a potential solution, from his point of view as an entrepreneur, an inventor and a patent holder:

The problem today is that it's expensive to litigate individual patents and in many cases it's cheaper to pay up than to litigate even if the patent is clearly junk. I think the solution to the software patent issue might include some or all of the following:

• Expedited review of new and disputed patents by a panel of experts in the field with a high bar for validity.
• Shorter lifespan for software patents (7-10 years?)
• End the venue shopping for lawsuits and impose meaningful punitive damages for the assertion of claims that clearly don’t apply (similar to anti SLAPP statutes)
• Patents are meant to foster innovation by protecting the inventor and then upon expiry providing a library of information for others to build on. To this end, going forward, if a patent doesn’t actually tell you enough information to understand and build the invention, it shouldn’t be valid.

The "panel of experts" is similar to what I suggested recently in my "how to fix the patent system" post. I also really like some form of extending anti-SLAPP type laws to bogus patent suits. As we've pointed out in the past, it's incredibly difficult to get a totally bogus patent lawsuit dismissed without it first costing you a ridiculous amount of money. Other types of lawsuits are much easier to get dismissed. Why not patents? I also like the idea that weak disclosures should invalidate a patent, since that would kill a bunch of patents, but I do wonder how you put that into practice. If anything, it seems like the kind of thing that should be solved at the beginning -- in that a patent examiner shouldn't approve a patent that doesn't really teach anything. As for shorter terms for "software patents," we're back to how do you define a software vs. hardware patent.

Still, thanks to John for taking the time to talk. We're so constantly told by patent system supporters that only patent holders should be allowed to comment on the patent system (a claim that's complete nonsense, of course), so it's nice to speak to one (of many) who sees many of the current anti-innovation problems of the system.

Last week, we wrote about David Stebbins legal filing in which he claimed that Google owed him $500 billion, and that the whole thing could not be contested. This wasn't a first. As we noted, earlier in the year he demanded $600 billion from Walmart. Eric Goldman lets us know that Stebbins is also demanding $500 billion from Microsoft, using basically the identical legal "theory" (and we use that term loosely) as he did with Google. That is, he "amended" the Xbox contract, sent it to Microsoft, telling the company that if it didn't cancel his account it meant it had agreed to the contract. When his account wasn't canceled he demanded arbitration over a random issue, pointing to the clauses in his amended contract, including a promise to respond to arbitration requests in 24 hours. Microsoft, of course, did not. Once again, he pointed to the clause in his contract that "claimed" such a forfeit means an automatic victory in arbitration at an amount declared by Stebbins. He then goes to court to "enforce" this supposedly incontestable arbitration "win."

Like most of his previous lawsuits, this one will likely get tossed, in part because nothing in the terms for Xbox (or YouTube, with the Google lawsuit) say that the customer can unilaterally change the contract, contrary to Stebbins' claims. It'll also get tossed out because it's ridiculous.

When we wrote about the Google claim, a few folks in the comments pointed out, accurately, that Stebbins' efforts, while crazy, do point out the ridiculousness of one-sided clickthrough agreements, and the fact that most companies reserve the right to unilaterally change them, and that you "accept" those changes by doing nothing. In fact, in an interview with SeattlePI (the main link above), Stebbins seems to suggest that's part of his motivation:

“My true goal is not to just harass, and it’s not just to get rich. My true goal is to level the playing field.

“I’m trying to give employees, consumers, and generally, people who’ve been economically disadvantaged a new, powerful tool to protect themselves. Who needs to go crying to Congress for more workers’ rights and consumer protection laws?! We can do it all ourselves! How’s that for a motive you can get behind?!”

If that's his reasoning, it's likely to fail on that intention as well, as these lawsuits won't actually work and will get tossed (and sooner or later he may end up in a bit of trouble for filing bogus lawsuits). It's one thing to point out bogus legal terms. It's another to abuse the court system to try to make a point (and on the "lottery ticket" hail mary pass that some court might award you $500 billion).

We've discussed a few times in the past the absolute ridiculousness of services like "Klout" that try to assign a "number" to influence based on random things like how many Twitter followers you have or how often you tweet. Of course, the actual research on this stuff (you know, not by some random company trying to make people and companies think they're important) says that this kind of stuff is all hogwash, and you can't really predict who will "influence" others on certain things. In most cases, who influences you on what is driven more by the close circle of people you know and trust, not someone with a lot of Twitter followers.

But Klout continues to spread its own silly marketing message... and the press apparently just loves it. But, you would think that the Washington Post, of all publications, wouldn't publish an (unintentionally?) hilarious puff piece by Brian Fung suggesting that something like Klout could influence how US diplomats interface with America-hating foreigners. Honestly, the story reads like something straight out of The Onion, taking a faux serious tone about how much diplomats can learn from their Klout score. It opens by talking about just how hated the US is abroad:

America’s reputation abroad has reached a new low. In the Middle East, America is even less popular now than when President George W. Bush occupied the White House. Washington’s image has suffered the most in Turkey, plummeting from a high of 52 percent in 2000 to a dismal 10 percent in 2011. In Asia this past week, Vice President Joe Biden tried to build bridges with Chinese President Hu Jintao’s presumptive successor, but the visit was clouded by doubts about the U.S. deficit.

But have no fear, US diplomats. If you just embrace your Klout score, the Middle East will be eating out of your hands in no time flat.

Klout, which Time magazine included in a list of the year’s 50 best Web sites on August 16, gives its users a score based on how influential they are across a range of social networks. Contributing to the social savviness readout is a wealth of information about users’ most engaged followers and the topics they respond to best.

It’s not hard to see how diplomats can turn this data to their advantage. In an environment that often rewards targeted communication over indiscriminate broadcasting, diplomats have an interest in finding out who their followers are and what they like. Posting content that influencers will spread themselves can maximize the State Department’s impact via network effects while economizing effort. And by learning about their audience, diplomats will be able to tailor their engagement strategy and make course corrections, just as commercial brands do in the private sector.

If not The Onion, at best this reads as a weak press release from Klout itself. The article doesn't quote anyone. It doesn't attempt to explore whether or not Klout's rankings actually mean anything. It just assumes that they do. I'm happy that diplomats are using social media, and I hope they learn to use it well. But relying on Klout to figure out how they should move forward doesn't seem like a particularly fruitful strategy.

I've lived in Silicon Valley for a little over thirteen years now, and the one thing I've learned is that nothing is permanent. When I moved out here, the "big fight" over who was going to dominate the tech landscape was supposed to be between Netscape, Microsoft and AOL. No one had heard of eBay (and people thought that "OnSale" -- an online auction house -- had a better business model). Amazon was around but was "never going to be profitable." Google didn't exist. The search engine of choice was AltaVista or Lycos. Social networking was a site called "SixDegrees." Seriously. It was a big hit the summer of 1998 when everyone was connecting with their friends.

Just a few years ago, it was decided that the battle for the internet was between the "big three" of Google, Yahoo & Microsoft -- better known as GYM. Those three dominated the tech space and there was nobody else "big" worth mentioning.

So, it's a bit funny to see a new report declaring that, today, there's a "Gang of Four" who are fighting to dominate the tech world: Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook. GAAF? AGAF? As in the past, the article seems to think that this battle is the permanent state of the world, with those four being the only players. It talks about how this battle is raising antitrust concerns and worries about less openness.

However, I'm with Adam Thierer in thinking this is totally overhyped "chicken little-ism."

Isn’t it funny how all the recent hand-wringing about the supposed dominance of today’s big four fails to mention Microsoft, Intel, AltaVista, AOL, Yahoo!, BlackBerry, or the old telcos? It would have been impossible to pen anything about technology “dominance” in past years and not mention those companies. Today, they rarely get a mention, except perhaps to highlight their rapid fall from the upper echelons of Tech Titan-dom.

This week’s big news was Google’s bid for Motorola, which positions the search giant better for battle in the smartphone and tablet wars with Apple. Think about it: A company that didn’t even exist 15 years ago and got started in a garage is now making telecom giants sweat. Meanwhile, Facebook, a company started in a college dorm, made News Corporation’s $580 million bet on MySpace turn out to be a mega-turkey. Meanwhile, Apple had what former CEO John Sculley called a “near-death experience” just 15 years ago only to experience a Lazarus-like rebirth and revolutionize the computing, online music, and mobile device sectors. Finally, Amazon.com, along with Apple, has upended media distribution methods and forced mass media giants to rethink how content is priced, bringing prices down in the process.

This is capitalism at its finest, not the catastrophe the tech pessimists preach about.

Five years from now, you can pretty much bet we'll be discussing a very different set of companies aiming for tech dominance. Their may be some crossovers, but it's likely that at least one company on the list is one that you've either barely heard of today or you haven't heard of at all. The tech industry is ruthless and ever changing. It's tough to stay on top for very long, and any effort to totally close things off will be seen by smart entrepreneurs as an opportunity to jump in and compete, with openness.

TheNextWeb has an amusing story about a new art exhibit, called 5 Million Dollars, 1 Terabyte which is, of course, merely a hard drive with some unauthorized downloads on it. There's apparently a pdf file that lists out what's on the hard drive, but as with the author of the article, I was unable to get it to open. Of course, given how the industry seems to value "infringement" these days, I would imagine it doesn't need that many files to reach $5 million.