Limitation of Sales Warranties as an Alternative to Intellectual Property Rights: An Empirical Analysis of IPhone Warranties’ Deterrent Impact on Consumers

Apple\u27s success with the Apple iPhone has brought with it certain problems. Its success has engendered a community that has attempted to circumvent Apple\u27s exclusive service agreement with AT&T. Unfortunately for Apple (and similarly situated manufacturers), intellectual property law allows consumers to alter their products so as to circumvent relationships that manufacturers may have with others. The patent and copyright law first sale doctrine allows consumers to manipulate a product after it is purchased. As a result, manufacturers are increasingly turning to alternatives to intellectual property to secure control over the device after the sale. One such alternative is the exclusion of warranty under Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code. This iBrief considers whether limitation of warranties have the deterrence effect manufacturers desire. Said differently, it considers whether manufacturers can use warranty limitations to prevent consumers from using their products in an unauthorized manner. The iBrief presents a behavioral model based on the Triandis model of planned behavior and enhances the model by accounting for likely and unlikely benefits and detriments. The model suggests that participants weigh the probability and magnitude of the detriment against the probability and magnitude of the beneficial impact when making the decision to engage in technological piracy. This model, considered with other empirical evidence, suggests that Apple\u27s warranty could be a stronger deterrent for consumers than civil liability. The iBrief concludes that manufacturers can better protect their post-sale expectation of profits by raising consumer awareness of their warranty\u27s quality and by raising awareness of the consequences for using the product in a way that is outside the terms of the consumers\u27 authorized use

Determinants of high-royalty contracts and the impact of stronger protection of intellectual property rights in Japan

This paper first reviews how Japan has strengthened the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs), focusing on the expansion of the patentable subject matter, the restriction of the possibility of compulsory licensing, stronger deterrence against infringement and the introduction of the doctrine of equivalents. Second, based on the statistical analysis of sector-level panel data, it shows that (1)R&D intensity of domestic industry, trademark licensing, cross-licensing and, to a smaller degree, monopoly provisions are the significant determinants of the incidence of high-royalty contracts, and (2)Stronger protection of intellectual property rights looks to have increased the incidence of high-royalty contracts in the latter part of 1990s in the Japanese industries for which patent is important for appropriability.Intellectual property rights, Licensing contract, Appropriability, Patent

Neoliberalism and Monopoly in the Motion Picture Industry

Monopolies and industry concentration have returned in our time, as did the ramifications in the globalized political economy. One of the most impactful in our daily lives are the Mass Media Conglomerates who not only own the majority of film, television, and news we access, but increasingly control the means of accessing it, from cable to digital. While many are familiar with these corporations via their services and products, less known by the public are their political operations and close cooperation with Washington. This is due to the lack of holistic analysis of the industry and cooperation in the media oligopoly. Especially lacking is the focus on trade associations in the political process. As such, this dissertation analyzes the role of the prominent trade association for the film industry—the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The MPAA was formed in the early days of Hollywood’s film dominance, and today is one of the most prominent and notorious trade associations in promoting neoliberal development. These changes include transnationalized production and distribution, Intellectual Property Rights extensions, and invasive trade agreements to name a few. The influence and power to do so goes beyond lobbying, by instrumentalizing their industry, incorporating state bureaucracies, and developing an international structure that enhances corporate political power. The results have been an ever-growing consolidation that branches into related sectors and industries of communication and technology. With this such trade associations like the MPAA become more representative and hold more political leverage, which is increasingly used on the global arena and impacting the foreign and domestic policy of many states far beyond Hollywood

Can ‘Open Science’ be Protected from the Evolving Regime of IPR Protections?

Increasing access charges and transactions costs arising from monopoly rights in data and information adversely affect the conduct of science, especially exploratory research programs. The latter are widely acknowledged to be critical for the sustained growth of knowledge-driven economies, but are most efficiently pursued in the “open science” mode. In some fields, informal cooperative norms of behavior among researchers– in regard to the sharing of timely access to raw data- steams and documented database resources – are being undermined by legal institutional innovations that accommodate the further privatising of the public domain in information. A variety of corrective measures are needed to restore proper balance to the IPR.

Tragedy of the Public Knowledge 'Commons'? Global Science, Intellectual Property and the Digital Technology Boomerang

Radical legal innovations in intellectual property protection have been introduced by the little noticed European Database Directive of March 1996. This initiative, part of the larger institutional transformations initiated in response to the economic ramifications of rapid progress in digital information technologies, poses numerous contentious issues in law and economics. These are likely to create ambiguities for business and non-profit activities in this area for years to come, and the terms on which those issues are resolved will materially affect the costs and organizational feasibility of scientific projects that are of global reach and significance. This is the case especially in fields such as geology, oceanography and climatology, which depend heavily upon the collection, management and analysis of large volumes of observational data that cannot be regenerated. More generally the conduct of open, collaborative science - along with many of the benefits that flow from it for the developed and the developing economies alike - may be seriously jeopardized by the consequences of the new database protections. This raises the spectre of a new and different "tragedy of the commons," one created by continuing the unbalanced pressure to extract greater economic rents by means of controlling access to information. "Over-fencing," which is to say, the erection of artificial cost barriers to the production of reliable public knowledge by means of reliable public knowledge, threatens the future of "the public knowledge commons" that historically has proved critically important for rapid advance in science and technology. The paper sets out the economic case for the effectiveness of open, collaborative research, and the forces behind the recent, countervailing rush to strengthen and expand the scope of intellectual property rights protection. Focusing upon innovations in copyright law and the sui generis protection of hitherto unprotected content, it documents the genesis and analyzes the economic implications of the EC''s Database Directive, and related legislative proposals (H.R. 3125, H.R. 354 and H.R. 1858) in the US. The discussion concludes by advancing a number of modest remedial proposals that are intended to promote greater efforts to arrive at satisfactory policy solutions for this aspect of "the digital dilemma."economics of technology ;

A TRAGEDY OF THE PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE ‘COMMONS’? Global Science, Intellectual Property and the Digital Technology Boomerang

Radical legal innovations in intellectual property protection have been introduced by the little noticed European Database Directive of March 1996. This initiative, part of the larger institutional transformations initiated in response to the economic ramifications of rapid progress in digital information technologies, poses numerous contentious issues in law and economics. These are likely to create ambiguities for business and non-profit activities in this area for years to come, and the terms on which those issues are resolved will materially affect the costs and organizational feasibility of scientific projects that are of global reach and significance. This is the case especially in fields such as geology, oceanography and climatology, which depend heavily upon the collection, management and analysis of large volumes of observational data that cannot be regenerated. More generally the conduct of open, collaborative science – along with many of the benefits that flow from it for the developed and the developing economies alike – may be seriously jeopardized by the consequences of the new database protections. This raises the spectre of a new and different “tragedy of the commons,” one created by continuing the unbalanced pressure to extract greater economic rents by means of controlling access to information. “Over-fencing,” which is to say, the erection of artificial cost barriers to the production of reliable public knowledge by means of reliable public knowledge, threatens the future of “the public knowledge commons” that historically has proved critically important for rapid advance in science and technology. The paper sets out the economic case for the effectiveness of open, collaborative research, and the forces behind the recent, countervailing rush to strengthen and expand the scope of intellectual property rights protection. Focusing upon innovations in copyright law and the sui generis protection of hitherto unprotected content, it documents the genesis and analyzes the economic implications of the EC’s Database Directive, and related legislative proposals (H.R. 3125, H.R. 354 and H.R. 1858) in the US. The discussion concludes by advancing a number of modest remedial proposals that are intended to promoted greater efforts to arrive at satisfactory policy solutions for this aspect of “the digital dilemma.”intellectual property rights, copyright, sui generis protection of expressive material, economics of information-goods, open science, “fair use,” scientific databases.

The Rise and Fall of Record Labels

This thesis studies the music industry as a whole, and delves more specifically into how new technologies have disrupted the old business model. Advances in technology such as the Internet, MP3s, and file-sharing software have made it possible to bypass the traditional role of record labels, thus creating a closer link between artists and consumers. As the music industry transformed over time, the role of record labels became less defined. This has left once behemoth labels struggling to find a competitive advantage in a rapidly devolving industry. Record labels are no longer the most relevant segment of the music industry, and this work provides an in-depth analysis of the processes that destroyed their relevance. This thesis begins by examining the music industry at a macro level, before tracking record labels from their prominence to their current marginalized role. Advancements in MP3, P2P networks, and other consumer-enabling technologies have transformed the music industry. The lack of a significant response to this shifting landscape within the industry has left record labels on a slippery slope towards extinction. As record labels failed to adapt to shifting demand and changing methods of consumption, private entrepreneurs have intervened to solve inefficiencies in the market. This thesis will leave the reader with an expansive knowledge of how the music industry has transformed, as well as its future trajectory without record labels

To re-imagine the boundaries of copyright protection

Copyright protection has, throughout its 200 year journey, been a divisive topic. Simultaneously too strong yet too weak, never enough to satisfy the needs of both the rightsholders and the public. Regulating the ever developing creative field has proven to be a difficult challenge, further aggravated by the shift into the digital online environment, where previously solid boundaries began to waver and shift. And in that online environment copyright protection has found in ‘piracy’ its most resilient opponent. This thesis aims to begin the process of re-imagining these boundaries of copyright protection by reflecting on their 200 year journey and the call for ever stronger protection, through one of the latest expansions to their scope, the 2019 CDSM-Directive. Through this journey it is revealed that these modern boundaries are built on an inherently unequal and unbalanced foundation that stands to be rebuilt, re-imagined, into something new. This rotten foundation has too long enabled the unfair exploitation of authors and the global South in the name of a profit oriented economic model that is both unsustainable and unethical. To re-imagine these boundaries means to elevate and honor fundamental rights, moral rights, the author and the pursuit of innovation on a global scale and to even re-evaluate ‘piracy’. Lest a bell will toll on creativity