White Knight or Trojan Horse? The Consequences of Digital Rights Management for Consumers, Firms and Society

Due to its ability to solve all main problems associated with digital goods, Digital Rights Management is the favourite option used by companies to tackle piracy. The aim of this article is to discuss the consequences of DRM for consumers, firms and society. The rationales of DRM are discussed and the expected benefits for firms are presented.. In contrast, consumers are shown to be likely to see few benefits in DRM. This article demonstrates that even a standard DRM system is unlikely to improve social welfare. The article concludes with some public policy recommendations.Digital Rights Management, Digital Goods, Piracy, Excludability, Durability, Sampling.

Co-creation and user innovation: The role of online 3D printing platforms

The aim of this article is to investigate the changes brought about by online 3D printing platforms in co-creation and user innovation. As doing so requires a thorough understanding of the level of user involvement in productive processes and a clear view of the nature of co-creative processes, this article provides a ‘prosumption’ framework and a typology of co-creation activities. Then, based on case studies of 22 online 3D printing platforms, a service-based taxonomy of these platforms is constructed. The taxonomy and typology are then matched to investigate the role played by online 3D platforms in regard to the various types of co-creation activities and, consequently, how this impacts user innovation

360° business model innovation: Toward an integrated view of business model innovation

OVERVIEW: Business model innovation has arguably become a critical way to innovate, but its success factors are poorly understood. A lack of tools allowing the examination of business models in their entirety combined with the complex relationship between business model changes and market outcomes makes this especially difficult. This article introduces a comprehensive framework that addresses these two issues, by providing an integrated, value-based view of all of the critical components of the business model. The framework is applied to two well-known cases - Netflix and Spotify - to demonstrate how the tool can be used to highlight the critical differences in business models that may at first seem very similar and show how the framework enables managers to envisage the dynamics of business model innovation

Involving Consumers: The Role of Digital Technologies in Promoting 'Prosumption' and User Innovation

Since the First Industrial Revolution, consumers have been mainly considered as playing a passive role with regard to production. However, the recent decades have seen a progressive growth in consumer involvement in production processes, for instance, in the form of user innovation, DIY and mass customisation. Yet, it was not until the advent of digital technologies that consumers’ input in production processes could become really significant in all dimensions of production (design, manufacturing and distribution). This increased (sometimes leading) role of consumers in production has been referred to as ‘prosumption’. While prosumption has so far been mainly significant online (where consumers have arguably taken over the creation and distribution of content), recent advances in digital technologies (mobile networks, 3D printing) have enabled prosumption to reach to world of physical objects, as illustrated by the increased importance of consumer-made goods (‘makers’ movement) and of the ‘sharing economy’. Although prosumption can be highly disruptive to markets, there has not been so far a thorough investigation of the nature of this phenomenon. Yet, understanding this nature is critical to apprehend disruptions. Furthermore, while digital technologies have been acknowledged as a key factor in the rise of prosumption, the exact role of each set of technologies has not yet been studied, which is a problem, as different technologies enable different types of prosumption. The aim of this article is to fill these two gaps. To do so, a framework of prosumption, which encompasses both inputs and outputs of consumer contribution, is introduced. This framework is then applied to multiple case studies, which enables to show how prosumption has evolved and what changes lie ahead

3D Printing and intellectual property futures

This report contains socio-legal research conducted on the relationship between 3D printing and intellectual property (IP) at the current point in time and in potential future scenarios, through the use of horizon-scanning methods in six countries—China, France, India, Russia, Singapore and the UK - to build a rich picture of this issue, comprising both developed and emerging economies

Pricing music using personal data: mutually advantageous first-degree price discrimination

In addition to customized products and services, personal data also enables personalized pricing. However, consumers are often unwilling to accept being price discriminated for fear that they would end up paying more for the same product or service. This article demonstrates that by rewarding consumers for disclosing personal information it is possible to achieve a situation where first-degree price discrimination is mutually advantageous and both buyers and sellers gain by adopting such a pricing model. The conditions required for this to happen are investigated and the impact on social welfare is discussed. Finally, the article considers the robustness of this model when consumers adopt an opportunistic behavior which consists in manipulating personal data in order to masquerade as a consumer with a lower willingness to pay

Investigating Factors Influential on the Success of Social Product Development initiatives

Social Product Development (SPD) is represented by tenants including crowdsourcing, open innovation, cloud-based design and manufacture (CBDM) and mass collaboration that either individually or in concert contribute to the democratization of design, manufacture and innovation. Although widely and very successfully used in thousands of documented case studies [1], these tenants have not yet fully arrived within the domain of professional and commercial industrial product development. Amongst the reasons for this are a lack of clear definitions as to what these tenants are and clear guidelines or procedures that outline how they can be used to aid the various phases of the product development process. In this paper, the authors investigate how success for each of the tenants or any combination thereof can be influenced. The tenants of Social Product Development can be mapped according to three factors; proximity to other participants (Pa), proximity to leading organization (Po) and the number of participants (N). In this paper, the authors hypothesize that these three variables are related to the success of SPD tenants. An analysis study is then conducted with expert researchers to test this hypothesis and determine whether these variables are influential on SPD success. The expert researchers determined that only one relationship, between open innovation success and organizational proximity existed, therefore rendering all other relationships non-existent and disproving the hypothesis. Results and limitations of the study are discussed before aims for further research are highlighted. These include clarifying definitions of success for Social Product Development, providing success factors for the tenants and supporting practitioners in applying SPD tenants

Association of lipid profile parameters, atherogenic index of plasma, anthropometric parameters with the severity of the COVID-19 course in Novosibirsk women

Background: Our study aimed to assess the relationship between the parameters of the lipid profile, atherogenic index of plasma (AIP), anthropometry influence with the severity of the new coronavirus infection COVID-19 in women. Material and methods. The study design was a cross-sectional study. The research included 138 women aged 29–82 years who had undergone a new coronavirus infection COVID-19 at least two months ago. Participants were divided into three groups by severity of infection: mild (n = 61), moderate (n = 70) and severe (n = 7). Body mass index, waistline and hip circumference, waistline circumference to hip circumference index, total cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL, LDL, AIP were calculated. Statistical processing of the obtained results was carried out using the SPSS software package (version 20.0) using the Mann-Whitney test, univariate logistic regression analysis, Pearson chi-squared test. Results. The levels of HDL-cholesterol were significantly lower in group 3 compared with the level of HDL-cholesterol in women in group 2 (p2-3 = 0.046). BMI was higher in the moderately severe group compared to the mild one (26.32 [23.305; 30.4] versus 28.78 [24.72; 34.77], p1-2 = 0.026). Hip circumference was higher in patients with severe COVID-19 than in patients with mild course (104 [98; 112] versus 114 [109.5; 126], p1-3 = 0.039), AIP was higher in women with severe course compared to women with moderate and mild course (p1-3 = 0.043, p2-3 = 0.04). The results of the logistic regression analysis showed that the moderate course of COVID-19 is associated with BMI (OR = 1.09, 95 % CI 1.019–1.166, p1-2 = 0.012), and the severe course with WC (OR = 1.041, 95 % CI 1.001–1.084, p1-3 = 0.046), AIP value ≥ 0.11 (OR = 13.824, 95 % CI 1.505–126.964, p1-3 = 0.02; OR = 11,579, 95 % CI 1,266–105,219, p2-3 = 0.03) and HDL level < 40 mg/dl (OR = 14,750, 95 % CI 2,317–93,906, p1-3 = 0.004; OR = 8,000, 95 % CI 1,313– 48,538, p1-3 = 0.024). Conclusion. Patients from the group with moderate and severe course of the new coronavirus infection have higher body mass index, hip circumference, AIP, lower HDL values. The chance of a moderate course of COVID-19 is associated with an increased BMI value, and a severe course with WC, AIP ≥ 0.11 and HDL level < 40 mg/dl

Биохимические, молекулярно-генетические и клинические аспекты COVID-2019

 The 2020 coronavirus infection pandemic has potentiated a large number of studies in the world on the etiopathogenesis, clinical and morphological manifestations of COVID-2019 infection. This review presents biochemical, molecular genetic and clinical aspects of COVID-2019.  Пандемия коронавирусной инфекции в 2020 г. потенцировала проведение большого числа исследований в мире в области этиопатогенеза и клинико-морфологических проявлений  COVID-2019. Представлены биохимические, молекулярно-генетические и клинические аспекты COVID-2019.

The effect of audit committee characteristics on intellectual capital disclosure

This paper, using data from 100 UK listed firms, investigates the relationship between audit committee characteristics and intellectual capital (IC) disclosure. We find that IC disclosure is positively associated with audit committee characteristics of size and frequency of meetings, and negatively associated with audit committee directors’ shareholding. We find no significant relationship between IC disclosure and audit committee independence and financial expertise. We also observe variations in the association between audit committee characteristics and IC disclosure at its component level, which suggest that the underlying factors that drive various forms of IC disclosure, i.e. human capital, structural capital and relational capital, are different. These results have important implications for policy-makers who have a responsibility to ensure that shareholders are protected by prescribing appropriate corporate governance structures and accounting regulations/guidelines