Paul Davidson. Google Could Cause a Stir in FCC’s Airwaves Auction. USAToday.com. Jan. 24, 2008. This story, and the coverage at InfoWorld, provide good introductions to the wireless spectrum auction and how it may affect everyday people. The airwaves that the Federal Communication Commission is auctioning are the leftover spectrum that will be made available once television becomes a digital-only proposition in 2009. (In other words, this year is the final year you will be able to use “rabbit ears” to watch television.

Starting in 2009, it’s either digital television or a subscription option, such as cable.) Google has won a petition to ensure “C” block spectrum airwaves are available to any wireless provider a subscriber wants to use. This allows Google to act as a service or application provider even if it does not win the auction. The spectrum auction began Thursday, Jan. 24 with more than 200 bidders — including Google, Verizon, and AT&T — submitting sealed bids. Winning bids could be revealed any time between late February and late March.

(Editor’s Note: Copycense editors originally commented on this article in the Jan. 29, 2008, edition of Copycense Clippings.)

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Here at Copycense, we’ve long contended that the trend toward user-generated content had so altered America’s business, technological, and cultural landscape that the country’s legislature and court system would have no choice but to recognize this shift and begin to change the laws it passes and the way such laws are interpreted.

We have wanted to codify these ideas into a CommuniK. article, but to some degree, the Times‘ Jon Pareles has beaten us to the punch. Pareles’ article on user-generated content is one of the best single statements we have seen about the trend and the issues that surround it. Virtually every information professional, entertainment executive, and creator should read this article as a Cliffs’ Notes version of the digital economy.

The following quote helps show how good this article is

Copyright holders might be incensed; since buying YouTube, Google is paying some of them and fielding lawsuits from others. But a truly shrewd marketer might find some larger value. Those parodies, collages, remakes and mismakes are unvarnished market research: a way to see what people really think of their product. They’re also advertising: a reminder of how enjoyable the official versions were.

The amateurs may seem irreverent, disrespectful and even parasitical as they help themselves to someone else’s hooks. But they’re confirming that the pros came up with something durable enough to demand a reply. Without icons, what would iconoclasts mock?

Pareles follows with another outstanding observation

Individually the hopefuls can’t compete with a heavily promoted major-label star. Face it: Song for song, most of them just aren’t as good. But collectively they are stiff competition indeed: for time, for attention and, eventually, for cultural impact. The multiplying choices promise ever more diversity, ever more possibility for innovation and unexpected delight. But they also point toward an increasingly atomized audience, a popular culture composed of a zillion nonintersecting mini-cults. So much available self-expression can only accelerate what narrowing radio and cable formats had already begun: the separation of culture into ever-smaller niches.

That fragmentation is a problem for businesses, like recording companies and film studios, that are built on selling a few blockbusters to make up for a lot of flops. The music business in particular is going to have to remake itself with lower and more sustainable expectations, along the lines of how independent labels already work.

But let the business take care of itself; it’s the culture that matters.

For these reasons, Pareles’ article is this week’s Article of the Week and Quote of the Week.

Jon Pareles. 2006, Brought to You by You. The New York Times. Dec. 10, 2006.

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Digital Chocolate focuses solely on developing games and applications for mobile phones. According to founder and chief executive Trip Hawkins (employee No. 68 at Apple Computer before he left that company in 1982 to start Electronic Arts), “Content is just a means to an end, so there’s something to talk about,” he said. In other words, social connection trumps all.

Accordingly, Digital Chocolate’s creations appear decidedly low-tech, the easiest-to-use games possible without fancy graphics or elaborate storytelling. And its newest games and entertainments are designed to foster conversation and flirting.

Needless to say, plenty of entertainment and media companies do not share that pointed opinion. From Hollywood to the Bristol, Conn., campus of ESPN, companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to adapt their current brands in television, movies, games and news and information to the tiny screens of mobile phones, and creating new programming. Ultimately, whoever guesses correctly the kind of bite-sized, time-wasting distractions people want to snack on over their phones could be showered with a bonanza of profits, at a time when technology is squeezing the traditional businesses of media and entertainment companies.

Lorne Manly. For Tiny Screens, Some Big Dreams. The New York Times. May 21, 2006.

CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“Sony is moving to make its music management software compatible with Apple Computer’s audio file format in the latest evidence of Apple’s dominance in digital music.

“The behemoth Japanese conglomerate, which once controlled the portable music market, announced last week that the company’s data compression technology would be compatible with a number of rival formats, including Apple’s format of choice, AAC.

“In the past, Sony has fiercely held to its own Atrac system. By switching to a technology that supports AAC, Sony appears to be acknowledging Apple’s dominance in the digital music playing market, say analysts. Sony’s new management system will allow iPod users to swap some of their music to a Sony Walkman, but only songs they ripped from CDs.”

Greg Sandoval. Sony Opts for Open Audio Format. News.com. May 10, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“RealNetworks has received a patent on a way to stream multimedia content over the Internet, and the company said last week that it believed the patent would give it leverage as companies rapidly expand their efforts to turn the Internet into a broadcast medium.

“RealNetworks competes against Apple, Adobe, Microsoft and other companies in developing and selling software to media businesses that use the Internet to broadcast audio and video. The patent could allow the company to demand royalty payments from those competitors or from media companies.”

John Markoff. Patent Awarded to RealNetworks May Give It a Competitive Edge. The New York Times. April 24, 2006.

See also:

Stephen Bryant. RealNetworks’ Streaming Media Patent: A Cause for Concern? Publish. April 25, 2006.

U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Multimedia Communications System and Method for Providing Audio On Demand to Subscribers (No. 6,985,932). Jan. 10, 2006. (Patent awarded to RealNetworks.)

U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Method and Apparatus for Operating A Multicast System on an Unreliable Network (No. 5,561,670). Oct. 1, 1996. (Patent awarded to Apple Computer.)

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“Aiming to offer newspapers a new digital publishing alternative, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on Friday touted a software program that tries to make publications easier to read on a computer screen.

“As part of a speech at a newspaper editors’ conference in Seattle, Gates is slated to show off a program called “Times Reader,” developed by the New York Times Co., that uses the graphics power of Windows Vista to help bring the “Gray Lady” further into the digital age. The software allows users to view the digital content on any screen size or change the font size. The layout will readjust itself to neatly flow around photos and other graphic images.

Ina Fried. Microsoft, NYT Partner On Newspaper Software. News.com. April 28, 2006.

See also:

Katharine Q. Seelye. Microsoft Software Will Let Times Readers Download Paper. The New York Times. April 29, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“Burst.com has filed a countersuit against Apple Computer claiming that the iTunes software, the iPod and the Quicktime streaming software all infringe on patents held by Burst.com, Burst announced Monday.

“After being approached by Burst.com in late 2004, Apple had filed for a declaratory judgment in January that it isn’t infringing on Burst’s patents, but Burst is going ahead with its lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in San Francisco. Burst is asking for royalties as well as an injunction, it said in a press release.

“Burst has developed software that helps companies speed up the delivery of audio and video files over a network. The company was involved in a similar patent infringement dispute with Microsoft last year that ended with a $60 million settlement and a Microsoft license to the Burst technology.”

Tom Krazit. Burst.com Sues Apple for Patent Infringement. News.com. April 17, 2006.

See also:

Burst.com. Burst.com Files Patent Infringement Suit against Apple Computer; Announces Expansion of Legal Team. (Press release.) April 17, 2006.

Peter Burrows. Underdog Or Patent Troll? BusinessWeek Online. April 24, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.