Media Deconsolidation, Part 12: Time Warner President Calls Synergy “Bull—t”

by on June 4, 2006 · 6 comments

I’ve been spending most of my time blogging about First Amendment-related issues in recent months and have failed to cover media marketplace / ownership developments. Specifically, I haven’t kept up with my ongoing “Media DE-consolidation series,” which has highlighted downsizing or spin-offs at several companies, including: Knight-Ridder, Viacom, Disney, Clear Channel, and many others.

As part of this series, I’ve previously written about Time Warner’s potential coming crack-up, but now it appears imminent. In an amazing front page story in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, Time Warner President Jeff Bewkes declares the death of “synergy.” More poignantly, Bewkes goes so far as to call synergy “bull—t”!

And so it appears that the biggest media mega-merger of all-time–and a deal that had hoards of Chicken Little critics declaring it represented “Big Brother,” “the end of the independent press,” and a harbinger of a “new totalitarianism”–is set to unravel.

What are we to make of this?

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Adobe vs. Microsoft III: Open Standards Lose?

by on June 3, 2006

Following up on Sonia’s and Andrew’s recent posts on reports of the PDF spat between Adobe’s and Microsoft. What’s interesting in all of this is that Microsoft wants to implement PDF into its product offering. But what is it implementing? Is it a closed standard dressed up like it is an open one? Or is the version that Microsoft plans to offer (now via a free download, not as a part of Office or Vista) an open standard? When it comes to PDF, what’s the difference? The problem is that there are many different versions of PDF. Time for a little history lesson:

The PDF 1.4 specification is used in the AIIM created, and ISO approved ISO 19005-1 PDF/A and PDF/X standard. The PDF/A is generally considered the “archive” standard, PDF/X a focused subset of PDF designed specifically for reliable prepress data interchange. They are application standards, as well as a file format standard. In other words, it defines how applications creating and reading files should behave.

The PDF 1.5 specification was first a part of Adobe Acrobat 6.0, which was introduced in April 2003

PDF 1.6 was released in November 2004 and is supported by Adobe Acrobat 7.0, the current version. The AIIM committee has begun work on ISO 19005-2 based on PDF Reference 1.6.

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Open Source and Car Culture

by on June 3, 2006 · 2 comments

On a flight last night, I got to pore over the most recent issues of InformationWeek. It has the right mix of technology, business, policy, innovation, and gadgetry for a person with my mix of knowledge, interests, and time.

I came across a refreshing article on open source. I think I liked it so well because it was pretty much devoid of interpretation. Nothing about open source’s meaning or consequences – just neutral reporting about who’s doing open source and why. How businesses are using it, encouraging it, or shunning it.

The money quote for me came from a sidebar:

The reason [Chase Phillips] contributes code “boils down to a passion or belief that Mozilla provides freedom to people to control their own computers,” he says. “I believe in different layers of freedom, technological freedom.”

I’m not a coder, but the people featured in the article remind me of me when I was a gear-head in high school. There were Ford guys and Chevy guys – and a few Dodge guys (freaks). Maybe these analogize to the major operating systems. (The former car guy in me wants to beat me up right now.)

We spent our leisure time tricking out our cars and helping each other trick out cars. My car wasn’t all that great – I didn’t have enough money to do it right – and I haven’t even owned a car for 10 years, but I still enjoy the car culture in this country, from the lowriders in San Jose and SoCal to NASCAR’s roots in bootlegging.

It’s all a challenge to auto manufacturers who would just as happily stamp out identical cars and control the revenue stream from parts and repair. But they don’t, and we’re better off because people can still get under the hood.

(N.B., The distinction between cars and computers is collapsing. Hackers will decide whether car culture stays or goes.)

While I’m on InformationWeek, let me recommend the columns of Editor-in-Chief Rob Preston. Recent gems: Rob mentions John Locke in a piece on broadband regulation/”‘net neutrality.” And here’s Rob’s poke in the eye to CNN anti-progress blowhard Lou Dobbs.

That’s good times, people.

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Adobe vs. Microsoft II: Users Lose

by on June 2, 2006

Sonia’s pointed post earlier today spurred my thoughts on Adobe’s efforts to sic the European antitrust squad on Microsoft to keep PDF generation out of Office. But rather than argue over Microsoft’s position as a monopolist, I’m inclined to look towards the consumer surplus destroyed here by competition law.

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New Heritage Report: “Broadband Regulation: Will Congress Neuter the Net?”

by on June 2, 2006 · 2 comments

In case you haven’t had your fill of net neutrality yet, here is a new paper of mine, published today by The Heritage Foundation, surveying the issue. My conclusion:

Proposed network neutrality rules would impose comprehensive, unnecessary, and harm­ful mandates on broadband networks. Such unnecessary mandates–the most extensive regu­lation of the Internet ever considered by Con­gress–would stymie the efficient use of scarce Internet capacity, discourage investment, and even threaten the growth of competition among broadband networks.

Despite the grim scenarios painted by the sup­porters of regulation, there is little or no evidence of market abuse by network owners. This is for good reason: Today’s broadband market is compet­itive, and any network abusing its position would quickly lose customers. Moreover, if any abuse does occur, existing competition law is more than sufficient to address the problem.

Advocates of neutrality regulation argue that the future of the Internet is at issue in this debate. They are correct. This is why such regulation of the Inter­net should be rejected.

In other words, regulation would be a bad thing.

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Pew: Broadband Access Soars, Prices Drop

by on June 2, 2006

The Pew Internet Project came out with a fascinating report this week about broadband usage in America. According to their most recent survey, the number of Americans with broadband access at home has soared by 40 percent in the past year (growing from 60 million in March 2005 to 84 million in March of 2006). And the growth wasn’t just among the well-to-do: some of the biggest growth rates were among African-Americans and those with less thatn a high school education).

Much of this growth is no doubt due to dropping broadband prices. Pew found the average month broadband rate dropped from $39 in February 2004 to $36 last December. Interestingly, all of this decrease was from DSL, which decreased from $41 to $32, with cable modem prices holding steady.

These findings are especially interesting in light of the current debate in Congress over neutrality regulation. The case for regulation rests, in large part, on an assumption that their is no competition in broadband. Instead, the market is said to be “a cozy duopoly”. But, Economics 101 tells us monopolists (and duopolists) restrict supply and maximize prices. Pew’s numbers show things going in the opposite direction.

Of course none of this proves that competition is working. And Pew did note that some people don’t currently have a choice of broadband provider (although regulation would make it less–not more–likely they will ever get a choice). Moreover, the report didn’t compare what prices and access rates might have been under alternative industry structures.

Still, this has got to be bad news for those arguing that the broadband market needs regulation. And, if I were an aspiring duopolist, I’d be unhappy too–this industry doesn’t sound all that cozy.

As a consumer, though, I see Pew’s report as pretty good news. Now only if Congress doesn’t muck it up.

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Adobe Vs. Microsoft

by on June 2, 2006

Today, the WSJ reported that Adobe is threatening an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft in Europe because Adobe doesn’t want Microsoft to use PDF in MS Office. So why is Adobe going to Europe?

They are both American companies, so it might seem pretty strange. That is, until you realize that the Europeans are much more sympathetic to such claims and seem to love to sick it to Microsoft and the Americans who run it. If Adobe really does complain in Europe, that will be a VERY obvious case of forum shopping. This is an unfortunate development for consumers and technology entrepreneurs.

Specifically, Adobe asked Microsoft to remove new PDF functions from Microsoft Office and to charge users for the service if it can be downloaded. Adobe gives the software away for free, and Apple and Open Office along with about 1800 companies, have already implemented the specs. So why can’t Microsoft do it? The argument that their bigness requires different rules just doesn’t hold. Microsoft is NOT a monopoly and is facing huge threats on a number of fronts such as from Google and Yahoo. Anyone who doesn’t realize that needs to wake up and smell the coffee.

Remember the last time MS faced antitrust charges here in the US? Charges of predatory pricing and tying were used and predictions that Internet Explorer (IE) would dominate forever abounded. Only a few short years later, IE has lost ground, being replaced by browsers like Mozilla, Safari, and Opera, and a bunch of others.

Government should not pick winners and losers in the marketplace and Adobe, who once welcomed Microsoft’s entry into the PDF space, would be better off spending its time innovating rather than litigating.

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Misquotes on Global Warming

by on June 2, 2006 · 16 comments

I’m doing some research to try to get a handle on Paul Krugman’s accusations against my former colleague Pat Michaels in the Ukia Daily Journal. (It was also in the New York Times, but it costs money there–methinks the paywall people at the Times need to talk to the syndication people) Michaels responds to the accusation on Cato’s blog.

I haven’t figured out what I think about the dispute yet, but I wanted to flag an inaccuracy I found in the course of my research. RealClimate.org is a prominent blog about “climate science by climate scientists.” They’ve done a number of blog posts criticizing Michaels for alleged inaccuracies, including the one featured in Krugman’s column. One of the unfortunate things about the climate debate is that it’s extremely vitriolic: the pro-Kyoto folks consider the “skeptics” to be pseudo scientists in the pay of private industry, while the “skeptics” accuse their opponents of trumping up the results to get more research funding. As a result, they often accuse each other of lying and misleading the public, and it’s often hard to tell for sure who’s telling the truth.

So here’s one example where Michaels’s critics wrongly accused him of misrepresenting his opponents. Gavin writes that Michaels misquoted climatologist James Hansen by removing the qualification “Given these constraints on climate forcing trends” from the sentence “we predict additional warming in the next 50 years of 3/4 +/- 1/4°C.”

“What are these constraints that Hansen mentions?” he asks, “Precisely the control of CO2, methane and black carbon emissions that Michaels insists are unnecessary!”

But that’s not quite right, as I’ll explain below the fold.

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Another 15 Minutes: A Guy Goma Update

by on June 2, 2006 · 2 comments

What’s the hottest topic in the tech/media world today? Neutrality regulation? DRM? Wiretapping? No, its Guy Goma. Remember him? He’s the “wrong Guy” who was interviewed live on BBC a few weeks ago by mistake. Goma–a Congolese-born IT job applicant was waiting for a job interview at BBC’s offfices, when he was mistaken for Guy Kewney, an Internet policy expert whom BBC had meant to interview. (see here for my earlier post on this.)

Turns out that Goma’s time in the spotlight didn’t end with that appearance. He now has his own website–guygoma.com–featuring Goma’s worldwide media coverage, Goma’s followup interview on BBC (this time they intended to talk to him), a Goma news feed and e-mail update list.

At the same time, it seems Guy still hasn’t gotten a job (its unclear whether he ever even got the job interview he was waiting for.) But he’s working on it – the website features an on-line petition to “urge the BBC to give Guy the job he applied for, or a better one.” The petition now has close to 6,000 signatures from around the world, and growing fast. The comments on the petitition are effusive: ” a national hero,” “a legend,” “a true star.”

No telling where this Goma-mania will end. But certainlly Goma is making the most of it, parlaying few minutes of accidental airtime into a virtual movement.

He certainly will get a job. But if he doesn’t, perhaps he could join us here at TLF. We could use his media savvy.

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Muted Responses All Around to ‘Pirate Bay’ Shutdown

by on June 2, 2006 · 8 comments

Earlier this week, Swedish authorities raided the offices and server racks of “Pirate Bay,” an extremely popular Bittorent tracker site with millions of page views per day, as part of an investigation into possible copyright infringement charges against the site’s operators. Pirate Bay stored and indexed thousands of “torrent” files, which point to files that are shared by users’ Bittorent clients. By opening a torrent, a user is able to download the files to which it points, such as a movie or computer application, and quickly begins serving to other users what has already been downloaded. As its name implies, Pirate Bay was used almost solely to facilitate piracy of copyrighted works.

For what it’s worth, the operators of Pirate Bay contend that they have violated no law because they did not serve copyrighted materials, merely pointers to such. They may be right. In any case, the site is down for now (though its operators maintain it will be back in a few weeks). What I’m wondering is, how do “copyfighters” feel about this?

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