http://www.theinformationist.com/index/trifecta/index Bruce Abramson's Blog en bdabramson@gmail.com 2008-01-17T18:20:00-05:00 http://www.theinformationist.com/index/trifecta/comments/so_now_im_a_republican/ I guess.  Sort of.  It’s been a few years since the Democratic Party abandoned its historic commitment to the growth of human rights and liberalism abroad. American Government, Politics, and Domestic Policies Bruce Abramson 2008-01-17T19:20:00-05:00 http://www.theinformationist.com/index/trifecta/comments/the_sf_chronicle_uncovers_the_secret/ The San Francisco Chronicle, which published the first review of Digital Phoenix way back in May 2005, has come through for me again.  Today’s paper contains a very nice review of The Secret Circuit--though somehow, my own hardcopy of the paper seems to be missing the alleged “M” section. Yet one more pointer that I belong in San Francisco. . .  The Not-Quite-Yet Information Economy Bruce Abramson 2007-12-01T03:13:00-05:00 http://www.theinformationist.com/index/trifecta/comments/new_publications/ Well, it’s been far too long since I’ve posted anything here.  I guess some years the mood hits fairly often, and others it just doesn’t.  It’s not like nothing interesting has occurred in the past six months--just that it has all unfolded without my comments.  Yet somehow, the world seems to be muddling through.  Disturbing.  It is entirely possible that it’s not all about me.  (Then again, I’m just throwing that out there as a possibility). Meanwhile though, things have been happening in my own little corner of the universe.  In particular, some of my publications have cleared the publication queues, and are now in print: Publication information is as follows: The Secret Circuit: The Little-Known Court where the Rules of the Information Age Unfold (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007). Intellectual Property and the Alleged Collapsing of Aftermarkets, Rutgers L.J. 38(2) 399-472, 2007.  India’s Journey Towards an Effective Patent System, World Bank Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 4301.  The Not-Quite-Yet Information Economy Bruce Abramson 2007-10-03T02:33:00-05:00 http://www.theinformationist.com/index/trifecta/comments/a_cautionary_tale_of_our_times/ Continuing with my theme of making up for April’s delinquency, here’s another disturbing story. A few weeks ago, The San Francisco Chronicle ran a bizarre, largely fictional anti-Israel screed written by Omar Ahmad.  At the end of the article, the newspaper identified the author: “Omar Ahmad is the founder and chairman emeritus of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). He is the CEO of a Silicon Valley technology company.” This identification interested me for two reasons.  First, it is disconcerting to see major media outlets running posts from CAIR.  CAIR is a well-known apologist for Islamic terror, funded by foreign sources unfriendly to the U.S. and the West.  Ample documentation explains who CAIR really is.  Nevertheless, its leaders continue to dupe major media outlets into accepting it as a valid spokes-organization for the “mainstream” American Muslim community.  It is precisely this sort of misidentification that makes life difficult for people who wish to be both good Americans and good Muslims; it alienates liberal Muslims by elevating the status of soft-spoken radicals. It was the second point of interest that motivated this posting, however: I have a friend named Omar Ahmad who heads a Silicon Valley technology company.  The Not-Quite-Yet Information Economy Bruce Abramson 2007-05-01T02:46:00-05:00 http://www.theinformationist.com/index/trifecta/comments/copyright_v_freedon/ I’ve been a bit delinquent in my blogging lately (it does tend to come in phases), but I have encountered a number of items worthy of an entry.  A week-and-a-half ago, for example, the Institute for International Education (IIE) invited me to meet with a delegation visiting from China.  I met four Chinese “scholars,” though it was not clear to me that they were all scholars.  Two were from the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau; they said little or nothing.  Wang Yefei, the deputy director of the Copyright Bureau, did most of the talking (actually, I did, but among the four of them, he was responsible for the lion’s share of the dialog).  Zhao Hongshi, also from the Copyright Bureau and somewhat Mr. Yefei’s junior, also asked several questions.  (The whole thing took place in simultaneous translation; none of the visitors spoke English).  The topic of our conversation was copyright enforcement—which was, apparently, the theme of their entire trip. The Not-Quite-Yet Information Economy, American Government, Politics, and Domestic Policies, Foreign Affairs and the World beyond Our Borders Bruce Abramson 2007-05-01T02:13:00-05:00 http://www.theinformationist.com/index/trifecta/comments/podcast_now_available/ A podcast of my Boston radio preview (from a couple of months back) is now available. Here’s a link to a link Bruce Abramson 2007-04-01T04:05:00-05:00 http://www.theinformationist.com/index/trifecta/comments/viacom_v_google_a_puzzlement/ A couple of people have asked me about the Viacom/Google battle.  It seems (surprise!) that some of the people who post videos on YouTube (a Google subsidiary) post clips from Viacom broadcasts.  That gives Google potential vicarious third-party exposure for contributory or induced infringement.  At least, that’s what Viacom thinks.  Google, I’m certain, has numerous legal arguments to counter Viacom’s claim, with fair use playing a central role in the overall scheme of its argument.  Viacom, however, feels that it has a good enough case to have sued Google for a cool billion dollars. So various folks have asked me why I haven’t posted anything about this case yet.  After all, it sounds like it should be right up my alley.  The answer is that it is right up my alley.  In fact, its soooooooooo up my alley that I’ve already said everything substantive that I have to say about it.  I wrote about this case roughly five years before it was filed, omitting only the proper nouns (see Digital Phoenix).  To recap: The Not-Quite-Yet Information Economy, American Government, Politics, and Domestic Policies Bruce Abramson 2007-03-19T07:01:01-05:00 http://www.theinformationist.com/index/trifecta/comments/inchoate_imperialism_part_ii_policy_prescriptions/ A week-or-so ago I posted an essay arguing that if we want to devise reasonable policies for dealing with the Middle East, we must first understand the region.  That assertion is uncontroversial.  The rest of my argument was likely more so: I explained that the fundamental idea that has shaped the modern Middle East is an inchoate sense of imperialism among the region’s Sunni Arabs.  A second toxic philosophy entered the mix with Khomeinism, an expansionist revolutionary movement in the spirit of nineteenth century European socialism and anarchism, though cloaked in the language of Shiism.  The region’s other philosophies, including both Zionism (which has long played a significant role) and Kurdish nationalism (which is growing in importance rapidly) are expressions of self-determination among the region’s ethnic minorities—and thus inherently antithetical to both inchoate imperialism and revolutionary Khomeinism. This essay picks up where that one left off.  It addresses the questions that really interest people:  So what?  Assuming that my explanation is correct, what should the U.S. (and the broader West) do about it?  What, if any, policy prescriptions flow from this understanding?  And how do they differ from what we are doing now? Foreign Affairs and the World beyond Our Borders Bruce Abramson 2007-03-15T23:47:00-05:00 http://www.theinformationist.com/index/trifecta/comments/recalibration_and_realignment/ I’ve been noodling over a political quandary for a while now.  I left the Democratic Party because, in my opinion, it has drifted very far into dangerous leftist territory.  Conventional wisdom in the MSM, on the other hand, has spun the story in precisely the opposite direction.  The conventional story seems to be that the recent injection of pro-life, anti-gun-control advocates has moved the Party to the center.  Why has my perception been so different? I found the answer in last week’s Weekly Standard, in an article about Rudy Giuliani and social conservatives.  So here’s a conjecture that helps me make sense of many seeming anomalies: American Government, Politics, and Domestic Policies, Foreign Affairs and the World beyond Our Borders Bruce Abramson 2007-03-12T05:50:00-05:00 http://www.theinformationist.com/index/trifecta/comments/opportunities_and_challenges_in_the_global_information_age/ The Commonwealth Club invited me to speak a few days ago.  I was pleased to draw a full room (about 40 people), and I prepared my comments for a general audience.  My title, with a none-too-subtle nod to Digital Phoenix, was: Phoenix Rising: Opportunities and Challenges in the Global Information Age.  The basic thrust of my comments started with my belief that we are living through a global transition from an industrial age to an information age.  Different parts of society will undergo that transformation at different paces, but each one will navigate a predictable pattern of opportunity, displacement, backlash, and reassessment.  Selected digital industries (specifically software & entertainment) made the transition early.  We should therefore be able to learn valuable lessons by studying their transitions and applying them, albeit in general terms, to areas of greater significance.  My first goal in this talk was to show how a pattern that has emerged very cleanly in the debate over music downloads can inform our understanding of the debates over offshoring/protectionism and globalization/terrorism.  My second goal wasto outline specific lessons that we can learn from these parallels--and actions we can take to improve both our individual lots and the world as a whole. The Not-Quite-Yet Information Economy, American Government, Politics, and Domestic Policies, Foreign Affairs and the World beyond Our Borders Bruce Abramson 2007-03-10T16:53:00-05:00