Thursday, May 10, 2012

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Econ 101: Speaking of Monopoly

Here's a video of the TED talk by Rob Reid, founder of the company that created the Rhapsody music service. Reid makes some interesting and funny points, in describing the exciting new field of "copyright math," to destroy the economic arguments of the advocates of intellectual property in music and video (primarily the MPAA and the RIAA, the movie and music industry associations that were such boosters of the SOPA/PIPA legislation). Those of you coming to this page because you're in my micro class will no doubt recognize the simple economic mistakes he makes. These don't negate the basic point he's making: that industry claims about losses resulting from piracy are wildly inflated and/or come from shaky reasoning if not thin air.

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