It’s time for another edition of the Research Roundup, with a fresh set of papers by authors outside of TPI. In recent weeks we’ve seen a wealth of articles relating to patent and copyright, so today’s group is a bit heavy on intellectual property. Additionally, a few interesting papers deal with online business models. Take a look.
(Click through to the full post to see the list of papers and abstract excerpts)
Wireless and Spectrum
Shann Turnbull
The emergence of cloud banking in developing economies from billions of cell phones transacting both legal tender and informal units of accounts has created a need to reconsider habits of thinking about the nature of money and banking in advanced societies. (…)
Anthony Mohen
The history of municipal wireless projects in the United States has been a mixed one, with success dependent on the type of operating model and a variety of local factors. This paper reviews a number of these projects and examines the policy rationales behind providing municipal wireless services. (…)
Competition and Antitrust
Tarleton L Gillespie
Online content providers such as YouTube are carefully positioning themselves to users, clients, advertisers, and policymakers, making strategic claims as to what they do and do not do, and how their place in the information landscape should be understood. One term in particular, ‘platform,’ reveals the contours of this discursive work (…)
Net Neutrality
J. Gregory Sidak, David Teece
In October 2009, the Federal Communications Commission proposed “net neutrality” regulations, including a new rule that would have the effect of banning optional business-to-business transactions between broadband Internet service providers (ISPs) and content providers for enhanced delivery of packets over the Internet (…)
Internet Governance
Bernhard Maier
The ubiquitous nature of the Internet and its ability to swiftly and effortlessly transcend national boundaries and sovereign territories has presented a unique challenge for regulators and those expected to obey the law (…)
Nebil Messabia, Abdelhaq Elbekkali
Information Technology (IT) governance decisions usually involve several stakeholders having divergent claims. Stakeholders are those groups who affect or are affected by IT governance (ITG) decisions (…)
Economics of the Internet
Avi Goldfarb, Catherine Tucker
We use data from a large-scale field experiment to explore what influences the effectiveness of online advertising. We find that matching an ad to website content and increasing an ad’s obtrusiveness independently increase purchase intent (…)
L. Padmavathi
This article takes the example of eBay and critically examines the mechanism, payment method, and consumer protection policies at eBay.
George S. Ford, Lawrence J. Spiwak
In this paper, we disprove claims by proponents of increased Internet regulation that Broadband Service Providers (“BSPs”) – such as AT&T, Verizon, Sprint-Nextel, Qwest, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable – make “record profits,” “substantial profits,” and “soaring profits.” (…)
Oz Shy
This paper surveys a variety of topics related to network economics. Topics covered include: consumer demand under network effects, compatibility decisions and standardization, technology advances in network industries, two-sided markets, information networks and intellectual property, and social influence.
Energy
Dora L. Costa, Matthew E. Kahn
We use detailed microeconomic data to investigate why aggregate residential electricity consumption in California has been flat since 1980. Using unique micro data, we document the role that household demographics and ideology play in determining electricity demand. (…)
Judith Clifton, Daniel Díaz-Fuentes, Julio Revuelta
As a consequence of liberalization policies in the European Union (EU), a number of formerly inward-looking incumbents in telecommunications and electricity transformed themselves into some of the world’s leading Multinationals. The relationship between liberalization and incumbent internationalization, however, is contested (…)
Intellectual Property
Marc F. Bellemare , Andrew M. Holmberg
Why do some individuals pirate digital music while others pay for it? Using data on a sample of undergraduate students, we study the determinants of music piracy by looking at whether a respondent’s last song was obtained illegally or not (…)
Jeanne C. Fromer
Much ink has been spilled and many bits have been used discussing what the Internet’s architecture and values ought to mean for the future of copyright law. And though much has been written about the patentability of software, how, if at all, patent law and the Internet’s values are compatible is undertheorized (…)
Michael Anthony C. Dizon
This article discusses how and why the locus of the tensions brought about by new information and communications technology (“ICT”) in the global inter-networked society have gone beyond territory, sovereignty and law and why this shift changes the focus of the discussion initially from government to governance, and then ultimately to participation (…)
- The Interim Digital Britain Report, File Sharing and the Emerging Role of Internet Service Providers
Chukwuyere Izuogu
This paper examines three issues; the compatibility of the proposed measures with the obligation not to monitor under the e-CD, the determination of the extent of the protection afforded the copyright holder under the Information Society Directive and the possibility of these legislative solutions in achieving the desired results (…)
David R. Pekarek Krohn
This paper looks at the copyright implications of these applications, which I term Media-Rich Input Applications (MRIAs). This article examines how these unique features of MRIAs interact with current copyright doctrine, and how the lack of protection for users may discourage innovation in this new and exciting area of technology (…)
Vijaykumar Shrikrushna Chowbe
The advent of Information Technology (IT) and computers have created a new world in the cyberspace giving rise to various legal challenges and at times solutions. Intellectual Properties (IP) such as copyrights, trademarks, designs, layout and circuit designs in the current digital environment, are interwoven with the electronic technology. The changed environment demands more affirmative protective laws to guard new inventions and creations and also to save the real owners from economic losses (…)
Tabrez Ahmad
The growth of information and digital technology has rapidly increased the number of internet users. Many countries, including India, have enacted legislations to regulate the activities related to Internet. The Government of India has passed Information Technology Act in 2000 and further amended it on October 27, 2009, which gave fillip to cyber law (…)
