CS73N Meeting 05 Notes: Protocols, Business, Intellectual Property 24Jan03

Started by Gio Wiederhold, 16 January 2000, updated 16,23 Jan 2002 16, 24 Jan 2003..

What is needed to have a business:

1. Having goods or services -- Real stuff { sources; inventory in stock, delivery contracts}vs Actionable Information {fungible, copyable} and a means to pay for the goods.
2. Customers: Getting the information about your products to potential purchasers - advertising, demonstration, ... Pay? Consider focusing on the community that can

(1) benefit from your product

(2) you can reach -- first with the promotion and then with your goods and services

(3) afford it

(4) willing to pay for it. (Many people expect that information on the Internet is free.)

3. Assuring delivery -- great deal of variation and cost - real goods versus information
4. Getting paid (more below)
5. After sales service
6. Ability to return unwanted goods. (non-actionable information?)

An element is all of these considerations: trust, perhaps backed by guarantees.

A business plan would list the quantified amounts for each month or quarter. There would be negative (at first) or positive (later, but essential) cashflow in each period, and a total of past losses and profits.

Types of Information

1. Data -- Observation, perhaps edited for correctness
2. Information -- processed data
3. Actionable information -- helps you select, make actions among choices
4. Knowledge -- input that controls processing, often human, sometimes encoded into programs or rules in a computer

Data -- + knowledge --> Selected data + knowledge --> information + ability to make decisions --> actionable information --> actions --> benefits

Actions change the world

Knowledge gained by you is a byproduct of the experiences you undergo.

((why are you at school instead of performing actions?))

What information consumes is rather obvious, it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. [Herbert Simon]

 Getting paid

• Credit cards -- massive process, cost to seller of goods (2-8%?), issuing company. Sellers must be vetted by card company.
• Micropayments -- good idea, but not no successful. See <F:\MyDocs\CSD\cs99\Meet03Notes.html> and also via the <2002/classlist.html> CS99I 2002 JH report.
• Paypal - holds accounts, surrogates for seller, will send money to individual sellers or keep it in their accounts.

Alternatives for cost reimbursement are:

1. Receiver pays: Voluntary subscription. Example: Public TV - PBS.
2. Receiver pays: Required subscription, controlled access. Example: Stanford SITN.
3. Receiver pays: Government levies taxes or fees. Example: British, Dutch TV.
4. Sender pays: Corporate or organizational support. Example: churches.
5. Sender pays: Government supports sender. Example: Voice of America.
6. Sender pays: Commercial tax on sales. Example:.
7. Sender pays: Advertising. Example:.
8. Manufacturer of receiving equipment is taxed: Example: attempted with VCRs, as in ( France).
9. Manufacturer of receiving supplies: Example: DAT tapes.
10. others?

Problems of being reimbursed for information.

Theft of IP

Fair use -- not a right - but a valid defense to one-time, not redistributed use of modest amount of material

Who should get paid: the broadcast service, the contents supplier, the distributor ? [Napster]. More discussion needed.

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Types of Intellectual Property

Trade Secret: requires employee cooperation, difficulty in imitation

Patents: Originality, implemented idea, not obvious to people `versed in the state of the art'. Can be licensed.

Copyright: pertains to expression

Fair Use

Sonnny Bono Digital Millenium Act

Also covered in Prof. Armando Fox's Digital Dilemmmas course CS99R Fall 2000, per [Jake Kirsch].

Who is hurt when trade secrets / patents/copyrights are violated? How can damage be recovered?

What is appropriate when?

See work of Libraries , CS99I class notes.
See work of David Arulanantham , CS99I 1998

Their effectiveness differs in media, settings [ref World-wide Wireless magazine ~1910] (social, ubiquity, ...).

Who should get paid when copyrighted material is distributed: the source or/and: the broadcast service... ? [Napster, Gnutella]. More discussion needed.

Limiting Broadcast Access

Protecting minors versus First-amendment rights.

See COPA (Child Online Protection Act ) Commission material.

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