nettime taking IPR to the next level
[slashdotted? fine. amazing nonetheless. it's more than a little interesting to speculate about what region-enocding could infect next. money? :) --mod (tb)] http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB110593238031627672-IFjgYNmlad4nJysa3qHa6yAm5,00.html Electronics With Borders: Some Work Only in the U.S. By DAVID PRINGLE and STEVE STECKLOW Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL January 17, 2005; Page B1 To save money, Chris Caine, a resident of Fiji, always orders computers made by [40]Apple Computer Inc. from the U.S., where they are significantly cheaper. Recently, he purchased Apple's newest desktop, the iMac G5. Soon after the computer arrived from the U.S. he plugged it in. There was a big bang, like an explosion, and white smoke out of the speaker grilles, he says. The machine then died. Mr. Caine didn't have a defective unit. It turns out that, unlike the 17 other Apple computers that he had purchased in recent years for his DVD-rental business, the new iMac G5s sold in the U.S. are designed to work only with the electric power systems in the U.S. and Japan, which pump out a lower number of volts than in most other countries. Mr. Caine fell foul of a little-noticed trend: Some consumer-electronics companies are designing products so they will work only in the U.S. For example, some of the latest printers from [41]Hewlett-Packard Co. refuse to print if they aren't fed ink cartridges bought in the same region of the world as the printer. Nintendo Co.'s latest hand-held game machines are sold in the U.S. with power adaptors that don't work in Europe. Such measures prevent thrifty foreign consumers and gray marketers -- traders who sell goods through channels that haven't been authorized by the manufacturer -- from taking advantage of the decline of the dollar against the world's major currencies to buy lower-price products in the U.S. In terms of euros, pounds or other strong currencies, U.S. retail goods are much cheaper today than they were two years ago. U.S. multinational companies want Europeans to continue to buy their goods in Europe, however, rather than seeking out bargains in the U.S. The companies make more money if Europeans pay in euros for their goods at current exchange rates. For example, H-P's European revenue in its fiscal fourth quarter, ended Oct. 31, rose 11.3% from the year-earlier period, while its U.S. revenue shrank 0.3%. The company said its total revenue, which is reported in dollars, was boosted by sales in euros and other strong currencies. In the U.S., Apple sells the most basic version of the iMac G5 for $1,299. In the United Kingdom, the same machine costs £765, or $1,430, before sales tax. Of course, there have always been products, particularly electrical ones, that don't work universally; different countries have different voltages as well as incompatible television and radio broadcasting standards. But in the era of the global economy, with business people toting laptops, cellphones and digital music players around the world, the electronics industry had been moving toward making more products that work everywhere. Now, there are signs that manufacturers feel that this kind of globalization has gone too far. H-P has quietly begun implementing region coding for its highly lucrative print cartridges for some of its newest printers sold in Europe. Try putting a printer cartridge bought in the U.S. into a new H-P printer configured to use cartridges purchased in Europe and it won't work. Software in the printer determines the origin of the ink cartridge and whether it will accept it. The company introduced region-coding on several printers in the summer so it won't have to keep altering prices to keep pace with currency movements, says Kim Holm, vice president for H-P's supplies business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. H-P eventually plans to introduce the concept across its entire line of inkjet printers, he adds. This comes at a time when the sliding dollar has meant that H-P ink cartridges sold in Europe are becoming much more expensive than equivalent ones in the U.S. We are not trying to make money on this, Mr. Holm says, adding that European customers will benefit from H-P's new approach if the dollar begins to rise in value against the euro -- because H-P used to increase prices in Europe when the dollar rose in value to ensure consistent prices around the world. Under the new policy, H-P plans to leave prices in Europe the same even if the dollar rises. But tech-savvy consumers already may be plotting to circumvent the system. A message recently appeared on an Internet bulletin board for people who specialize in refilling used printer ink cartridges to save money. Does anyone have a
nettime Stirling Newberry: The Rise of Rove's Republic
http://scoop.agonist.org/story/2005/2/24/174858/333 The Rise of Rove's Republic Stirling Newberry | February 24 [54]The Agonist - Most people in the outside world do not explicitly believe we are passing through a period of constitutional crisis. That an impeachment was run over a blow job didn't clue them in. That a president was installed by judicial fiat did not clue them in. That a war was launched which is, and was, essentially a giant looting expedition on the Treasury has not clued them in. So what is going on? What is the thread that unifies Iraq and Social Security, the election crisis of 2000? The process of American Constitutional change, and according to that process, the greatest dangers lie ahead, not behind us. [For those want further background to The Rise of Rove's Republic here is the first chapter of [55]The Fourth Republic, the book the analysis is based on.] - By [56]Stirling Newberry in [57]USA: Liberty Watch on Thu Feb 24th, 2005 at 06:05:44 PM PDT I. Mandate. Meaning. Money. A constitutional order has three parts: mandate - what the government should do - and meaning - how the public views the role of its duties, rights and options in relationship to the government. These are tied together by mechanism - how the government functions. In American history, and to no small extent world history, the most important mechanism is money. Not in the sense of who gets money - but in the sense of how money works. Each of these three parts of government are often written about, but how they interact is usually handled poorly - because generally an author knows one well, details it quite clearly, and then tries to apply the thesis of one to the others. The situation is more complex - each interacts with the others, and the process of bringing all of them into harmony is not immediate, it does not lend it self to nice clear lines of demarcation. But a new constitutional order must get all three in sync - people must expect of a government what it can accomplish through handling mechanisms, and through motivating meaning. Money is the key lens of an American constitutional order, because it is the one part of that order that must work every single day. Money is the constitution that you carry with you, the government backs its functioning. How money works creates the range of incentives that people have, and the range of opportunities. But it also, as importantly, protects certain ways of piling up wealth - that is rent. Rent is an advantage in time or space economically. If you are here first, you claim the land, even if you have to kill or run off some people to do it. Others must buy it from you, because they recognize that claim. Money itself buys both change, and protection from change - and this is a basic, and larger, conflict in money itself. Over the course of the lifetime of a Republic, wealth moves upward - and more and more of the economic activity of the government is spent, not creating new wealth, but protecting old wealth. The final crisis starts when the amount of money required to protect old wealth is more than the society can produce as a surplus from all of its labors. This produces a change in the constitutional order, but the whole process takes time, roughly 20 years - even though it is marked by a dramatic moment in the middle, that divides the old from the new. II. The process of crisis The idea of constitutional orders in American history was created by Professor Bruce Ackerman of Yale, in his landmark two volume set [58]We the People. According to Ackerman, the move from one constitutional order to another hinges on a political working out of constitutional change - where the very rules of what is required to change the constitution are fluid, and factions make moves designed to force their particular constitutional vision. Finally there is a constitutional moment where, regardless of what the formal rules say, the matter is in electoral play, those who are competition for control of the mechanisms of power recognize that the constitutional moment has arrived, and a line is about to be drawn. For Ackerman, who has a must read peace on the constitutional changes going on [59]in the London Review of Books, the key moments were the means by which the Constitution of 1787, and yes he uses that term, was enacted; the means by which the 14th amendment was established; and the decision to grant congress sweeping powers under the commerce clause. These, for Ackerman, establish three constitutional orders. Three different res publica. And I would argue, three different Republics. But the path to constitutional crisis runs through financial crisis. Before one can have political upheaval, the three pillars of a constitutional
nettime Kieren McCarthy: ICANN signs own death warrant
[via [EMAIL PROTECTED]] http://www.kierenmccarthy.co.uk/blog/_archives/2006/3/1/1789591.html ICANN approves dotcom contract, signs own death warrant by Kieren on Wed 01 Mar 2006 11:11 AM GMT | [35]Permanent Link I have been determinedly trying not to write any news stories so I can get on with writing the Sex.com book but I got a phonecall very early this morning from the spokesman for ICANN explaining that late last night the Board had approved the new contract for the dotcom registry. Were there any changes made to it? I asked. Ummm, no, he replied. So that's how I first heard of ICANN's impending death. In fact, before I even go into the contract and what is means, I think it's worth pointing out that I also sent a series of emails to a number of ICANN Board members exactly a month ago. In each I explained that I was putting the questions to you which, through past experience of these things, I will be asking anyway in a month's time. The basic email was the same each time: _ The revised VeriSign contract still has alot of elements that large sections of the Internet community are unhappy with. What I predict will happen is that after the brief public comment period, ICANN staff will put forward the same agreement to a special meeting of the Board that will be held between now and the Wellington meeting, most likely early March. At that meeting the Board will be told that: * There have been not one but two public comment periods, demonstrating ICANN's transparency and bottom-up process * That VeriSign has made it very clear that it will not move back any further * That ICANN's hands are tied because of the DoC's role in negotiations, that the DoC believes VeriSign has offered a fair settlement * That time is running out (time is always running out in these situations for one reason or other) * That it may not be ideal but ICANN has to approve the deal because the VeriSign lawsuits make it impossible to breathe and because the MoU is coming up You will then be asked to vote on the agreement. My question is: Do you believe that such a momentous decision should be delayed for a few weeks so it can be properly and publicly thrashed out in Wellington? If so, will you raise the issue at such a Board meeting, will you ask for it to be put on the public record, and will you vote against the agreement rather than just abstain in order to register your opposition? _ And that is exactly what has happened. Nine for; five against; one abstention. The Board has held no less than four special meetings on the VeriSign contract, two in the past week. The decision has been pushed through to avoid the New Zealand public meeting, and the entire Internet community - which ICANN claims to serve in a bottom-up decision-making process - has been completely ignored because it is in ICANN's interests to approve the deal. The deal condenses everything that is wrong with how the Internet is currently run in one tiny document. How vital decisions about the global Internet are made by one of three bodies - ICANN, VeriSign and the US Department of Commerce - and how their complicated and difficult relationships consistently produce decisions and agreement and settlements that are a million miles from what they should be, and could be if the globalness of the Internet was actually pulled in. ICANN thinks it has got the best deal because ICANN continues to inhabit a tiny world of its own making where VeriSign and the DoC loom large and everyone else is a distraction. What ICANN really honestly hasn't realised is that its authority is hanging by a thread. I knew that a special meeting of the Board would be called prior to Wellington, and I knew what would be said and what would happen, because that is the method by which ICANN always pushes through things that shouldn't be approved.The fact that there were several special meetings demonstrates at least that some Board members have started fighting against their expected rubber-stamp role. But the fact remains that ICANN retains the same culture where ageing chairman Vint Cerf continues to push his personal and out-dated views and undermines anyone that argues with him, and CEO Paul Twomey continues to cut any secret deal he can that will give him control of a more powerful organisation. Underneath them come all the people that are willing them to succeed so they can take over a government of the Internet in five years' time. While all this empire building and secret deal making is going on, those involved have completely lost track of what they are actually deciding.
