Guest post by For all the complaints that Spotify was taking too long to reach the US, they did in the end persevere. However, Spotify has just been rewarded with a patent infringement lawsuit for its troubles. Frankly, why should anyone else even bother?
For all the complaints that Spotify was taking too long to reach the US, they did in the end persevere. However, Spotify has just been rewarded with a patent infringement lawsuit for its troubles. Frankly, why should anyone else even bother?
Welcome to the Soviet Union..I mean the US.
Seriously..a printed press article (cant cite it) few years back measured the red tape among the world economies.
Conclusion…the US, one of the most controlled economies in the world.
Edited 2011-07-29 11:29 UTC
Because Americans have a lot of money to spend on luxuries. I would’ve thought that was obvious.
Which they like to take back via the US legal system…
If that’s true, I can’t wait til I get my cut.
If you are US-citizen, you should know wealth is not deviced equally in your country.
Lennie,
“If you are US-citizen, you should know wealth is not deviced equally in your country.”
Not many people appreciate the extent of the inequality.
http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/charts/view/210
http://mapscroll.blogspot.com/2009/04/is-us-becoming-third-world-co…
“Because Americans have a lot of money to spend on luxuries. I would’ve thought that was obvious.”
You mean they have a lot of credit to spend on luxuries.
cmchittom,
“Because Americans have a lot of money to spend on luxuries. I would’ve thought that was obvious.”
Speak for yourself. I’d like to move away to afford a better lifestyle with more opportunity, that’s difficult with family ties and all.
Yep, you said it. I hear the Texas is the place to go for jobs and actually affordable living as opposed to here in California where you almost have to be a celebrity, own a vineyard or be in the state legislature to afford it.
I’d bet that because of the likes of the RIAA the margins on the service are razor thin (not even Apple has large margins in the iTunes store). Having to license/pay Royalties patents further limits profits thus reducing incentives.
Edited 2011-07-29 13:56 UTC
Sure. And I bet you’re right. But 0.0001% of a kazillion dollars is still a lot of money.
Actually, no. In Jun 15 billion tracks were sold on iTunes. If we are optimistic, and set the track price to $1 (which is not correct, because a lot of people buy albums)
$15,000,000,000 * 0.0001 = $1,500,000
Or 1.5 million dollars. Which is a lot of money for you or me, but not one of the largest, or even largest music retailer.
So, let’s hope for Apple they do a bit better
.
OTOH, iTunes was meant to tie people into the iPod and later iPhone ecosystem anyway…
Edited 2011-07-29 14:45 UTC
I yield in the face of your data, sir/ma’am (delete as appropriate).
Believe it or not, your math’s wrong. He originally wrote .0001%, so you should have shifted the decimal and computed
$15,000,000,000 * .00001 = $15,000.
Amusingly, even though your math’s wrong, that actually strengthens your overall argument.
On the other hand, the point of the iTunes store is not to make money selling songs, but to make money selling iProducts, where the profit margins are substantially higher. As you write later:
Until China says “no more debt”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USDebt.png
China is *NOT* the largest holder of US Debt:
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/21/who-owns-america…
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/07/28/us/charting-the-ameri…
Life, Litigation and the Pursuit of Holdings
According the the BBC, it’s two or more patents:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14338710
Either way, it’s still BS.
don’t do business in the US, sell your software / hardware in countries with a free market…
For the sake of argument, such as? And whyso?
Edited 2011-07-29 16:44 UTC
I don’t know about you guys but I had a really hard time grasping that legalese stuff. I decided to aid myself in the way I always do when I have problems concentrating on large texts: I applied syntax highlighting.
Forgive me for the rough system but I think that:
Red: devices, objects, networks
Blue: information, data
Green: actors
Bold: no idea, it just felt right
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TawMo449eXezgF6eB3_tRDXI6-02OGO7…
Edited 2011-07-29 16:54 UTC
Curse this limited edit time!
Red: devices, objects
Purple: networks
Yellow: structures
Edited 2011-07-29 17:02 UTC
Thanks for this; I actually found it very helpful.
What’s kind of odd is that the patent isn’t just valid in the US. As well as the US, it looks like it was also filed as a European patent:
http://tinyurl.com/44ox72s
Given this, it’s surprising PacketVideo waited until Spotify entered the US market to file a lawsuit.
[Edit: removed list of countries that was probably wrong]
Edited 2011-07-29 20:30 UTC
It is more likely that the patent is not enforcable in any European jurisdiction.
The European Patent Office is known to grant patents on things that are outside of patentability as far as European national or union laws are concernced.
Holders of these patents probably speculate that they might become enforcable in the future given enough lobbying.
But right now the only thing they can do is sit back and grind their collective teeth
Well, I guess we’ll find out. Looking in to this further, I just noticed they’ve also filed a lawsuit in Thom’s home country too:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/29/spotify_sued_by_packetvideo…
The Register seems to suggest they waited because of the size of the US market, which would make sense.
Just the us to sue, shame.