With all the talk of mobile ad “platforms,” SSPs, and DSPs, it can be a bit trying to tell mobile adtech companies apart and decipher what they really do (or claim to do). Wouldn’t it be nice to have at hand a neat visualization of the market (e.g., LUMAscapes) whenever the lines started blurring and your head started spinning? Cue mobyaffiliates and its market map of mobile advertising.
The infographic isn’t always 100% accurate or detailed enough for an advertiser or investor trying to dig deeper into a particular adtech solution. For example, Chartboost, which recently raised $19M in funding, appears in the “App Promotion” category. The company also provides ad serving tools and essentially functions as an ad network for developers/publishers with excess inventory. So there is much more overlap than portrayed by the market map below. Regardless, it’s a useful reference tool and a helpful start for anyone looking to learn more about mobile advertising.
I recently came across an entrepreneur who was looking into the Righthaven lawsuits in which the copyright troll, Righthaven, suffered fatal blows to its business model of suing alleged copyright infringers. Righthaven received the go ahead to sue on behalf of partner newspapers for the alleged copying of the newspapers’ content. The courts decided against Righthaven on the basis that the company did not have standing to sue.
Question 1
The entrepreneur posed the following question: does the ability to sue for copyright infringement require owning the copyright itself? In other words, did newspapers have to sell their copyrights to Righthaven in order for the troll to have the right to sue?
In Silvers v. Sony Pictures Entertainment the court held that an assignee (person receiving rights from the copyright owner) who has no legal or beneficial interest in the copyright cannot sue for infringement. A copyright owner cannot assign/transfer the bare right to sue under the Copyright Act.
Section 501(b) of the Copyright Act gives standing/ability to sue to owners of exclusive rights in a copyright. These exclusive rights are defined in section 106 of the Act. Because Silvers did not possess any of these Section 106 exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or make derivative works from the copyrighted work, she could not sue. Thus, for Sony to have given her the right to sue, it also would have had to transfer a beneficial/exclusive right.
Question 2
The entrepreneur’s natural next question was why can’t the copyright owner simply hand over a 0.01% share of ownership in the copyright and thereby grant legitimate standing to sue?
In abstract theory, this should work. But as flexible as modern copyright law is regarding divisibility of copyright ownership (relative to older versions of the act), I doubt an owner could draft an agreement that transfers a section 106 exclusive right without jeopardizing the copyright owner’s absolute control over the copyright. This is not to say that an agreement couldn’t transfer a percentage of profits derived from the copyright. However, such an agreement would not constitute a transfer of exclusive rights under section 106, and then you’d have lack the standing to sue again.
In the end, the problem with transferring exclusive rights, even if done in a de minimus fashion, is that the transferee could then exploit the copyright in a way that is inconsistent with and/or harmful to the copyright owner. In the Monty Python case (Gilliam v. ABC), the Monty Python writers suffered such an injury. Fortunately for Monty Python, the court interpreted their contract very narrowly to find that Monty Python had conferred the right to make a derivative movie off their copyrighted script but reserved final approval. Therefore, they could prevent exploitation of the movie that was inconsistent with their wishes.
However, the outcome of that case was dependent on contract-specific language and narrow interpretation of that language by the court. Today, work for hire contracts (in which the creator of a script or software gives up ownership completely to the employer) would take care of the uncertainty.
The demise of Righthaven, thus, is a blow to all copyright trolls that don’t own the copyrights they are trying to monetize in court.
When I was an investment banking analyst, the expectation was that I blew my discretionary income on nightlife. As a student, the expectation is that I am cheap. Still, even students can have indulgences. Mine are overpriced lattes and of course, new textbooks.
Whatever may be said about the monotony of reading thousands of pages of court cases that is law school, one benefit of spending hundreds of dollars on casebooks every semester is that it is less psychologically unsettling than spending hundreds on coursepacks as I did in undergrad. Coursepacks (in undergraduate business school anyway) comprised business articles from sources such as the Wall Street Journal, some academic papers, and Harvard Business School (HBS) case studies. Spending anywhere from $100 to $200 on these materials per course seemed silly—partly because so many of those articles could be found for free online and partly because of the flimsiness of their binding and presentation relative to real textbooks. (After all, Jay Gatsby didn’t stock his library with shoddily binded computer paper.)
Honestly, I can’t complain about having to pay for the HBS case studies because a decent amount of sweat goes into collecting the real-world data and organizing it for a small audience. The limited distribution of the cases relative to a Dan Brown novel forces a price markup with which I can live. However, the fact remains that you are also paying for many free, publicly available materials. The other problem is a more general one with education: in most courses, you only ever reference a couple of the HBS cases but still pay for the other five.
Some renegade professors surreptitiously post supplemental articles on course management websites such as Blackboard. The more circumspect ones post links to those articles. But these are rare cases because professors generally have nothing to lose in selecting material and forcing students to buy expensive coursepacks (except a few negative course evaluations); whereas, if they distribute copyrighted material, they risk violating school policies and the law.
While copyright law, through fair use and exceptions for educational uses, gives some room for copying, courts have likely made the practice of circumventing coursepacks by professors an even greater rarity.[1]
There is much talk about education in the United States needing serious repair:
- In light of the financial crisis of 2008, there has been commentary on the ‘Wall Street brain drain’—the trend of excessive numbers of young and bright Americans heading to work in finance.
I think it is undeniable that education needs reform. Although the bullet points above are mostly relevant to higher education, maladies infect the entire system.
The last bullet resonates with me most. The first two issues would directly benefit from the lowering of higher education costs. Greater financial flexibility means greater flexibility in contemplating different careers and taking courses in subjects of interest. I think it’s safe to say that a vast majority of folks headed to finance go there for money and opportunity rather than enthusiasm for the vocation. Allowing people to educate themselves in things that they find exciting is more likely to lead to innovation, opportunity, and an economy that is not dominated by the financial sector.
Our liberal arts education system is predicated upon this diversity of interests. I will be the first to admit that sometimes too much curricular flexibility causes a neglect of the less ‘sexy’ subjects, such as STEM. However, I posit that if quality education were cheaper even STEM would benefit from a boost in popularity.
Peter Thiel, former Pay-Pal co-founder, has commented that education is in a cost bubble. I don’t doubt him. Paying $200 for 200 pages of paper, of which only 20 pages ever benefited my mind, is appalling. Perhaps, inflated coursepack pricing isn’t the fault of educators as much as it is the cost of copyright law. However, it is just another symptom of a bloated and inefficient educational system. (Another example is schools paying premium salaries to professors for their research rather than teaching ability. Schools again may be the victims rather than the culprits because they are merely trying to improve their reputations, which though superficial, may be just as important as quality education.)
I am not advocating skipping college. (As a grad student, I would be a hypocrite if I did). Although not attending college may make sense for an elite few, I do think the vast majority of Americans could benefit from the networks and job opportunities colleges and some types of vocational training can create. I advocate instead for a massive retrenchment.
How?
I have no clue. Maybe that’s my cue to go occupy Wall Street.
[1] See, e.g., Princeton University Press v. Michigan Document Services 99 F.3d 1381 (6th Cir. 1996)
The days leading up to the highly anticipated Facebook IPO have been met with market excitement. Comparisons of Facebook to Google and speculation about whether the company is over- or under-valued have been rife for some time. Facebook has convincingly overcome concerns about negative cash flows and lack of a monetization plan that plagued it in the media a few years ago. However, concerns about Facebook’s business model seemed to have revivified as investors struggle to identify the company’s bread and butter and more importantly, to understand its relationship with social gaming behemoth, Zynga.
I remember hearing estimates in 2009 that Zynga made up 40% of Facebook’s revenue. That is why I was taken aback by the market’s surprised reaction when it traded up shares of Zynga upon finding out the company composes 12% of Facebook’s total revenue.
A breakdown of Facebook’s revenues from Zynga shows that Zuckerberg’s company derives its revenue from the gaming company through the sale of virtual goods and other add-on features in games (Payments) and through ads that Zynga buys to cross promote its own games to captive Facebookers (Ads). Moreover, an increasing proportion of this revenue comes from Payments revenue.
In some ways, the Payments model is not very different from the way Apple charges iPhone application developers a cut of the revenues made from the Apple App Store. Facebook’s cut of Zynga’s Payments revenues is reported to be 30%. Facebook’s relationship with Zynga deviates from Apple’s relationship with its app developers in at least one key respect—Facebook also reaps ongoing benefits from Zynga’s success in the form of advertising revenue. The larger Zynga’s customer base grows, the more it is willing to invest in advertising and the more people that fall into the target audience Zynga wants to reach. Increased advertising by Zynga benefits Facebook. Additionally, while iPhone app users pay once for an app (say $0.99), Zynga users may keep buying add-ons within the same game (say $0.99 per virtual good). Finally, while I have not searched Apple’s financials to confirm, I seriously doubt any one app developer makes up 12% of Apple’s app store revenues, let alone 12% of the diversified company’s total revenue.
Thus, Facebook’s near-term future is highly levered to Zynga’s success. This leverage presents problems in the eyes of some for several reasons. First, sustaining revenues from gaming alone is not Google-esque. Google effortlessly fused the worlds of media and technology in a revolutionary way. It was able to use its technology to appeal to advertisers very broadly. A dependence on gaming leaves Facebook less diversified, less appealing to advertisers universally, and potentially vulnerable. This factor doesn’t bother me much because other apps will fit into the Facebook ecosystem as the social networks becomes increasingly ingrained into the way we think about the Internet and computing. Plus, there is a trend in various sectors to solve problems through gaming anyway.
The bigger problem is a more general business issue. Dependence on one company can become unhealthy if the equilibrium is rattled. Right now Facebook and Zynga have symbiotic interests. Both businesses align well with each other. However, if Facebook were to decide to invade Zynga’s turf and start competing with the game developer, or if Zynga can successfully create its own network of users outside of the Facebook platform, the relationship won’t be quite as hunky dory.
Some have countered that Facebook has an exclusive arrangement with Zynga whereby Zynga agrees to use Facebook currency and develop certain games only for use on Facebook. I don’t really see this arrangement mitigating the concern. Prohibiting development on other social networks is a useless demand since Facebook has won the day as far as general interest social networks go, and gaming is not a fit with other popular social networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and foursquare.
More significantly, Zynga has always had a disconnect between its mobile apps and its games on Facebook. I once tried playing Mafia Wars to get a better idea of what the craze was behind Zynga’s games ahead of an interview with the company. My profiles on Facebook and the iPhone app could not be synced. Whether this incompatibility is still an issue with Zynga’s games, I do not know. However, the recent success of Words With Friends at the very least shows that Zynga is capable of finding success outside of Facebook even with an exclusivity agreement in place.
The fact that the ads portion of Facebook’s revenue from Zynga is decreasing is reassuring, but it still raises issues about Facebook’s ad monetization strategy. Google found a direct way to relate ads to subjects that directly interests users. When searching for a person’s profile on Facebook, it is less obvious which ads should pop up than if someone conducts searches about an upcoming vacation on Google. (This explains why so many people complain about dating advertisements on Facebook.) The display ads on Facebook are commoditized, and the company’s current advertising strategy is just as shaky as a non-premium online ad network.
These concerns about Facebook’s advertising revenue is not to say the company won’t eventually get it right. The rich data Facebook collects is highly valuable. The challenge of utilizing it in a way that doesn’t sound off alarms about privacy remains. Personally, I thought Beacon was a promising first step, but it was introduced in such a disastrous way that Facebook has been unable to broach the topic again in a privacy-friendly way.
Still, Facebook has to figure out the ad scheme fast. Other social networks, though not at all threatening in terms of scale, are carving out niches that are more advertiser-friendly. Pinterest, for example, can make money on ads in a very direct way not too different from Google, and foursquare can capitalize on location-based audiences and local deals.
Utlimately, Facebook is well . . . Facebook. I don’t think many can imagine life without it, and it is hard to bet against a company with that type of stickiness. As long as the Facebook-Zynga symbiotic equilibrium does not shift, the fact that 12% of Facebook’s revenues come from Zynga isn’t too troubling.
I’d also note that while I may have painted a rosy picture about Zynga over the medium term, it too has long term concerns, namely the danger of becoming less data-driven/disciplined and more like a media company. Additionally, while the exclusive arrangement with Facebook might be a pro for the social network, it displays Zynga’s subjugation to Facebook’s terms and power.
In the meantime, I leave it to you to decide which company is the Clownfish and which the Sea Anemone. For help and more information, see the epic video below.
Victor Cruuuuuz and Hakeem Nicks kicked off the parade.
“NOOO!” I stretched the collar of my Super Bowl XLII t-shirt over my mouth and nearly cried. Ahmad Bradshaw had just scored a go ahead touchdown, and I could not feel sicker. How could a Super Bowl touchdown by the New York Football Giants be so viscerally painful? Bradshaw was supposed to go down. The Giants were supposed to seal this championship with an eighteen yard field goal. Instead, Tom Brady and the Patriots would now have fifty-seven seconds to march down the field for their own championship-winning score.
But the Giants defense forced Brady into a 4th and 20, and I could feel the cool surface of the Lombardi Trophy at our finger tips. That is, until the Pats moved the chains and ultimately set up a final Hail Mary bomb. As that final pass came back to earth and white and navy jerseys leaped into the air with outstretched arms, my heart stopped. The ball was batted down and seemed to hit the ground. Or did it bounce off somebody’s back? A hobbled Gronkowski dove for the ball. My mind raced (Did he come up with it?! Did it matter?! Was the play dead?!), and then it was blank. The ball hit the ground again below the Pats’ tight end. I was frozen. Then the ref waived the play dead and the game over. MADNESS! I hopped up and down. I piled on top of my brother and friend Steve. I acted like a complete fool, and I loved it.
I have finally digested it. The New York Giants are the Super Bowl champions. It began to sink in when I saw the [almost ex-]coach Coughlin hoisting the trophy up next to Eli Manning and Justin Tuck as they headed up the Canyon of Heroes to the sound of our adulating screams.
After Super Bowl XLII, when the Giants’ storybook playoff run had culminated in the Manning to Tyree Velcro catch, I told myself I would be fine with the Giants never winning again during my lifetime. The fashion in which they won was so incredible that I felt like asking for another championship would simply have been greedy. But looking back four years later, I realize the utter foolishness of that sentiment.
Sure, my reaction to the win in 2008 was ostensibly rational, but the essence of being a sports fan is throwing logic to the wind. Fully embracing a team means celebrating wins as if you yourself were on the field securing the victory and internalizing losses to the brink of depression. As a fan, it was more irrational to be content with that historic championship season than it was to demand a repeat performance.
Eli Manning, Justin Tuck, Coach Coughlin, and the Lombardi trophy. Mayor Bloomberg is somewhere on the float too but is overshadowed by such Giants.
We are fans because we are awestruck and inspired by physical prowess. Fans don’t require greatness from teams and players to maintain loyalty, but we rightfully expect it. An 88 yard Eli Manning fourth quarter drive is the epitome of greatness, but it can also come in different forms. It may be found in a gesture of sportsmanship or in playing through pain. It can be found off the field and in loss.
Somehow I had forgotten that it wasn’t greedy of me to want that Super Bowl XLII feeling again—it was natural. I was within my right to be disappointed in a Giants wide receiver who shot himself in a nightclub in 2008. I was completely justified in being apoplectic when the Giants special teams let the Eagles make a game winning punt return in 2010.
Perhaps, I had forgotten how to be a fan because of years of disappointment. Being a Michael Jordan fan growing up was such a blessing, but for years after his second retirement it also seemed like a curse. I had been spoiled. No sports team, athlete, or moment could ever seem to compare to MJ’s Bulls and their playoff heroics. I had never put such faith in an athlete or team. I had never more vicariously experienced victory. I had never been more superstitious with my viewing habits.
After 1998, however, my expectations diminished with every bumbling performance and lackluster season by my favorite teams. My expectations fell at an accelerated pace leading up to 2008 in part because I was losing my soul to an unfulfilling job, and partially because of the anticlimactic end to the 2006 NLCS when just minutes after destiny seemed to be on our side following an Endy Chavez home run robbery, another Met struck out looking in the bottom of the ninth. It got to the point that after the Giants’ Super Bowl victory in 2008 I felt that I never needed to witness greatness in football (and maybe even in sport) ever again.
I had morphed from a fan into an unrecognizable being. I still cheered my lungs out and sat with knots in my stomach during each playoff game during the 2007-08 NFL season, but I had transformed. Instead of being a true fanatic, I was merely a passionate supporter. I think I even talked about the Giants in the third person.
I showed signs of sports life during the 2010 World Cup when a Landon Donovan goal against Algeria effected a moment of inexplicable euphoria. But it wasn’t until I came to this 2011-12 Giants team that I truly returned to form.
I gave up chunks of my Sundays to watch the G-Men play without multitasking to get work done as I had in previous years. I carried an untouchable high into the next morning after JPP’s blocked field goal late in the season against the Cowboys. The next week, I was eviscerated after the shocking loss to the Redskins. I superstitiously traveled home to New Jersey to watch every Giants playoff game after I saw them beat the Falcons from there during the first round. For the first time in a long time I put unreserved faith in an athlete—Eli Manning—and had my faith repaid with pure greatness. (Yes, I fell in love with the man.) I left my daily life behind to attend my first ever ticker tape parade. I felt a pride in my team that I had not felt since the nineties. Proud enough to proclaim, “WE are Super Bowl champions! WE are the World champions!”
There is no reason this Super Bowl win should be any more special than the last one, but it is. This Giants team rekindled my fanaticism, making me a fan again in the truest sense of the word. They made me a believer. For that, I am forever grateful.
To the World Champion New York Football Giants, thank you.
I first heard the name when watching Pirates of Silicon Valley while in high school. It was appropriately during a computer programming class. It was the first time I associated a person with the Macintosh computer I had first used to play Space Invaders as a little kid. I associated the face of Noah Wyle with Steve Jobs for a very long time. I didn’t bother rectifying that association in my mind because it seemed as if Apple was a thing of the past. Why bother?
Fast forward a few years, and I owned an iPod Mini. Fast forward a few more, and I owned an iPhone 3G. Fast forward to today, and I am browsing MacBook Airs. . . It is safe to say I no longer think of a former ER actor when I think of Steve Jobs.
I usually view words like “revolutionized,” “genius,” and “visionary” with disdain for being honorable superlatives that have become mere platitudes. But with Steve Jobs, they were not only applicable—they may have been understatements. In the time of ubiquitous behemoth corporations, for one individual to have such a lasting impact on several separate industries and millions (billions?) of people is truly remarkable. It takes an unbelievable person to exert his will in such a manner.
We all want to say something special at times like this to honor people as special as Steve Jobs. However, words have the peculiar quality of failing us at these crucial moments. So, I will just share my feelings. I am deeply saddened. Whether through game changing consumer devices or Pixar, Steve Jobs has inspired me to dream big. Some of the things he made possible were inconceivable, but his propensity to never settle for less than his vision, compels me to be just as relentless—to “stay hungry, stay foolish.”
I’m at law school. It’s finally sunk in, and it’s worth mentioning. Many of the topics on this blog correspond with my past lives as a business student and technology investment banking analyst. As a legal student, my current interests won’t simply vanish, but I do except to perceive the world in an increasingly altered fashion.
Already I have noticed just how retrospective law is compared to the forward looking natures of technology and financial analysis. I can imagine former colleagues condescendingly spurning the legal field’s lack of velocity and disengagement with the “real world.” Yet, I also already recognize the potential benefits of applying the rigors of thorough legal analysis to non-legal matters. Having read dozens of cases already, parsing analytical discourse into the issue at hand, logical reasoning, and actionable theses is becoming second nature. The skill of “pattern recognition” that venture capitalists and portfolio managers so proudly tout can be comprehensively honed in the pursuit of a juris doctor.
The distinctive feature about the study of law, of course, is the Socratic method. It is alive and well a couple of millennia after the bearded sage last donned a toga. The method is captivating, but it is also mentally taxing. Some professors seem to employ it to make a point for the benefit of teaching, but others ask students questions seemingly to satisfy their own whims.
While it does help gradually reveal kernels of wisdom, the Socratic method in the legal field today might be less illuminating than in the past. Reading century old cases, it is apparent that the law has evolved from primarily reflecting the collective moral compass to becoming more about functionality and establishing objective rules. That means when reading older judicial opinions which rely less on the precedents of preceding cases and more on logical statements of morality, the conclusion is usually too obvious. Then, when listening to classmates answer questions about these same cases, the kernel revealed is sometimes anticlimactic.
There is a tendency to want to jump ahead to the implied rule. Perhaps, our primal sensitivity has eroded (or never existed), and in a jaded modern world, we immediately want to drill down to the detached, secular answer. It is on this front that I will need to adjust most. I will be forced to value the path to wisdom and not only the results, or risk being miserable for three years. It is a mindset I happily espoused as an undergraduate, and hopefully, I can ease myself back into that disposition.
I was always fascinated by law school. As funny as it sounds, attending law school has always been more of a dream than learning or practicing law. Now that I am here, it is great to hear spirited discussions about legal controversies and public policy. It is just funny to realize how only a couple of years as a working stiff can change one’s view on things.
