While we were waiting for the Internet to make us rich -- back when we thought all we had to do was to buy lottery tickets called dotcom shares -- we missed the real story of the information economy. That story, says Bruce Abramson in Digital Phoenix, took place at the intersection of technology, law, and economics. It unfolded through Microsoft's manipulation of software markets, through open source projects like Linux, and through the file-sharing adventures that Napster enabled. Linux and Napster in particular exploited newly enabled business models to make information sharing cheap and easy; both systems met strong opposition from entrenched interests intent on preserving their own profits. These scenarios set the stage for the future of the information economy, a future in which each new technology will threaten powerful incumbents -- who will, in turn, fight to retard this "dangerous new direction" of progress.Disentangling the technological, legal, and economic threads of the story, Abramson argues that the key to the entire information economy -- understanding the past and preparing for the future -- lies in our approach to intellectual property and idea markets. The critical challenge of the information age, he says, is to motivate the creation and dissemination of ideas. After discussing relevant issues in intellectual property and antitrust law, the economics of competition, and artificial intelligence and software engineering, Abramson tells the information economy's formative histories: the Microsoft antitrust trial, the open-source movement, and (in a chapter called "The Computer Ate My Industry") the advent of digital music. Finally, he looks toward the future, examining some ways that intellectual property reform could power economic growth and showing how the information economy will reshape the ways we think about business, employment, society, and public policy -- how the information economy, in fact, can make us all rich, as consumers and producers, if not as investors.
Bruce Abramson, Ph.D, JD, possesses a rare ability to express complex analyses in simple English. His twenty-five years as an Intellectual Property consultant, an economic analyst, and an attorney have taught him to speak technology, business, and law with equal comfort. His decade-plus in litigation and regulatory settings has sensitized him to the unique needs of clients operating in adversarial environments. He employs these skills along several avenues:
* As an expert witness, he focuses primarily on two critical elements of corporate litigation: valuing damages/remedies; and industry analysis in technology industries.
* As a consultant, he helps his clients navigate complex litigation or regulatory hurdles, value portfolios of intellectual property and other intangible assets and execute successful launch strategies and growth plans.
* As a mediator, he helps parties cut through emotionally charged positioning to find rational, cost-effective solutions.
* As a speaker, he combines information and entertainment to tailor presentations on a wide variety of topics to the interests and background of his audience.
He is also active in relevant research, having written two books on technology policy aimed at a general audience, published extensively in the scholarly literature of Computer Science, Management, and Law, and had his article on admissibility standards for expert testimony named one of the year's best by the Defense Law Journal.
