July 17th, 2009
Did Jon Bon Jovi really see a million faces? Did he really rock them all?
0 commentsTwo Four Years Late to Everything
July 16th, 2009
That Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a heck of a movie, isn’t it? Maybe too clever by a third at some points, but overall, it’s pretty rewarding. And Val Kilmer’s best work since Tombstone.
I wonder if Shane Black will ever get another bit at the directing apple.
0 commentsBang & Olufsen Do It Again!
July 15th, 2009
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Civony / Evony
July 15th, 2009
Ever been curious about what’s behind those weird web ads?
Update: And even more about Evony. Evidently, it’s the brainchild of a Chinese gold farmer.
0 commentsThat. Just. Happened.
July 15th, 2009
Simply put, a masterpiece:
Once your eyes have been opened, the world will never been the same.
0 commentsUFC and Anti-Trust
July 14th, 2009
So the black-balling is true. To recap: EA Sports is making a videogame called “MMA” which seeks to license the likenesses of real MMA fighters. The rumor had been that UFC head Dana White had threatened to black-ball any fighter who sold their private rights to EA. And on Saturday night, White confirmed that the rumor is true. The other important fact in the case is that the UFC currently has a license with another game producer, THQ, for their own game.
White is particularly savvy about the values of intellectual property. He built the UFC by purchasing the video rights for the nascent company and then using that leverage to buy the rest of the UFC outright. You could make an argument that any enterprise organized around a pay-per-view model needs to smartly manage its IP, striking the right balance between giving away enough product to stoke demand and keeping enough product walled-off to generate revenue. I suspect that White sees the EA-UFC fight as another instance where his company needs to aggressively control what they see as their intellectual property (even if the IP they’re trying to lay claim to isn’t actually theirs).
This brings up two questions: The first is whether or not White’s stance violates anti-trust (or employment discrimination) laws. I doubt that Acme Widgets could, as a matter of company policy, refuse to hire people who made side-income selling comic books on eBay. (Acme Widgets might be able to demand that employees not sell other widgets in their spare time, which is the nature of non-compete clauses. But I’m not sure that licensing your likeness to another videogame is direct competition to the UFC. Direct competition to THQ, maybe, but not to the UFC itself.)
The second question is whether or not White is smart to create a point of labor friction with this fight, even if he is within his legal rights. The UFC is the dominant organization in its space (at least in the U.S.). But it’s still a relatively small operation. I don’t think UFC’s dominance is so total as to be able to ward off any potential competitor. Creating dissatisfaction in the labor market is practically begging for the creation of a rival brand and the barrier to entry seems pretty low. A rival could duplicate most of the UFC’s distribution (save the Spike reality series) relatively easily. UFC’s competitive advantage lies with its fighters. Unless the company’s position is more dominant than I understand (a very real possibility!), White should be trying to protect that advantage while creating other areas of strength.
He’s a long way from having Vince McMahon levels of monopoly power.
0 commentsPlasma Beats LCD, Again
July 13th, 2009
There’s a reason some of us keep clinging to the dying tech.
0 commentsAn American Hero
July 11th, 2009
Carl Cannon: Anti-anti-Palinite.
Unbelievably damning. And for whatever it’s worth, I suspect it took a great deal of courage for Cannon to write this. He’s not some guy from the conservative ghetto hurling stones at the establishment. He is the establishment and he’s taking dead aim at his peers. Good for him.
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