The Digital Americas Blog

A day of listening to experts from the Brazilian software industry left me with an impression of an industry that is full of creativity, determination and ambition, and if it breaks out of its artificial restraints it will quickly become a dominant software exporter. This doesn't seem to be hyperbole - both data and powerful anecdotes were presented here supporting that. There also is great resentment that the country has been passed by developing nations like China and India, which are gaining market share that Brazilians feel they should have. I kept picturing Brazil as a tiger chained - I don’t know what would be the appropriate animal metaphor for Brazil (a parrot isn’t very intimidating and a python could slither out of any chain). Perhaps a tiger came to mind because it’s so often associated with China and India.

This self-image of Brazilians both in government and industry is a significant contrast from what is presented by some in the Free Culture Movement in the US.

Continue reading An Industry in Chains . . .

- posted by Patrick Ross @ 11:53 AM | Digital Americas, Free Culture Movement, Software | TrackBacks (0)

The Brazilian Software Market and Patents

The Brazilian software industry is fairly small, several speakers at our Digital Americas Summit here in Sao Paulo acknowledged. Imports far outweigh exports, although the Brazilian government is working to encourage the industry and hope to see exports in software rise from (US) $300 million in 2005 to (US) $2 billion in 2007.

There are several government steps proposed to achieve that goal, much of which appear to involve government wealth transfers. Not proposed currently is the idea of patenting software.

Continue reading The Brazilian Software Market and Patents . . .

- posted by Patrick Ross @ 11:43 AM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

Wang Chung

As we currently don't have comment fields, intrepid reporter Greg Piper of Warren's Washington Internet Daily asked me to post on the fact that I was a bit careless in referring to Ray as having experienced a "Wang Chung exposure" in a previous blog. I'll admit my mind was not in writing that where Greg's was when reading it, but I'll leave it to the reader to decide if that was in fact something for which I should be faulted. And I'm sure Adam would agree that we don't need the government censoring the PFF blog either.

- posted by Patrick Ross @ 11:30 AM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

Piracy in Brazil Declining but Still High

Piracy remains high in Brazil but is declining, said Manoel Antonio dos Santos, legal director of the Brazilian Software Companies Association, at our Digital Americas Summit in Sao Paulo. More than 90% of software was pirated in 1988, in 2004 it was 64%, a 27% decline, he said. Still, with 2/3 of software pirated, that adds costs to the legitimate software sold, because fixed costs are, well, fixed. Without so much piracy, he said, the Brazilian software industry could be employing numerous Brazilians and contributing far more to the national economy.

- posted by Patrick Ross @ 11:11 AM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

Brazil and Open Source

The Digital Americas Summit in Sao Paulo was indeed a success, as Tom Lenard noted. Among the hot topics debated was open source software, and the Brazilian government's stance on supporting and/or adopting it.

Continue reading Brazil and Open Source . . .

- posted by Patrick Ross @ 11:00 AM | Digital Americas, International, Software | TrackBacks (0)

Meat and Fruit

It's been noted in this blog that Argentina seems to produce the best beef on the planet. Well, in Sao Paulo I fell in love with the fruit, some of which I recognized and others I didn't.

Continue reading Meat and Fruit . . .

- posted by Patrick Ross @ 10:45 AM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Having an impact

We held our conference in Sao Paulo today on "Intellectual Property in the Digital World - The Importance for Brazilian Development". Thanks in large part to our partner, ABPI (the Brazilian Association for Intellectual Property), the conference was, I think, a resounding success. There was a lot of interesting and sometimes spirited discussion, particularly during the session on the patentability of software. Of most significance was the request by Congressman Julio Semeghini that Gustavo Leonardos (the president of ABPI) help in organizing a congressional hearing on the issues discussed at our conference. This is the type of extended policy discussion that could be really beneficial for Brazil. The conference also heard a suggestion by Congressman Julio Lopes that the patent office should be moved to the Ministry of Justice. The purpose of this proposal - which appears to be clearly a long shot - is to move the patent approval process to a less political environment where the law could be more neutrally applied.

- posted by Tom Lenard @ 6:23 PM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

Keep on Loving You

In Buenos Aires, bad 70's and 80's pop music was everywhere. When I stepped into the hotel lobby the day of our conference, for example, REO Speedwagon's "Keep on Loving You" was playing (Ray can share his latest Wang Chung exposure in another blog if he chooses). In Sao Paulo the music I heard was far more indigenous, with samba beats everywhere I went. Our conference here, however, was held in a very somber building with no piped-in music. So what soundtrack did my mind play throughout the conference? "Keep on Loving You." I've managed to survive the experience with only minor psychological scarring.

- posted by Patrick Ross @ 5:45 PM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

Price Discrimination in Buenos Aires

Wanting to be able to check in, however briefly, with loved ones while in South America, I went online before the trip and found a Buenos Aires company that rents cell phones by the week. They e-mailed me an online special that was really quite inexpensive. They told me to call them from my hotel when I arrived in Buenos Aires and they'd send someone over with the phone.

When I called from the hotel, the salesman quoted me a rate three times higher than my e-mail quote. When I noted that, he said 'Oh, I didn't know you had the e-mail quote. Yes, that will be your rate. We have a higher rate for people who call us directly from the hotel rather than finding us online."

Continue reading Price Discrimination in Buenos Aires . . .

- posted by Patrick Ross @ 5:25 PM | Digital Americas, Net Neutrality | TrackBacks (0)

Monday, April 10, 2006

Sao Paulo Factoids

Sao Paulo is the largest city in the Southern Hemisphere, with a metropolitan area population of some 17 million.

The hotel gave me a map with legends in English and Japanese. It seems that Sao Paulo is also the largest Japanese city in the world outside of Japan, says the staff. Our language skills were not sufficiently interoperable for me to figure out if this means that there is large-scale trade between Japan and Sao Paulo.

- posted by James DeLong @ 9:26 AM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

On to Sao Paulo

The PFF roadshow moves on to Sao Paulo for a conference tomorrow on Intellectual Property Rights in the Digital World -- The Importance for Brazilian Development. Our co-sponsor is ABPI (Brazilian Intellectual Property Association).

- posted by James DeLong @ 9:18 AM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

South America & Populism

Dr. Martin Krause, Professor of Economics and Dean of ESEADE Business School in Buenos Aires, has an article in TCS Daily on "Populism and Institutional Ruin," dealing with government in South America.

Populism is the absence of constraints, of rules of conduct in the public arena which is the other side of corruption. Populist leaders built their own constituencies, their own political structures, and their own mafias at the same time.
Continue reading South America & Populism . . .

- posted by James DeLong @ 9:03 AM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

Beef, Gas and IP

Not only has Argentina banned beef exports, the government has apparently also imposed price controls on oil, thus eliminating it as a (small) but significant export market and putting domestic production on decline. The same is true of natural gas production because price controls caused domestic consumption to increase while supply plummeted. With a bit of detachment that could befit a French government economics minister, the NYT noted: "Orthodox free-market economists regard price controls with distaste." Indeed, they do, though I doubt unorthodox free market economists think much of price controls either. And even orthodox unfree-market economists could likely agree that it is axiomatic that if you control price below its equilibrium level, then demand will increase and supply will dwindle.

Continue reading Beef, Gas and IP . . .

- posted by Ray Gifford @ 8:01 AM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

Argentina: Property Rights as Tools of Cooperation

Here is the introduction to my Buenos Aires talk:

OPEN STANDARDS AND OPEN SOURCE

My thoughts today are based on two quite recent experiences.

The first occurred two weeks ago in Washington, when I had the privilege of meeting the renowned Peruvian economist, Hernando de Soto. As I am sure you know, he is the author of The Mystery of Capital, and a leading proponent of the thesis that a lack of property rights is a major deficiency in the less developed nations.

Continue reading Argentina: Property Rights as Tools of Cooperation . . .

- posted by James DeLong @ 7:07 AM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

Argentina

We preached our gospel of property rights and markets in Buenos Aires on Friday. Our audience was young, mostly law students or young lawyers, and reasonably divided between the sexes – probably a third women.

They listened intently, and asked good questions. There was little of the anti-IP cant that one might get from a comparable U.S. audience.

This was all good, because such an audience is the future of Argentina, and it does not have a clear or easy path to follow.

Continue reading Argentina . . .

- posted by James DeLong @ 6:56 AM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

Saturday, April 8, 2006

Progress, Freedom and Institutions

Just a block from our hotel here in Buenos Aires is a monument to a 19th Century Argentine president, Carlos Pellegrini. It looks like any monument you'd see in any European city (or Washington, for that matter) and I walked by it several times without taking much note of it. Then, this evening, I saw some tourists snapping pictures of it and I decided to go over and look at it more closely. Upon reading the sign in front of it (English was fortunately one of the four languages displayed) I realized it was the perfect artistic summation of our efforts here with our Digital Americas conference and outreach.

Continue reading Progress, Freedom and Institutions . . .

- posted by Patrick Ross @ 6:52 PM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

Habla espanol? Un poquito.

Cuidado -- there is nothing of substance in this post. To learn more about our Buenos Aires IP conference, see posts below.

One other caution about those posts -- Movable Type doesn't seem to be permitting me to import special characters. So that headline above? Pretend there's an upside down question mark at the beginning, and a tilde above the "n" in espanol.

Of course, I could have avoided all this by not including Spanish words, but I've been using my time here in Buenos Aires to brush up on my Spanish. I last took a Spanish class in 1988 and I last spoke Spanish in... 1988.

Continue reading Habla espanol? Un poquito. . . .

- posted by Patrick Ross @ 3:43 PM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

Friday, April 7, 2006

Piracy and Argentina (and a Reflection on Siestas)

Ray Gifford's precise and insightful presentation on interoperability and standards (see this paper of his for similar thoughts) was followed by a compelling panel on piracy. There is much focus on physical piracy in the developing world, but online piracy is also rampant and frequently is linked to physical piracy.

Continue reading Piracy and Argentina (and a Reflection on Siestas) . . .

- posted by Patrick Ross @ 3:50 PM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

How to Promote Innovation in Software

We had this debate in Milan. We had it in Brussels. We had it in Prague. To the extent people agree that innovation in software should be protected to reward innovators and encourage further innovation, what is the best approach? The historic approach of trade secrets? The well-established convention of copyright law? The newer approach of patents? Many very intelligent people disagree on this, and that is true here at our Digital Americas Buenos Aires event as well.

Continue reading How to Promote Innovation in Software . . .

- posted by Patrick Ross @ 1:01 PM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

DeLong Tells Argentines of the Japanese

Jim DeLong is recently back from a trip to Tokyo and Seoul. He freely admits he speaks neither Japanese nor Spanish (they're using translation headsets like the UN here at our Digital Americas conference in Buenos Aires), but his discussion of IP, standards and interoprability is a universal one. Cultural norms impact the policy aspect of IP (he reminded the attendees here about how the Japanese are known for consensus and cooperation and notes this colors IP protection there) but he made a compelling argument about how the source of innovation is shifting and how IP is becoming its own form of capital (see his recently published Progress Snapshot on these topics).

- posted by Patrick Ross @ 11:01 AM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

Lenard on IP

PFF will be releasing soon the presentations of all of our fellows speaking here. For now, a teaser. Tom Lenard just concluded a presentation looking at criticisms of patents and praises for open source, and found some merit in both areas but on the whole found that patents work better than alternatives from an economic perspective in ensuring maximization of innovation investment, and that open source, while having some success (Apache, Linux) is also challenged in maximizing incentives and further innovation. His conclusion:

1. We need a mechanism for appropriating the total value of innovation. 2. The costs of trade secrecy argue for patent protection. 3. We need to be vigilant about transactions cost problems associated with patents. 4. There is no perfect way.

- posted by Patrick Ross @ 10:33 AM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

Una Revolucion Nueva

I'm listening to Argentine economist Martin Krause at our Buenos Aires Digital Americas conference. He presented some eye-opening numbers from the World Bank. I won't reproduce all of the numbers in this blog, they can be found here. But his point was that Argentina struggles to compete because the country lacks institutional structures needed (and he structured his presentation around an analogy of the Argentine soccer team).

Continue reading Una Revolucion Nueva . . .

- posted by Patrick Ross @ 9:17 AM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

A Beef with Populists

Buenos Aires is a teeming metropolis, with an urbane, highly educated and highly cultured population. Argentines are delightful, given to an excessive fondness for soccer, but something of an economic basket case. One of our hosts last night from ESEADE told us that during his lifetime, the currency had "lost" 17 zeroes. Martin Krause of ESEADE blames this on the acute South American fixation on populism. The political system, he says, simply can't help itself.

The latest instantiation of this populist folly is the solons in La Casa Rosada have decided to ban beef exports. This is of course a pity for the Argentine economy, and will result in a net reduction in beef production in Argentina. It is also a pity for the world, because in the 24 hours we've been here I have enjoyed the two best steaks of my life.

Entonces, Presidente Kirchner, liberte le carne!

Continue reading A Beef with Populists . . .

- posted by Ray Gifford @ 8:48 AM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

Bienvenidos a Argentina

Our advance word of the generous hospitality of Argentines, and Buenos Aires residents (portenos, with a tilde over the "n") in particular, has been exceeded. One example: within 2 minutes of meeting one of our hosts, I mentioned I had just that day had my first malbec wine, a local specialty and that I loved it. He wrote out a lengthy list of good wineries, and offered to meet me on Sunday to take me to a supermarket to buy some to bring back (a better bargain than a wine store, he said) and to help me carry it back to the hotel. I declined, but was impressed.

More importantly, we have found intellectual soulmates on the importance of free markets, classic liberalism, stable institutions, and within that environment a respect for IP rights, or "el derecho de propiedad intelectual."

Today some of us will be blogging in real time on the conference. Right now, ESEADE's Martin Krause is using in an analogy for Argentina's ability to compete in the world market with its current approach to IP and its institutional stability to the Argentine soccer team's ability to compete globally -- no World Cup, maybe some minor tournament instead.

- posted by Patrick Ross @ 8:35 AM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Digital Americas

The next stop in the PFF/IPCentral global tour is South America, namely Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Sao Paulo, Brazil. Ray Gifford, Jim DeLong and Tom Lenard will join US and South American officials and IP experts in two conferences on IP, innovation, interoperability and economic development. You can learn more here.

In Buenos Aires we're partnering with ESEADE and in Sao Paulo with ABPI to host the all-day conferences. It's a bit of a flight for many, but we encourage all of our friends and readers to attend either or both conferences. If that proves impossible, we hope you'll enjoy following the summits on the Digital Americas blog.

Digital Americas follows by three months the second annual Digital Europe in Prague (following the 2005 tour of Milan and Brussels), and builds on the eleven year tradition at PFF of hosting an annual Aspen Summit.

- posted by Patrick Ross @ 11:01 AM | Digital Americas | TrackBacks (0)