Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Zojirushi

The Zojirushi corporation manufactures all kinds of consumer goods, including coffee makers. When we were looking for a new coffee maker, we decided to get one of theirs online; the description fit all our requirements, and online we didn't see any major negative reviews. Ours is a drip-style machine; water from a tank in back is pumped through a heating element and dripped through a basket of coffee grounds into a carafe.

We were happy with the machine's performance for about 6 - 7 months, when the pump abruptly failed. We were pleased enough with the experience to go ahead and buy another one as a replacement. Unfortunately, the second one failed in about the same amount of time, in the same fashion.

A coffee maker is one of those things that's hard to justify repairing, especially long distance when shipping costs are factored in. The time you spend on the phone and packing it up are also part of the cost. However, we had two of the same machines fail in the same way, so we figured it was worth alerting the company to see what they could do.

They came through with flying colors. I'm pretty sure that whatever the warranty was on the machines, it had expired by this time. They promptly offered to pay for shipping both ways to pick up, repair, and return both machines. We shipped only the brewer bodies for each; they suggested we hold on to the carafes because they didn't need repair. When they returned to us, it appeared that one was reparable (and came back without the carafe), and one was not. They seem to have decided to send us a new one to replace the second machine.

We've not yet had enough time with the returned machines to see if this problem will happen again. If we have one fail again in the same way, we'll at least contact them to see if they want to repair it further. In that case, I wouldn't recommend you purchase one of their coffee machines. Overall, though, I'd have to say I'm very impressed with their prompt and friendly customer support. If you're thinking of buying a Zojirushi product, you should at least factor in their apparent willingness to stand behind their product and keep the customer satisfied.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Copyright, economics, and the moral high ground

My friend Herman sent out a link to a blog post by Jason Robert Brown, which documents Brown's discussion with a teenager named Eleanor about "trading" Brown's sheet music online. It occurred to me that although Brown was correct about the law and his rights, and although Eleanor's invocation of the "starving artist" argument was weak, overall she had the better of the argument.

First, the conclusion: Brown does have the legal and moral right to control copies of his work. Almost all countries observe the Berne Convention, which governs what works can be protected by their authors and when that protection becomes active. The Convention provides for a minimum duration for the protection; individual countries can allow longer protection periods if they choose. Legally, Brown is right, and can enforce his copy rights either by asking infringers to stop or by suing them in court.

Eleanor is a fan of Brown's music, and enjoys performing his songs as part of her burgeoning career in theater. She complains that she's unable to get access to Brown's sheet music because she doesn't have a credit card (and so can't purchase it online), so she has to resort to a "trading" web site, which is apparently like Napster for sheet music. Brown points out that each song is about $4, it can probably be found in a store somewhere, and maybe even at the library, so she really has options that conform to the law. Maybe Eleanor lives in New York, and that's easy for her; maybe she lives somewhere else, where sheet music is harder to find. In either case, those truly are her only legal options. One wonders, in passing, how the young Jason Robert Brown secured access to sheet music as he grew up, and what affect that had on his development and career. Maybe he had a budget big enough to afford copies of the all works he needed or wanted; maybe he stuck to works whose copyright had expired? Or maybe he just had a great local library.

Eleanor ultimately gets her fair use argument wrong but makes two convincing economic points, both of which influence the publishing behavior of successful authors like Cory Doctorow, Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig, and economic writer Kevin Carson. The first is (very broadly) that you literally lose nothing by giving your work away to someone who would or could not have otherwise paid for it; there's no lost sale in that case. There's a bit of nuance to the concept, because different people might have bought it at different prices (marginal utility), but overall the idea of a phantom "lost sale" still holds. The second is that unless people know who you are, you'll be able to own and protect 100% of a relatively smaller number of sales of your work. By treating the works you give away for free as a marketing expense, you "grow the pie"; as Eleanor points out, you increase your reputation, and that can have "network effects" down the road. Each of these authors is making money even though they also give copies of their works away for free. Why? Because people appreciate their talent and ideas, and still love having actual books, and they pay to come hear these thinkers address an audience. Such authors don't end up charging 100% of the people who enjoy their works for each copy, but the compensation they get is certainly more than the whole "pie" of a lesser or unknown author or artist.

Brown tries to justify his moral position by giving a few examples, two of which are weak for different reasons. His first anecdote is about a friend borrowing a screwdriver and not giving it back, but that's comparing apples to oranges; in the screwdriver, he has a property right in a non-reproducible physical object, which is different from his copyright in a reproducible digital work. The second anecdote describes a "lost sale" that the Thornton Wilder estate misses out on because his friend wants Brown's copy of a Wilder book, and doesn't want to buy his own. Brown argues that Wilder's estate deserves to benefit from the sale of another copy; that's true to a point, but it exposes the whole issue of the debatable and ever-lengthening copyright periods in the United States. How long should an artist be able to prevent others from copying their works? What are the trade-offs, the parties affected, and their relative utilities? The Berne Convention says protection should last no less than 50 years, but signatory states can set longer periods; the US has extended that quite considerably (to "life of the artist plus 75 years") and may continue to do so. He then gives a third example which gives a good overview of the concept of "fair use", and then is apparently surprised that a good discussion of copyright issues is available from the University of Texas web site ("Texas! Of all places!"). I guess he doesn't think he has a lot of fans in Texas. I'm also guessing he probably doesn't run all his blog posts past his agent for feedback.

Jason Robert Brown doesn't feel like he needs to give anything away to become better known, and maybe the struggling/starving artist idea doesn't resonate with him. That's fine; that's his right. In the end, though, there will certainly be other musical geniuses who market themselves like Doctorow, Lessig, and Carson; and people like Eleanor are going to share, perform, and enjoy their music, perhaps to the exclusion of people like Brown. The ugly truth is that you can maximally benefit from the "it's all mine" approach, a strict insistence on charging for every copy of your work, only if you're selling necessities; Brown's just not in that business. His sales will go up or down based on his reputation more than from his aggressive copyright enforcement. Eleanor has no legal or moral right to steal or share his sheet music; Brown has no moral obligation to make it available to her or anyone else for free. But by trying to get every dollar he can from his work, he may be putting a limit on his relevance and appeal. It will be interesting to watch it all play out.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Clinic experiences for evening law students

At law school, the legal clinics offer an opportunity to students to work on real issues with real clients. The University of Houston Law Center has a number of well-regarded clinics which are available to full-time students, or students who can commit to spending hours during the day. Sadly, no such program is offered (yet?) to the evening students. My thanks to Luke Gilman for the reference to:

David F. Chavkin, Clinic Under the Stars: Giving Part-Time Students Their Due, 13 Clinical L. Rev. 713 (2007). Some notes:

  • It's possible to have a clinic which includes part time students, even a clinic which involves litigation work. Such a clinic would be designed to give students who have full time jobs plenty of notice of court appearances so they can ask for time off work. It would have to be in a practice area in which appearances are not frequently reset.
  • ABA Standard 301(b) requires, in part, that "A law school shall ensure that all students have reasonably comparable opportunities to take advantage of the schools' educational programs, co-curricular programs, and other educational benefits."
  • ABA Standard 302(b)(1): "(b) A law school shall offer substantial opportunities for: (1) live-client or other real-life practice experiences, appropriately supervised and designed to encourage reflection by students on their experiences and on the values and responsibilities of the legal profession, and the development of one’s ability to assess his or her performance and level of competence; ..."
  • Clinic Under the Stars, p. 738 fn 67: "Although we refer to students in the evening clinic as part-time students, a better term for them would be 'more than full-time students.' ..."
  • Running a successful clinic for evening students requires a full time commitment from a full faculty member, and at times significant support services for the clinic students. Full time students can be expected to handle "less important" tasks such as running to the courthouse to file a petition or send certified mail; clinic faculty might take on a more active support role so the limited time that evening students can commit to a clinic is better spent.

I wonder: how many evening students at UHLC would participate in a clinic, given Professor Chavkin's estimate that it requires an evening and weekend commitment of on the order of 26 hours per week for seven credits? If it were available, would I dedicate a semester to such a class for the practical experience it offers to me, and the legal assistance it offers to the clients?