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michael webster
Toronto, Ontario
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So, these NBA players were bereft of good legal counsel about work product?
Copyright Implications of Protecting Tattoos. Questions Raised by NBA 2K Video Game Lawsuit.
NBA 2K is a video game series developed and released annually since 1999. Each game features animated, realistic versions of National Basketball Association (NBA) players. The 2014 and 2015 NBA 2K renditions include depictions of NBA players LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Eric Bledsoe, DeAndre Jord...
I don't get this. If game makers had consent from the players to appear, surely that includes their tattoos?
Copyright Implications of Protecting Tattoos. Questions Raised by NBA 2K Video Game Lawsuit.
NBA 2K is a video game series developed and released annually since 1999. Each game features animated, realistic versions of National Basketball Association (NBA) players. The 2014 and 2015 NBA 2K renditions include depictions of NBA players LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Eric Bledsoe, DeAndre Jord...
Steve, was there discussion about the mean and median averages of the projects funded?
I don't see crowd sourcing displacing the traditional SBA loans for small businesses any time soon.
The Rise of Small Business Crowdfunding
I had the opportunity to moderate a panel on alternative financing methods at the Global Coworking Conference. While we covered a lot of topics, the audience was clearly most interested in crowdfunding. Crowdfunding, which is raising money by getting getting small donations of money from a lar...
Peter, could your approach be called: Micromotives & Macrobehavior, (despite being a title of Tom Schelling's book.)?
How the Keynesian Revolution Changed Everything
|Peter Boettke| That was the title of a talk I gave last week at a joint IHS/Mercatus conference. My argument was rather simple --- Keynesianism changed everything because it changed the language we used to discuss economic issues, and by controling the language Keynesianism controlled the way ...
michael webster is now following lpcprof

Mar 18, 2013
Allison writes: "Lawyers are busy enough as it is, but to compete in today's market, they'll have to start producing content - quality content - on top of everything else they already have to do to attract and serve clients."
I agree with the observation about being busy. But, it is not helpful to get lawyers to write blog articles with primary goal to "attract and serve" clients.
You begin your apprenticeship as a writer by putting down on paper your ideas about an issue, so that you know what you think about the problem.
Later other people may be interested in your solutions. It is most important for you to get clear, however, first. (People, even lawyers, will write a lot if the purpose is to entertain themselves, first.)
Content Marketing: Quantity Alone is not Enough
I recently did a blog post on content marketing, and I've now come accross a slideshare presentation done by Velocity, a UK business to business marketing firm. The presentation went viral, for good reason. I've embedded their presentation below if you're interested in viewing it in its entire...
michael webster is now following Matt Kreutzer
Feb 26, 2013
Lawyers need to understand what a back link strategy is. Most of their posts are evergreen, not tied to current events. When they see an current event that could be better understood by reference to their blog post, they need to link back and track the analytics.
Link Building Strategy and SEO Part II
In the last post in this series, we talked about the importance of links to search engine optimization (SEO) and how improper link building strategies could get you into hot water with Google (and ruin the search ranking you are trying to achieve). According to some experts, here are some of th...
Alice, guilty as charged and will be sending you an email.
Why are lawyers unhappy?
About a week ago the WSJ Law Blog had an interview with Gretchen Rubin, Yale law grad, O'Connor law clerk and now writer of "The Happiness Project", a blog and future book. The interview is here. In the interview Rubin suggests that while some of the usual suspects of lawyer (and especially la...
Sorry, I don't get Romer's remarks.
Social contract theorists have been studying rules that humans would follow as an scientific project for some time: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contractarianism-contemporary/
Brian Skyrms is probably the most well known philosopher who uses extended game theory to explore social contract formation.
Romer owes us a little more here, even though the skyhook metaphor is cute.
What is the problem with mathematical economics?
|Peter Boettke| It is not mathematics. When mathematical techniques are used correctly they are extremely helpful -- perhaps essential -- to clear thinking on many topics. But when questions are restricted due to mathematical tractability, or models are developed which assume what they are suppo...
Alice, the other view is that lawyers are not any more unhappy than any other group, but being very competitive they like to whine about being "unhappy" more than anyone else.
Why are lawyers unhappy?
About a week ago the WSJ Law Blog had an interview with Gretchen Rubin, Yale law grad, O'Connor law clerk and now writer of "The Happiness Project", a blog and future book. The interview is here. In the interview Rubin suggests that while some of the usual suspects of lawyer (and especially la...
From today's Wall Street Journal:
"Hundreds of small-business owners have been hit with similar penalties in connection with pension or benefit plans, says Alex Brucker of the Small Business Council of America, an association representing small firms on pension, tax and health-care issues. Hundreds more are likely to get hit with these penalties in the near future, he says."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125331489168624343.html
Should You Use Your 401(K) To Fund Your Franchise Business?
Starting a franchise business? Getting a loan to do it? From who? There's always some controversy around the topic of using your own retirement funds to fund a portion of your start-up business. Some folks say never. Some folks say why not? Here's what I say.......... Read More About ...
Is that an affiliate link, Joel?
Your reader should also know the other side of the story.
http://www.bluemaumau.org/6941/irs_expert_give_warning_rollover_industry
Franchise Business Financing; Borrow Money From Yourself!
You have researched the franchise that you are interested in. You have visited with current franchisees, and spent the day at the franchisors headquarters. Now, it's time to get a loan. One little problem; The banks are still a little paranoid about loaning money for business start-ups..... ...
I agree with much of this, and would add the following.
1. Google quality score affects your ad placement, and quality score is fairly opaque.
2. On the content network, ad placement is much more opaque.
3. Ads can have high quality score, but Google decides that only the first 10 run on the first page, and nothing runs on the second search page.
4. Google's attitude to trademarks changes constantly. Now limited use of trademarks in adwords is allowed.
This is an excellent anti-trust problem, and I look forward to you following up with a paper called "Auction Design - The Anti Trust Issues."
Google’s Search Auctions and Market Power
I have a plan of market division for The Wall Street Journal: I’ll write about antitrust; they will stop writing about it and will instead write about other topics where the local knowledge runs deeper. Today’s topic, like last week’s, is the proposed Microsoft-Yahoo! search deal. L. Gordon Crov...
That the usual VM calculation of cardinal utility is unique up to an affine or linear transformation is only a function of the axioms needed to be satisfied. There is no place for large numbers.
Utility is Not a Monotonic Function
From Gretchen Rubin's Happiness blog, interviewee Karen Leland offers the following thoughts about happiness: [I]t's not a constant condition, and it's not supposed to be. The amount of happiness I experience ebbs and flows and that's ok. Sometimes I'm super-joyful, sometimes content and sometim...
I am an attorney, and generally support Seth Godin's view.
But, it does depends on how much is being quoted to qualify as fair use.
My solution would be to: simply notify the author that you believe that your quote constitutes fair use, and that unless you hear back from them within 30 days, you will assume that they agree, is a useful compromise.
Will it work all the time? No, but it probably cuts out a lot of silly time wasting.
Does your legal department work for you?
I'm working on a project with my publishers John Wiley & Sons, Inc. that will be released sometime in 2010. No, I am not writing a new book, but it is too early to talk about what I'm cooking up just yet. When we're ready to announce, this blog will be the first place that I spread the word. I ne...
I wrote about Kindle displacing the second hand text market here:
http://www.bizop.ca/blog2/due-diligence/can-kindle-replace-text-books.html
The Kindle DRM Kerfuffle: A Case Book Author's Perspective
Ashby Jones: Do we as consumers ever really own the digital stuff — books, music, etc. — that we think we’re buying? It’s a provocative question explored in an article Thursday by the WSJ’s Geoffrey Fowler. The issue came up last week when Amazon.com reached into customers’ Kindle e-readers a...
I vote for Asim Jalis's interpretation as an equally valid view.
What I don't know is how to break the tie.
The Accuracy of First Impressions: An Amazing Old Study About "Thin Slices" of Behavior
I was reading through some old research on emotional expression, and in the process re-read one of the most astounding studies I've ever seen. It is by Nalini Ambady and Robert Rosenthal and is called "Half a Minute: Predicting Teaching Evaluations from Thin Slices of Behavior and Physical Attr...
I liked this, except for the reference to harmonic dynamics. There is no need to muck up your good explanation that if everyone is using a similar risk model, then the agents are likely to move in tandem. So when you need diversification of risk the very most, you cannot get it; you are getting unseen, unheard of, and unthought of massive correlation in one action: selling.
VaR explained & the BS model (not Black Scholes)
Value at Risk is pretty simple. Someone is making a guess about what they expect to happen 95% or 99% of the time. i.e. 99% of the time you will lose less than $1000 a day. etc. What many people forget to focus on is the fact that what happens the other 1-5% of the time is what counts. What ...
I found the paper disappointing in that Levine did not discuss at all invariance.
Tversky's great challenge was a thoughtful attack on the principal of invariance.
Invariance is the principle which allows the mathematization of decisions.
Levine simply ignores this challenge and potters on about prospect theory.
Long Live Homo Economicus
An excellent paper on behavioral economics and rational choice.
I have now read the entire paper, and I am disappointed. The FTC has already stated the scope of the new biz op rules will not encompass mlm companies.
Sergio Pareja on FTC Regulation of Pyramid Marketing Schemes
Sergio Pareja of New Mexico has written Sales Gone Wild: Will the FTC's Business Opportunity Rule Put an End to Pyramid Marketing Schemes? 39 McGeorge Law Review. Here's the abstract: This article analyzes the anticipated effect of the FTC's Business Opportunity Rule on pyramid marketing sche...
This looks to be a very interesting article.
In my experience,the biggest problem in this area is with the victim's image.
After the con, it is impossible for the person to relate objectively how they were taken in by nonsense.
As such, they treated by the regulators as mere marks who deserved what they got.
Sergio Pareja on FTC Regulation of Pyramid Marketing Schemes
Sergio Pareja of New Mexico has written Sales Gone Wild: Will the FTC's Business Opportunity Rule Put an End to Pyramid Marketing Schemes? 39 McGeorge Law Review. Here's the abstract: This article analyzes the anticipated effect of the FTC's Business Opportunity Rule on pyramid marketing sche...
In fact, some have argued that this free for all with employees has actually made Silicon Valley far more competitive.
The Rights of Employers to Employee's Inventions
One of the more popular posts on this blog is this overview of patent ownership law. In a nutshell, what the overview explains is that in most states, the rights of employers to their employee-inventors' inventions is limited to what was recognized at common law. California is no exception to th...
I think that none of these participants showed any understanding of permission marketing, the examples largely seem to be interruption marketing, even the use of twitter.
These big brands are missing the general idea: by using social media, you can scale a 1-1 sales relationship and sell more things to less clients.
Not one of these speakers talked about using the trust gained by a brand to a) get more information from the consumer, b) using that information wisely, and c) selling affiliate products.
NRA Show: Panel on Social Media Marketing
In addition to traditional booths and exhibition displays, the National Restaurant Association show offers over 65 educational seminars on various aspects of the foodservice industry. The talks cover everything from the practical "How to Surf the Economic Tsunami and Stay Afloat" to niche topics...
And the rule for deciding when Monty Hall shows door 2 or door 3, when you have correctly chosen door 1 was?
Random choice between 2 or 3 right?
What would happen if the rule was only show door 2?
Monty Hall: information & door #1 investing
One of the most famous problems in popular statistics is the monty hall 3 door problem. Monty presents you with 3 doors. Behind one random door is a new car and behind the other 2 doors are goats. Being averse to goats you select a door hoping for a car. Monty selects a door with a goat. Y...
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