Readings (Preliminary)

There are no required texts to purchase. Most of the readings for the course can be obtained over the Internet (in many cases, that's the only way); the reading list has the links embedded. In many cases, the file is stored in a compressed or special graphics format. With luck, the workstation you are using is set up to automatically display each type of file. If not, see the "Helper Apps for Viewing Files" section of the Net Resources page for this class.

Part of what you will be learning in this course is how to effectively use the Web to get on top of current policy issues. With current issues, many valuable materials are not available in print. On the other hand, you should not become too Web-dependent: many valuable materials never make it to the Web. There is also some risk in relying so heavily on the network: occasionally links will go down, or directory structures may change and files seemingly "disappear". If you have trouble getting a reading, try again a little while later. Try exploring a bit around the server where the document is supposed to be located. Ask your classmates if they got a copy. Search for alternative materials. If you do find any changes in the location addresses (URL's) for materials, please notify me!

Required materials that are not on the Web will be found on reserve. "Further starting points" materials you have to dig up yourself, via Web or otherwise.

Here is a directory of engineering reference materials available on the net (try the "subject directory"). This is a good place to start searching for additional technical information. And here is The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, available only to the UM campus community, with over 7000 articles on technical topics.

Introduction to Information Policy Issues

Recommended:

Browse the "Policy and Regulation" section of my Telecom Info Resources on the Internet directory
Jeff MacKie-Mason and Hal Varian, "Economic FAQs about the Internet", Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 1994.
Summaries from "Internet ? Society", Harvard Law School course, Fall 1997

See "What's Hot" at the Electronic Freedom Foundation
And look at the front page of the Center for Democracy and Technology, too
National Research Council, Realizing the Information Future (may no longer be available online; I will put my copy on reserve). Read Chapter 1. (Note: There are several sections in this chapter; follow the links.)
The Economist, "A survey of Telecommunications" (for purchase), 30 Sept 1995. (I'll try to put my copy of the full book-length version on reserve, but I can't find it at the moment.)
Business Week, "The Information Revolution: Introduction", 1994 Special Bonus Issue, pp. 10-18.

Further Starting Points:

James Gleick, "Justice Delayed: Yes, Microsoft's Products are 'Integrated'". First published in The New York Times Magazine, 23 November 1997.
The Economist, "A survey of the Internet", (for purchase). 1 July 1995.
Forbes ASAP -- The Digital Revolution: Why and Whither. 2 December 1996
Jonathan Blake and Lee Tiedrich, "The National Information Infrastructure Initiative and the Emergence of the Electronic Superhighway", Federal Communications Law Journal, vol. 46, no. 3. Already dated review of three 1994 legislative initiatives, but contains a useful overview of wireless and fiber policy issues. Read Section III.A,B
Jerry Michalski, "The Economics of Connectivity", Release 1.0, 1996
Sky Dayton, "The Natural Evolution of the Internet Industry", August 1996
Richard W. Wiggins, "Growth of the Internet: An Overview of a Complicated Subject", 1995 (Link broken)
Henry Hardy, "The History of the Net", Master's Thesis, School of Communications, Grand Valley State University, v. 8.5, 28 Sept 1993

Technologies and Network Architecture

Required (warning: technical!):

Craig Partridge, Gigabit Networking (Addison-Wesley, 1994), chapter 2.
George Calhoun, Wireless Access and the Local Telephone Network (Artech House, 1992), pp. 241-249, 259-267
Martin de Prycker, Asynchronous Transfer Mode: Solution for Broadband ISDN (Ellis Horwood, 1991), pp. 26-48
Raif Onvural, Asynchronous Transfer Mode Networks: Performance Issues (Artech House, 1994), chapter 2

Further resources:

See the section below on "Technologies"
J. MacKie-Mason, S. Shenker and H. Varian, "Service Architecture and Content Provision: The Network Provider as Editor", Telecommunications Policy (1996)

Allocating public information resources A view of the future?

Required:

J. Murphy and C. Hofacker, "Explosive Growth Clogs Internet Backbone", New York Times -- CyberTimes, June 29-30, 1996
MacKie-Mason and Varian, "Pricing the Internet", in Public Access to the Internet, B. Kahin and J. Keller, eds., MIT Press 1995
S. Shenker, D. Clark, D. Estrin, S. Herzog, "Pricing in Computer Networks: Reshaping the Research Agenda". Original available in Postscript.
George Gilder, "Auctioning the Airwaves", Forbes ASAP, 11 April 1994
Hazlett, T., "Spectrum Auctions -- Only a First Step", Wall Street Journal, 20 December 1994.

Further starting points:

MacKie-Mason, J. and H. Varian, "Some FAQs about Usage-Based Pricing", (published version in Computers and ISDN, 1995)
MacKie-Mason, J., "Lecture Notes on Spectrum Auctions"
J. Crowcroft, "Pricing the Internet", Internet draft (draft-crowcroft-pricing-the-i-00.txt), 3 July 1996
T. Tanaka, "Is Packet Usage Pricing Inevitable?", Research Paper Glocom-10, Center for Global Communications, International University of Japan
Peter Cramton, "The PCS Spectrum Auctions: Theory to Practice" (on reserve) 1995
Peter Cramton, "The FCC Spectrum Auctions: An Early Assessment", Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, 6:3, 431-495, 1997.
Murphy, J. and B. Massey, "No Shortage of Bottlenecks For Internet Traffic", New York Times -- Cybertimes, June 29-30, 1996
Germain, Ellen, "Will Pricing Be the Price of a Faster Internet?", Science, 2 August 1996, vol. 273, p. 586.
Germain, Ellen, "Fast Lanes on the Internet", Science, 2 August 1996, vol. 273, pp. 585ff.
Journal of Electronic Publishing, Special Issue on Internet Economics, May 1996.
Perez, Miguel A., "Pricing the Internet : A Model and a Practical Implementation", INET '95
Bohn, Braun, Claffy and Wolff, "Mitigating the Coming Internet Crunch". Original available in Postscript.
Villasis, Santiago, "An Optimal Pricing Mechanism for Internet's End-Users", [PDF format] a Master's Thesis.
Jamie Love, Open letter to NSF re: Pricing Internet Usage
MacKie-Mason and Varian, "Pricing Congestible Resources", IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communications, September 1995
Shenker, Scott "Service Models and Pricing Policies for an Integrated Services Internet". In Public Access to the Internet, B. Kahin and J. Keller, eds., MIT Press 1995. Original available in Postscript.
Kelly, Frank, "Charging and Accounting for Bursty Connections," in Internet Economics, L. McKnight and J. Bailey, eds. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996). Also online at the Journal of Electronic Publishing.
Kelly, Frank, "Tariffs and Effective Bandwidths in Multiservice Networks," in The Fundamental Role of Teletraffic in the Evolution of Telecommunations Network, ITC 14, J. Labetoulle and J. Roberts, eds. (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1994)
Gerry Faulhaber, "Pricing the Net: What Economists Do"
Gupta, Alok, Dale Stahl and Andrew Whinston. "An Economic Approach to Networked Computing with Priority Classes", J. of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, 6:71-95.
Mike Perry on spectrum scarcity
Com-priv debate on spectrum auctions

Archives and Directories:

Full collection of auction research papers by Peter Cramton.
Current Cites bibliography on electronic information pricing.
FCC archive of information on the PCS auctions

Monopoly Leveraging: Gates forever?

Required:

U.S. FTC, "Promoting Competition, Protecting Consumers: A Plain English Guide to Antitrust Laws".
Roger Noll, "The Role of Antitrust in Telecommunications", CEPR No. 406, Dept. of Economics, Stanford University, December 1994
Gary Reback, S. Creighton, D. Killam, and N. Nathanson, "White Paper: Technological, Economic And Legal Perspectives Regarding Microsoft's Business Strategy In Light Of The Proposed Acquisition Of Intuit, Inc.", 14 Nov 1994

Familiarize yourself with the current antitrust case against Microsoft (U.S. v. Microsoft Corporation, Civil Action 94-1564 (Dist. Court D.C.) (Internet Explorer case). Here are some (!) of the important legal documents:

U.S. Department of Justice (1997). "Memorandum Of The United States In Support Of Petition For An Order To Show Cause Why Respondent Microsoft Corporation Should Not Be Found In Civil Contempt", 20 October 1997. http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases3/micros2/1237.htm
Microsoft Corporation (1997). "Memorandum Of Microsoft Corporation In Advance Of The October 27, 1997 Scheduling Conference Before The Court", 27 October 1997. http://www.microsoft.com/corpinfo/doj/dojletter.htm
Microsoft Corporation (1997). "Memorandum In Opposition To Petition Of The United States For An Order To Show Cause Why Respondent Microsoft Corporation Should Not Be Found In Civil Contempt", 10 November 1997. http://www.microsoft.com/corpinfo/11-10Filing.html
U.S. Department of Justice (1997). "Reply Brief Of Petitioner United States Of America", 20 November 1997. http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases3/micros2/1277.htm
Jackson, Judge Thomas (1997). "Memorandum and Order", 11 December 1997. (Microsoft ordered to unbundle Internet Explorer from Windows95.) (http://web.lawcrawler.com/microsoft/usdoj/cases/ms121197.html
Jackson, Judge Thomas, et al. (1998). "Stipulation and Order", 21 January 1998. (Agreement between USDOJ and Microsoft on unbundling.) http://www.microsoft.com/corpinfo/doj/finalstipulation.htm
Jackson, Judge Thomas (1998), "Memorandum and Order, 14 September 1998. (Microsoft's motion for summary judgment denied in part and granted in part). http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/98-1232f.html

Further starting points:

Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, Lecture notes on Network Externalities and Microsoft
Gilbert, Richard. (1997). "Networks, Standards, and the Use of Market Dominance", forthcoming in John Kwoka and Lawrence White, The Antitrust Revolution, 3rd ed. (Oxford University Press: 1998).
Caldera Corporation antitrust complaint against Microsoft (July 1996)

Archives and Directories:

Nick Economides’ collection of materials on Microsoft and antitrust at http://raven.stern.nyu.edu/networks/ms/top.html
New York Times online archive of Microsoft stories.
U.S. Department of Justice archive of Microsoft materials.
Microsoft's archive of materials from the US DOJ antitrust lawsuit
Archive of materials on U.S. v. Microsoft (1995 antitrust proceedings against Microsoft)
Consumer Project on Technology (CPT) archive of materials on Microsoft antitrust matters

Internet governance: Who's in charge here?

Required:

Lessig, Lawrence, "Governance", Talk given at the New York Media Association, 10 June 1998.
Krochmal, Mo, "Magaziner, Lessig Spar Over Domain Name Plan," CMP Tech Web, 11 June 1998.
Clausing, Jeri, "Agreement Reached on New Authority for Internet Addresses", New York Times, 19 September 1998.
Simons, John and Glenn R. Simpson, "U.S., Network Solutions Reach Accord To Open Web Addressing to Competition," Wall Street Journal, 6 October 1998.
IANA, Discussion release of proposed naming governance plan, 2 October 1998. See "News and Announcements" page for more recent drafts and other news.
IANA, "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQs).
National Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, "White Paper: Management of Internet Names and Addresses", 5 June 1998.
Boston Group (International Forum on the White Paper). Critique of IANA proposal, discussion of process, and alternative proposal.
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), "WIPO Internet Domain Name Process"

Further starting points:

Kahin, Brian and James Keller, eds., Coordinating the Internet, (MIT Press, 1997). This online supplement to the book has most of the chapters in draft form, plus numerous links to additional relevant material. See especially the chapters by Gillett and Kapor ("The Self-governing Internet: Coordination by Design"), and by Johnson and Post ("And how shall the net be governed? A meditation on the relative virtues of decentralized, emergent law").
Information about pgMedia antitrust and First Amendment lawsuit against NSF concerning domain name management.
Barkow, Tim, "The Domain Name System", Wired 4.09.
DNS-LAW Discussion Group, "Competing Models of Internet DNS Service Governance", 20 Sept. 1997.

Archives and Directories:

Jeff MacKie-Mason's directory of related materials. Go to section 11, "Internet Governance, Domain Name and IP Number Policy", Policy and Regulation section of the Telecom Information Resources on the Internet (TIRI) directory.
Domain Name Rights Coalition
The Web site of the Internet Law and Policy Forum, a trade association dedicated to developing legal and governance solutions for the Internet.
The International Forum on the White Paper. Click on a box for any of the "Forums" for documents distributed at that forum meeting.

Individual in cyber society

Required:

Turkle, Sherry. Life on the Screen. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995). Chapters 1-3 and 7, pp. 29-101, 177-209.
Dibbell, Julian. "A Rape in Cyberspace: How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trikster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database into a Society," in Internet Dreams: Archetypes, Myths and Metaphors, Stefik, Mark, ed. (MIT Press: 1996), pp. 293-316.

Further starting points:

Kraut, R., V. Lundmark, M. Patterson, S. Kiesler, T. Mukopadhyay, W. Scherlis, "Internet Paradox: A Social Technology That Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological Well-Being?", American Psychologist, Vol. 53, No. 9 (September 1998), 1017–1031
Mnookin, Jennifer.
Binik, Yitzchak M., James Cantor, Eric Ochs, and Marta Meana. "From the Couch to the Keyboard: Psychotherapy in Cyberspace," in Culture of the Internet, Sara Kiesler, ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997), pp. 71-102.

Free speech, censorship, pornography and all that

Required:

Lessig, Larry, David Post and Eugene Volokh, "Cyberspace Law for Non-Lawyers". Read Lessons 40-47 (Free Speech 1-8), and Lesson 63 (Free Speech 24). They're short.
Resnick, Paul. "Filtering Information on the Internet". Scientific American, March 1997, pp. 106-108.
Lessig, Lawrence and Paul Resnick. "The Architectures of Mandated Access Controls". Proceedings of the 1998 Telecommunications Policy Research Conference.
Hafner, Katie, "Library Grapples With Protecting Internet Freedom", New York Times, 15 October 1998.

Further starting points:

Eli Noam, "Principles for the Communications Act of 2034", Federal Communications Law Journal, vol. 47, no. 2
Eli Noam, The Impending Doom of Common Carriage. Also on reserve.
Jonathan Blake and Lee Tiedrich, "The National Information Infrastructure Initiative and the Emergence of the Electronic Superhighway", Federal Communications Law Journal, vol. 46, no. 3.11. Already dated review of three 1994 legislative initiatives, but contains a useful overview of the policy issues. Read Section II.A.1.
Center for Democracy and Technology, "Summary of the Internet Family Empowerment White Paper: How Filtering Tools Enable Responsible Parents to Protect Their Children Online", 16 July 1997.
Text of the CDA
Pamela Mandels, New York Times, Government Defines 'Safe Harbor' Under Communications Decency Act, 8 May 1996 (Cybertimes Extra; not in print version of NYT)
CDA Issues Page, sponsored by the Center for Democracy and Technology
Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS), a parental empowerment technology approach
Complaint filed separately by the ACLU
Steve Silberman, Defending the First Amendment in the Global Public Square, HotWired magazine, 1996.

Copyright and intellectual property protection

Required:

The Report of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights: Lehman "White Paper" on "Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure"
P. Samuelson, "The Copyright Grab," Wired, 1995.
A. Okerson, " Who Owns Digital Works?, Scientific American, July 1996.
The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (1998)
National Research Council, Realizing the Information Future. Read Chapter 4, Section 6. (Note: There are several sections in this chapter; follow the links.)
Copyright on the GII: essay by "mkj" on world.std.com

Further Starting Points:

Arnold P. Lutzker, EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FOR THE LIBRARY AND EDUCATIONAL COMMUNITY of the Commerce Department's White Paper on National and Global Information Infrastructure
NII Copyright Protection Act of 1995, S.1284 (1995), introduced by Senators Hatch and Leahy
Litman, Jessica. "Copyright Law and Electronic Access to Information" First Monday 4
The Compuserve GIF (LZW) licensing controversy (Hypermail archive)
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Letter to U.S. Congress concerning Information Infrastructure Copyright Act (S.1284), and ACM Model Policy on Electronic Copyright
European Commission Green Paper on copyright: Summary, and Full Text (in Word for Windows format), and Status
Pamela Samuelson's critique of the NII Intellectual Property report
Samuelson, Pamela, "Software Compatibility and the Law," Communications of the ACM 38:8 (August 1995), pp. 15-22
Dam, Kenneth, "Some Economic Considerations in the Intellectual Property Protection of Software," The Journal of Legal Studies XXIV:2 (June 1995), pp. 321-377.
Biederman, Christine, "Ruling Assists Digital Law Libraries", The New York Times -- Cybertimes , 27 Dec 1996 (concerns a legal opinion on the Westlaw page numbers copyright controversy)
John B. Kennedy and Shoshanna R. Davids, "Web-Site Agreements Do Not Wrap Up IP Rights", National Law Journal (p. C03, col. 1), October 23, 1995
W. Edward Steinmueller, "The Economics of Production and Distribution of User-Specific Information via Digital Networks", in The Economics of Information Networks, C. Antonelli, ed. (Elsevier, 1992)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Princeton University Press, et al., v. Michigan Document Services, 1996 FED App. 0046P (6th Cir.), File: 96a0046p.06, 12 Feb 1996

Archives and Directories:

Berkeley SunSite "Copyright, Intellectual Property Rights, and Licensing Issues" directory
US ACM Copyright and Intellectual Property (ACM is the Association for Computing Machinery, one of the two largest professional organizations for computing specialists)

Electronic FOIA: Public records and private information

Required:

David A. Wallace, "Computerized Government Information and the U.S. Freedom of Information Act: History and Current Status." Paper presented at the Association of Canadian Archivists Annual Meeting, Halifax, Nova Scotia, May 1998.
U.S. House of Representatives. Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Letter from Howard Wolpe, Chairman, Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight to Richard Truly, Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space

Amy E. Rees, "Recent Developments Regarding the Freedom of Information Act: A 'Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or Perhaps Both,'" Duke Law Journal 44 (No. 6, April 1995), pp. 1183-1223.
U.S. Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, Report (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1997). Read ONLY Chapter 3, "Common Sense Declassification and Public Access," pp. 49-74. http://www.fas.org/sgp/library/moynihan/.

Further starting points:

Anderson, Terry, "My Paper Prison: The Black Bars of this Cell Run Horizontally through the Records of My Life," New York Times Magazine (April 4, 1993), pp. 35+
Bailey, R. Kevin, " 'Did I Miss Anything?': Excising the National Security Council from FOIA Coverage," Duke Law Journal 46 (No. 6, April 1997), pp. 1475-1517.
Brown, Thomas Elton, "The Freedom of Information Act in the Information Age: The Electronic Challenge to the People's Right to Know," American Archivist 58 (Spring 1995), pp. 202-211.
Cate, Fred H., D. Annette Fields, and James K. McBain, "The Right to Privacy and the Publicís Right to Know: The Central Purpose of the Freedom of Information Act," Administrative Law Review 46 (Winter 1994), pp. 41-74.
Carome, Patrick J., and Thomas S. Sussman (eds.), "American Bar Association Symposium on FOIA 25th Anniversary (May 21, 1991, Washington, D.C.)," Government Information Quarterly 9 (No. 3), pp. 223-265.
Gellman, Robert, "I Predict E-FOIA Will Slow Down Agency Responses," Government Computer News (November 18, 1996).
Relyea, Harold C., "Freedom of Information Revisited." In Peter Hernon, Charles R. McClure, and Harold C. Relyea (eds.), Federal Information Policies in the 1990s: Views and Perspectives (Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1996), pp. 183-210.
Sprehe, Timothy, "E-FOIA: Mixed Bag of Access Benefits and Legal Loopholes," Federal Computer Week (January 6, 1997).
Theoharis, Athan G. (ed.), A Culture of Secrecy: The Government Versus the People's Right to Know (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1998).

Directories and Archives:

Local vs. long distance competition

Required:

David Teece, "Telecommunications in Transition: Unbundling, Reintegration, and Competition".
Telecommunications Act of 1996 (HTML version of completed legislation, with hypertext index, links to conference report, summaries, and related materials)
Jonathan Blake and Lee Tiedrich, "The National Information Infrastructure Initiative and the Emergence of the Electronic Superhighway", Federal Communications Law Journal, vol. 46, no. 3. Already dated review of three 1994 legislative initiatives, but contains a useful online overview of the MFJ. Read Section II.A.3
Gong, J. and Srinagesh, P., "The Economics of Layered Networks"
On-line resources from the MFJ Task Force. Look for current status of bill, summary of provisions: materials here are constantly changing.

Further starting points:

Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, Lecture notes on antitrust and telecomm reform
U.S. Congress, "Joint Explanatory Report of the Committee of Conference" on the telecom reform bill
Wall Street Journal, "Telecommunications Reports", 20 March 1995. Collection of articles providing background and context for the 1995-96 telecom reform bill
AT?T, "Local Service Overview", report on AT?T's efforts to compete in local telephony markets
Peter Huber, "The Myth of the Local Bottleneck", Report for the Regional Bell Operating Companies
William Baumol and J. Gregory Sidak, Toward Competition in Local Telephony, chapters 2 and 3
U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, Electronic Enterprises: Looking to the Future , June 1994, pp. 73-79 ("Option C"). Copy with figures on reserve.
Economides, N. and L. White, "Compatibility, Networks and Antitrust", Working Paper, Stern School of Management, NYU, 1994. Also on reserve.

Internet telephony: revolution or aberration?

Further resources:

Bell Atlantic study and report to the FCC on Internet traffic, March 1996
Peter Sommerer, "The Impact of the Internet on the Phone Industry: Facts and Vision"
Jeffrey Kraus, "Access charges for the Internet" (due to Internet telephony competition with traditional telephony).

Universal access ? cross-subsidy

Required:

Bruce Egan and Steven Wildman, "Funding the Public Telecommunications Infrastructure", Working paper, Columbia Graduate School of Business
U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, Electronic Enterprises: Looking to the Future , June 1994, pp. 70-73 ("Option B"). Copy with figures on reserve.
Gary Bolles, "Is Universal Data Access Possible?", Inter@ctive Week, 30 January 1995.

Further resources:

Robert H. Anderson, Tora K. Bikson, Sally Ann Law, Bridger M. Mitchell, Universal Access To E-Mail: Feasibility and Societal Implications
D. Bralic and J. Murphy, "Global Gridlock: Net Access Around the World", New York Times -- Cybertimes, July 14, 1996

Info war and security
Cryptography and trade policy
Computational markets; digital libraries

Required:

Michael Wellman, "A Market-Oriented Programming Environment and its Application to Distributed Multicommodity Flow Problems," Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research 1 (1993).
M. Miller and K. Drexler, "Markets and Computation: Agoric Open Systems," in The Ecology of Computation, B. Huberman, ed. (Elsevier, 1988).
Agorics, Inc., "What is an Auction?"
Association of Research Libraries, Definition and Purposes of a Digital Library
UM Digital Library Project, Proposal Executive Summary and online materials

Further starting points:

MacKie-Mason, J., Lecture notes on Computational Markets and Digital Libraries (PDF format)
Chris Avery, Paul Resnick, and Richard Zeckhauser, "The Market for Evaluations"
T. Mullen and M. Wellman, "A simple computational market for network information services," First International Conference on Multiagent Systems , June 1995.
Onsale, Inc., commercial online auction house (view real-time, ongoing auctions)
Miller, M. and K. E. Drexler, "Markets and Computation: Agoric Open Systems"
IEEE Computer Special Issue on Digital Libraries, May 1996
Brian Kahin, "Institutional and Policy Issues in the Development of the Digital Library"

Pricing information goods, electronic publishing

Required:

"The Economy of Ideas", John Perry Barlow, Wired , 1994
Hal Varian, "Pricing Information Goods", presented at The Future of Mathematical Communications Conference, Berkeley, 30 November -- 3 December 1994
Andrew Odlyzko, "Tragic loss or good riddance? The impending demise of traditional scholarly journals", Intern. J. Human-Computer Studies (1995).
Neil Calkins, "An Overview of Electronic Mathematics Journals", presented at The Future of Mathematical Communications Conference, Berkeley, 30 November -- 3 December 1994
Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, Lecture notes on economics of electronic publishing

Further Starting Points:

Fleming, Matthew, "The Obsolescence of the Hard Copy: Digital Publishing, the Internet and the Scientific Research Community", memo written for SPP 744, Winter 1996
Dyson, Esther, "Intellectual Value", Wired, 1995
Bailey, Charles, "Network-Based Electronic Publishing of Scholarly Works: A Selective Bibliography", The Public-Access Computer Systems Review, vol. 6, no. 1 (1995), version 25: 9/16/96
Proceedings of the Future of Mathematical Communications Conference, Berkeley, 30 November -- 3 December 1994; see especially "Background Materials"
W. Goffe and B. Parks, The Future Information Structure in Economics
UM Academic Outreach Program, Bibliography on Electronic Publishing
Gary Taubes, "Science Journals Go Wired", Science, Volume 271, Number 5250, Issue of 9 February 1996, p. 764
Gary Taubes, "Electronic Preprints Point the Way to 'Author Empowerment'", Science, Volume 271, Number 5250, Issue of 9 February 1996, p. 767
Off-line materials on digital publishing
National Research Council, Realizing the Information Future. Read Chapter 3, Section 6.
University of Michigan Press, The Journal of Electronic Publishing
Colin Day, "Economics of Electronic Publishing"
Colin Day, "Pricing Electronic Products"

Content Provision

Required:

J. MacKie-Mason, S. Shenker and H. Varian, "Service Architecture and Content Provision: The Network Provider as Editor", forthcoming in Telecommunications Policy (1996)
D. Clark, S. Shenker and L. Zhang, "Services or Infrastructure: Why we need a network service model". In Proceedings of Workshop on Community Networking, pp. 145-149.
Lanham, Richard. "The Economics of Attention", in The Research Library the Day After Tomorrow, Proceedings of the 124th Annual Meeting of the Association of Research Libraries, Austin, TX, May 18-20, 1994.
Communications Futures Project, Emerging Communications Services, chapters 5 and 6

Further resources:

Electronic commerce and digital money

Required:

Electronic Cash, Tokens and Payments in the National Information Infrastructure -- good overview
"Achieving Digital Privacy"David Chaum's Scientific American article on digital currency
N. Borenstein, paper on First Virtual experience

Further resources:

MacKie-Mason, J. Lecture notes on digital money
MacKie-Mason, J. and K. White "Evaluating and Selecting Digital Payment Mechanisms", forthcoming in G. Rosston and D. Waterman, Telecommunications Policy Research (tentative title) (Lawrence Erlbaum: 1997).
Camp, Jean "Privacy and Electronic Payment Systems"
Hardy, N. and E. D. Tribble, "The Digital Silk Road". A short, easy-to-read description on one proposal for electronic money.
Neumann, B. Clifford, "Security, Payment, and Privacy for Network Commerce", IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communications, 13:8, October 1995
Tanaka, Tatsuo, "Possible Economic Consequences of Digital Cash"
Kittock, James and Ketchpel, Steven, "The Interactions Involved in Existing Internet Payment Systems"
Mark Bernkopf, "Electronic Cash and Monetary Policy", First Monday, 1996.
U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Hearings on "The Future of Money", 1995-1996
U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, Electronic Enterprises: Looking to the Future , June 1994, pp. 139-150 ("Option A"). Copy with figures on reserve.
"NetCash"A research paper on NetCash, a semi-anonymous digital currency proposal
NetBill: Carnegie-Mellon Internet billing server project (many links to other digital currency sites)
First Virtual:An on-line transactions billing company
First Virtual Hypermail archive. Email discussions of First Virtual billing scheme, and Internet commerce schemes in general.
Directory of resources on Internet Commerce

National Information Infrastructure: What role for government?

Required:

Werbach, Kevin, "Digital Tornado: The Internet and Telecommunications Policy", Federal Communications Commission, Office of Plans and Policy, Working Paper Series No. 29, March 1977
National Research Council, Realizing the Information Future. Read Chapter 6. (Note: There are several sections in this chapter; follow the links.)
"Re-engineering Through Information Technology"
"The Information Infrastructure: Reaching Society's Goals"
NII Progress Report, Sept 1994
U.S. Information Infrastructure Task Force Web Server

Further Starting Points:

Business Week, "The Information Revolution: From Internet to Infobahn", 1994 Special Bonus Issue, pp. 32, 36.
Vinton Cerf, Computer Networking: "Global Infrastructure for the 21st Century", May 1995.
Computer Research Association, "Computing Research: Driving Information Technology and the Information Industry Forward".
Jonathan Blake and Lee Tiedrich NII overview article

Characteristics of Information Networks -- Overview

Required:

Jonathan Blake and Lee Tiedrich, "The National Information Infrastructure Initiative and the Emergence of the Electronic Superhighway", Federal Communications Law Journal, vol. 46, no. 3 (June 1994). Already dated review of three 1994 legislative initiatives, but contains a useful overview industry alliances and multi-jurisdiction regulatory problems. Read Sections I.A,B,C; III.C,D,E
Andrew Barrett, FCC Commissioner, "Shifting Foundations: The Regulation of Telecommunications in an Era of Change", Federal Communications Law Journal, vol. 46, no. 1 (December, 1993). Introduction to multimedia convergence in the marketplace, and the multi-jurisdiction regulatory problems.

Further Starting Points:

Nicholas Economides, "The Economics of Networks", Working Paper, Stern School of Business, NYU, November 1994. Also on reserve.
Liebowitz, S. J. and S. E. Margolis, "Network Externality: An Uncommon Tragedy," Journal of Economic Perspectives
Nicholas Economides and Charles Himmelberg, "Network Externalities and Critical Mass", Working Paper, Stern School of Business, NYU, 1994
Economides, N. and C. Himmelberg, "Critical Mass and Network Size with Application to the US Fax Market"
Luis M. B. Cabral and Antonio P. N. Leite, "Network Consumption Externalities: The Case of Portugese Telex Service", in The Economics of Information Networks, C. Antonelli, ed. (Elsevier, 1992)
Church, J. and N. Gandal, "Network Effects, Software Provision, and Standardization," The Journal of Industrial Economics, XL (1992), pp. 85-103.
Arthur, W. Brian, "Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-in by Historical Events," The Economic Journal 99 (1989), pp. 116-131.
Arthur, W. Brian, "Positive Feedbacks in the Economy," Scientific American, Feb. 1990, pp. 92-99.
Katz, M. and C. Shapiro, "Technology Adoption in the Presence of Network Externalities", Journal of Political Economy 94 (1986), pp. 822-841.
Gilbert, R. "Symposium on Compatibility: Incentives and Market Structure," The Journal of Industrial Economics" XL (1992), pp. 1--8.

Technologies

Starting Points:

Business Week, "The Information Revolution: Enabling Technologies", 1994 Special Bonus Issue, pp. 52-78.
Business Week, "Wonder Chips: How They'll Make Computing Power Ultrafast and Ultracheap", 4 July 1994, pp. 86--92.
Web ProForum, "Voice over Packet Tutorial"
Corning, Inc., "How Fiber Works"
Intel, Technology Briefing: Moore's Law
George Gilder, "The Coming of the Fibersphere", Forbes ASAP, 7 December 1993
George Gilder, "The New Rule of the Wireless", Forbes ASAP, 29 March 1993
George Gilder, "The Bandwidth Tidal Wave", Forbes ASAP, 5 December 1994
Horn, Robert J., Technical critique of "infinite" bandwidth (note: I have not had a technically qualified person check the details in this analysis)
Series on optical networking

Wilson, Carol, "Optical Networking 101", Inter@ctive Week, 8 June 1998.
Wilson, Carol, "Optical Networking Today", Inter@ctive Week, 8 June 1998.
Wilson, Carol, "Optical Networking Tomorrow", Inter@ctive Week, 8 June 1998.
Wilson, Carol, "Catch The Metro Line", Inter@ctive Week, 8 June 1998.
Dawson, Fred, "Optical Networking in the Future," Inter@ctive Week, 8 June 1998.
Dawson, Fred, "MEMs the Word," Inter@ctive Week, 8 June 1998.

Blake, Pat, "Wireless data is once again riding the crest of popularity, this time on the tidal wave of the world's largest information hub: the Internet," Telephony, 19 August 1996. A survey of various wireless access technologies for the Internet and their competitive prospects.
Arthur Ross, "CDMA Topics"
Qualcomm, Inc., "CDMA -- How does it work?" and "CDMA -- Features and Benefits"
Cable News Network, Inc., Sultry screen star was also brilliant inventor, 9 March 1997 (Actress Hedy Lamarr invented and patented spread spectrum radio transmission)
Snyder, Beth, "A question mark for copper", Telephony, 19 August 1996. A survey of ADSL technologies and their prospects for increasing data capacity on copper twisted pair.
Dunn, Ashley, "Quantum Computing I - IV", New York Times -- CyberTimes, 14 Aug - 4 Sept 1996.

"The Demise of Moore's Law Signals the End of the Digital Frontier", 14 Aug 1996. (Backup file here.)
"A Logical Operator that Defies all Logic", 21 Aug 1996. (Backup file here.)
"Planck, Qubits, and Squeamish Ossifrage", 28 Aug 1996. (Backup file here.)
"Ion Traps and Taurus-Littrow", 4 Sept 1996. (Backup file here.)

A geodesic network?

Required:

Peter Huber, The Geodesic Network: The 1987 Report on Competition in the Telephone Industry, chapter 1
Peter Huber, Michael Kellogg, John Thorne, The Geodesic Network II: The 1993 Report on Competition in the Telephone Industry, chapter 1

Further Starting Points:

Lynch, Karen, "T95 Focus: Wireless Local Loop", Telecom95 Daily Online News, 22 Sept 1995
David Kline, "Cable vs. Telco: Who's Zooming Whom?" HotWired, July 1995
Brock Meeks, "High Court to Decide Telco Cable Ban", Inter@ctive Week, 10 July 1995
John Clendenin, CEO, BellSouth Corporation, "Clear the Path to Competition, Clear the Path for Everyone", Remarks to the NARUC Annual Convention, Reno, Nevada, 14 November 1994
William Baumol and J. Gregory Sidak, Toward Competition in Local Telephony, chapter 1
Lewis, T. and D. Sappington, "Access Pricing and Industry Architecture," Technical Report, Department of Economics, University of Florida, September 1995.
Eli Noam, "A Theory for the Instability of Public Telecommunications Systems", in The Economics of Information Networks, C. Antonelli, ed. (Elsevier, 1992)

Interconnection

Required:

David Gabel and David Weiman, "Historical Perspectives on Interconnection Between Competing Local Exchange Companies", Yale University working paper
U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, Electronic Enterprises: Looking to the Future , June 1994, pp. 64-70 ("Option A"). Copy with figures on reserve
Padmanabhan Srinagesh, "Internet Cost Structures and Interconnection Agreements", in Toward a Competitive Telecommunication Industry: Selected Papers from the 1994 Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, G. W. Brock, ed. (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1995). Also forthcoming online at The Journal of Electronic Publishing

Further starting points:

Brock, G. "The Economics of Interconnection", Teleport Communications Group, April 1995.
Simnett, Spacek and Srinagesh, "An Economic Analysis of the Claimed Applicability of the Bill and Keep Interconnection Arrangement to Local Telecommunications Competition," 1995, Comment on Brock's "The Economics of Interconnection"
Koichiro Hayashi, "From Network Externalities to Interconnection", in The Economics of Information Networks, C. Antonelli, ed., (Elsevier, 1992)
Economides, N. and G. Woroch, "Benefits and Pitfalls of Network Interconnection", 1992.

Standards & Innovation

Required:

Articles from Kahin et al. book
Evagora, Andreas, "Standards: New World Order", Telecom '95 Daily Online News, 25 September 1995
Besen and Farrell, JEP 1994

Appropriate and Inappropriate Network Use

Further Resources:

"IW Friday Nabs Spammer", Internet World Friday

Service Architecture Issues

Required:

S. Shenker, D. Clark, and L. Zhang, "Services or Infrastructure: Why We Need a Network Service Model,"
Scott Shenker, "Fundamental Design Issues for the Future Internet", forthcoming, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 1995. Also on reserve.
National Research Council, Realizing the Information Future. Read Chapter 2. (Note: There are several sections in this chapter; follow the links.)
com-priv thread on open settop interfaces

Further Starting Points:

Hypermail archive on video dial tone
Clifton Lee, "Video Dial Tone Service", Class project for EE 4984 at Virgina Tech, 1995
Cross-Industry Working Team (XIWT), "An Architectural Framework for the NII"

"Competition in Open vs. Closed Systems"

Software patents
Year 2000
Who owns personal information?
Children's TV
Cable TV pricing and competition

Return to:

Jeff MacKie-Mason / University of Michigan / <jmm@umich.edu>