Free market solutions to today's technology issues

Today’s New York Times has an article about Google asking artist to give up their intellectual property in exchange for ‘exposure’ on their site.  Many artists have bristled at the idea of having a very profitable company use their intellectual property for free.

The New York Times quotes one artist in their article:

“I have done gift cards for Target that are in stores nationwide and animations for Nickelodeon that run 24 hours a day worldwide on cable TV,” Melinda Beck, an illustrator who is based in Brooklyn, wrote in an e-mail message to Google rejecting its offer. “Both of these jobs were high-profile and gave my work great exposure but both clients still paid me.”

Other in the article feel that Google - of all companies - should pay them for their work:

“You’d think that if anyone can afford to pay artists and designers it would be a company that is making millions of dollars,” Mr. Ciardiello said in an interview.

ATL believes that IP rights are an essential foundation to the success of the technology industry. In addition, IP laws will continue to impact how we watch TV, listen to music, share information and communicate. Simply put, the system of IP rights established in the coming years will have a profound effect on the way we will live far into the future.

Today’s Wall Street Journal reports:  “The Internet search giant recently began crunching data from employee reviews and promotion and pay histories in a mathematical formula Google says can identify which of its 20,000 employees are most likely to quit.”

Google is an innovative company that is continually finding new information to collect and ways to use that information.  As Google continues to collect and use this unprecedented amount of information on its users, ATL believes there should be more transparency about what information is collected and how that information will be used.

We applaud Facebook for listening to consumers by reversing their previous decision to change their terms of service and for their moves to bring more openness to their terms of service. As we pointed out in a statement last week, in today’s technology environment, companies have a responsibility to their consumers to be transparent about their business practices, the personal information that will be retained and for what purpose it will be used. Companies should be open about their terms of service and about their privacy policies. Facebook could have avoided the entire issue if they had simply been more transparent when changing their policies.