Chapter 13 Copyright and Fair Use

The problem with copyright and property law? It can stifle innovation

This is from James Surowiecki, who writes the “Financial Page” for The New Yorker. This week, he writes about something called “the gridlock economy” — when there’s so much ownership of various parts of an industry that laws protecting innovation and investment actually end up stifling both. We’re seeing this happening right now in the fields of technology, science, and culture.
This cropped up last week when a musician named DJ Girl Talk continued to challenge copyright law by stringing together a huge assortment of pop songs and then charging people for the CD. He’s claiming protection under the “fair use” clause of copyright law, but some legal experts challenge that claim.

From The New Yorker: The point isn’t that private property is a bad thing, or that the state should be able to run roughshod over the rights of individual owners. Property rights (including patents) are essential to economic growth, providing incentives to innovate and invest.But property rights need to be limited to be effective. The more we divide common resources like science and culture into small, fenced-off lots, Heller shows, the more difficult we make it for people to do business and to build something new. Innovation, investment, and growth end up being stifled.Opportunities forgone aren’t always easy to see. The effects of overuse are generally unmistakable—you can’t miss the empty nets of fishing boats working overfished oceans, or the scrub that covers an overgrazed field. But the effects of underuse created by too much ownership are often invisible. They’re mainly things that don’t happen: inventions that don’t get made, useful drugs that never get to market.

Source 

Chapter 12 Knowledge Management

Starbucks Knowledge Management

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
Starbucks Success in Innovation

José Alfonso Espinosa Galnares

Jones International University

September 25th, 2010



The research and development department is an area of the company that is considered really important in companies especially in global business. In globalized businesses R&D is something that should really be considered in order to be successful in any country. Starbucks has been developing different R&D strategies in the countries in which they have settled. For example in Starbucks China they have created different strategies in order to become successful in which drinking coffee is still seen as an event and not as a necessity (Bardsley, 2010). Also they have to put emphasis in that development because Chinese population is more a tea drinking society rather than a coffee drinking population (Starbucks).

The main Starbucks R&D units are located in their principal headquarters. This office is located                               

Source    

Chapter 11 Information System

Starbucks launches 2D bar code payment system



              Starbucks Coffee Co. has launched a trial of a 2D bar code payment system for customers to pay via their iPhone or iPod touch.
             The coffee giant launched two new applications. Starbucks Card Mobile has a 2D bar code system testing in 16 retail locations in Seattle, Cupertino, CA, and Mountain View, CA. The myStarbucks application is a store locator that lets users search by amenities or get directions to the nearest retail location.

source