In late December, George Gilder’s blog had an excerpt from his January Gilder Report: “Law Number One of the Telecosm“. to assist those who aren’t subscribers of Gilder, Forbes published all ten of Gilder’s laws.

I liked Gilder’s citation of Claude Shannon, who defined information in terms of surprise – the change from the normal state. Of course, when you stop to think about it, that is precidely the principle behind compression algorithms.

Gilder extends this to say that in networking, the carrier needs to be predictable to permit the information to be distinguished from noise.

The heart of capitalism is creativity. Creativity, as Albert Hirshmann of Princeton once wrote, always comes as a surprise to us. If it didn’t we would not need it. Socialism would work. But the upside surprises of creativity require a low entropy environment of predictable property rights, taxes and other business laws ultimately based on trust in a moral order. All these conditions are essential to an entrepreneurial economy.

An interesting article – with observations certain to provide fodder for coffee-time chats this week.

Technorati Tags:
Gilder, Forbes, Shannon

Over the weekend, the Globe and Mail carried a piece about copyright piracy and the movies. The article stimulated discussion from Michael Geist and Rob Hyndman.

I’ll leave it to you to skip to their pieces. My contribution would be to also steer you to an interesting copyright case involving chocolate. It seems that Kraft has been using its Canadian rights to the artwork on a label as a means to restrict a Quebec company that has been importing the same chocolate on its own and undercutting Kraft’s price.

Can Kraft limit the ability of a company to sell chocolate that it has legally purchased in another country and imported it to Canada? Implications for DVDs, music, TVs, watches.

It is another twist to add to the intellectual property debate. Globalization and free markets – what are reasonable limits?

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Update: [January 15, 9:15 am]
There is a report that Swedish firm The Pirate Bay is considering purchasing its own country in order to escape international copyright agreements. The owner of Sealand, a former military platform 7 miles off the coast of England, declared independence in 1967 and won a favorable court ruling that Britain could not claim sovereignty.

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Michael Geist, Rob Hyndman, Kraft

I first met Vikesh Anand at The Canadian Telecom Summit and we hit it off well. Vikesh is a relatively recent transplant to Canada, thanks to his wife getting relocated. He is an expert in mobile services in general and in Blackberry technology in particular.

Vikesh has a new blog called Toronto Techie. Welcome!

In the meantime, if you need help with getting your team up to speed in how to optimize their use of Blackberry applications, drop Vikesh a note. He is an approved education provider for the Real Estate Council of Ontario and he can tailor a training program for you.

Technorati Tags:
mobile, Vikesh Anand, Blackberry

Traffic on this blog has settled down after the flurry of iPhone mania starting on Tuesday afternoon. I had 3-4 times the normal number of visitors.

Virtually all of the hits were looking for information about upon which Canadians network and when would the iPhone be available on the north side of the border.

Perhaps not coincidentally, there has been a dramatic increase in activity on Rogers (TSX: RCI) stock, up 10% from $35 to $38.50 in the 3 days since iPhone was launched, with a noticeable spike on Thursday.

Nice to have pent-up demand.

What does iPhone do to iPod sales in the interim? What are the implications on wireless churn with number portability approaching? How many users will wait on the sidelines for the arrival of iPhone? And will Comwave, with its iPhone branded VoIP service, play any role as a spoiler in delaying Apple’s iPhone in Canada?

Technorati Tags:
Apple, Rogers, iPhone, Comwave,