For what many think were largely idiosyncratic reasons, VHS won out over Betamax, despite there being little inherent advantage of one over the other. As a result, VHS technology kept on advancing, while Betamax did not. But imagine that society later discovered that VHS, but not Betamax, produced a big negative externality. This is essentially the story of energy technology: fossil fuels have benefited from decades of innovation
dependencies that last for years. The commonly referred to instance of network effects is VHS vs. Betamax. In this case, a competition existed in the 1980s between two different video platforms that were looking to dominate the home video market. The technologically inferior VHS eventually grabbed enough of the market to give it the edge in the competition, which netted them the entire home video market. Betamax eventually
The Napster web site made file swapping over the Internet available via the software necessary for the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file transfer to work. P2P is software that when downloaded onto someone 's computer, enables that person to access another person 's computer to find and copy certain files that the software is designed to recognize. It was used primarily for copying MP3 files, as a result avoiding the need to actually purchase music on CD or some other format. The popularity of Napster happened
Amazon is consistently ranked as the premier E-commerce business, an achievement that stems from their use of the Web to conduct and facilitate the sale of products online. Amazon’s mission of “Earth’s most customer-centric company”, is reflected through its core competencies of revolutionizing and streamlining the vending business, by becoming the most effective and high-quality producer of online services. Innovation through advanced technology and a great customer experience, are the main core
Transaction costs accrue when one firm has greater power than another, which could give rise to the threat of opportunism (market hold-up costs). This can originate from one of several ways. Analysing TCE for Qualcomm-NXP: 1. Relation specific investments: Compatibility of products is great underlying market driver in this industry. Firms manufacture products that follow their own standard (protocols) of communication and configuration
The Legal Issue with Napster and the Music Industry The issues that will be slugged out in federal district court in San Francisco sound a little too pop culture to be all that serious. How many music CDs are people buying these days in record stores throughout the nation because of Napster? Is the technology that Napster uses legal? Napster is, of course, the wildly popular file-sharing service whose 20 million users have downloaded some half a billion songs--most copyrighted for free.
Marketing online, the article mentions the past on-going competition with JVC’s VHS. The article goes into further detail to explain why Betamax failed to the VHS. The big issue, “JVC designed VHS technology to license to any manufacturer that was interested, which included all major motion picture companies at the time. Sony was the only manufacturer of Betamax for 10 years and did not provide licensing to other companies,” states Patrick from Team B Marketing. Sony has in the past had a very strong
Universal City Studios (Universal), composed of several copyright holders, sued Sony Corporation of America (Sony) for contributory copyright infringement for its dissemination of their Betamax video tape record (Betamax), which allowed users to record programs to view later, at the time they are televised, a practice known as time shifting. The purpose of this technology is at the center of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ultimate decision that contributory infringement cannot be imposed on Sony for the
guilty of copyright infringement. The preceding was a discretionary appeal from the district court to the United States Supreme Court. They sought money damages, profits, and an injunction against the manufacturing and marketing of Betamax VTR’s. Facts: Sony created Betamax VTR’s which let people record and re-watch shows on their televisions. Universal City Studios, Inc. and Walt Disney Productions hold copyrights on various programs and claimed that Sony’s sale of their products was violating the
Sony Corporation of America et al. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., et al. Petitioner: Sony Corp. Respondent: Universal City Studios, Inc. KEY TERMS: Fair Use: Have valid reasons for infringe another’s copyright under certain situations that are legal without permission from the copyright owner. It must be determined that the use is only for non-commercial or nonprofit purposes by considering “the nature of the copyrighted work”, “the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation