IT@RIETI

This series will no longer be updated.

IT@RIETI is now completed. It compiled RIETI fellows' research products related to ICT (information, communication and telecommunications) policy issues such as digital TV, spectrum and intellectual property policy are featured. IT@RIETI aimed to analyze the impact of ICT from a variety of perspectives including infrastructure, service and economic models. We also discussed these issues with policy-makers such as METI, MPHPT, the IT Strategic Headquarters of the Prime Minister's office and IT-related industries.

Hot News

  • August 19, 2002

    A Publicly-released letter to Dr. Kamil Idris, Director General, WIPO [PDF:177KB]

    In recent years there has been an explosion of open and collaborative projects to create public goods. These projects are extremely important, and they raise profound questions regarding appropriate intellectual property policies. They also provide evidence that one can achieve a high level of innovation in some areas of the modern economy without intellectual property protection, and indeed excessive, unbalanced, or poorly designed intellectual property protections may be counter-productive. We ask that the World Intellectual Property Organization convene a meeting in calendar year 2004 to examine these new open collaborative development models, and to discuss their relevance for public policy. (See Appendix following signatures for examples of open collaborative projects to create public goods).

  • August 19, 2002

    "An 'Intellectual Property Strategy' Which Fences in Information is Unsuitable for the Internet Age" (by IKEDA Nobuo (RIETI))

    It may be because Japan is often criticized for not having a proper strategy, that recently created government organizations are often named "Strategic Council on X." One such example is the "Strategic Council on Intellectual Property," which announced on June 20 the "Program for Promoting the Creation, Protection and Exploitation of Intellectual Properties (tentative title)" [PDF:196KB] (as published on the "Prime Minister and His Cabinet" Web site, Japanese only.) Its content, however, does not show the Japanese government's strategy, but is merely a follow-up of the U.S. government's pro-patent strategy.

  • June 11, 2002

    "Reclaim the Public Domain" (by Lauren Gelman (Stanford Univ.))

    Lessig Blog (June 3.2003):
    "reclaiming the public domain"

    We have launched a petition to build support for the Public Domain Enhancement Act. That act would require American copyright holders to pay $1 fifty years after a work was published. If they pay the $1, the copyright continues. If they don't, the work passes into the public domain. Historical estimates would suggest 98% of works would pass into the pubilc domain after 50 years. The Act would do a great deal to reclaim a public domain.

    This proposal has received a great deal of support. It is now facing some important lobbyists' opposition. We need a public way to begin to demonstrate who the lobbyists don't speak for. This is the first step.

    If you are an ally in at least this cause, please sign the petition. Please blog it, please email it, please spam it, please buy billboards about it? please do whatever you can. And most importantly, please help us explain its importance. There is a chance to do something significant here. But it will take a clearer, simpler voice than mine.

  • June 11, 2002

    Pop-culture Policy Projct (PPP), directed by NAKAMURA Ichiya, has launched.

    "Summary of the Pop-culture Policy Project" (NAKAMURA, Ichiya)

    Japan is a country of pop culture. A history enriched by pop culture formed this country. Its comic and games media take a world-leading role, and its advanced mobile equipment and toy robots represents the new production industry of the country. A saturation of vending machines, love hotels, and flyers for dirty businesses thicken the surrounding atmosphere.The power of supply in arts and services is founded on the demands from a varied and critical audience of users.

    However, such aspects are not seen to be flourishing either in the financial field or in international politics. The nineties is not the "lost decade." What we have lost is a hundred years. In the process of digesting modern civilization, we have taken up the industrial economy as our only axe. If we lose our confidence in it, we have nothing else to rely on. Or, we may find that the nineties were the first decade in which Japanese pop culture started penetrating throughout the world, if we look back in a hundred years time.

    Although the Net bubble has burst, the digital revolution is still going on. The "analog millennium" of has come to an end, and the "digital millennium" has begun. Everyone is creating information, broadcasting it, sharing it, and communicating with each other. In such an era, how should Japan utilize its potential and develop its own way? Planning this is our aim.

Special Events

  • April 21, 2003

    RIETI Policy Symposium "Copyrights in Internet age"

    • Keynote speech by Richard M. Stallman (GNU Project)
    • Sppech Text
  • December 13, 2002

    RIETI Special BBL "Open Spectrum"

    • Speaker: Lawrence Lessig (Professor, Stanford Law School)
    • Speaker: Robert Berger (Visiting Fellow, GLOCOM, International University of Japan)
    • Speaker: MURAI Jun (Professor, Keio University)
    • Moderator: Nobuo Ikeda (Senior Fellow, RIETI)
    • Discussion Summary
  • October 25, 2002

    RIETI Special BBL "Intellectual Property Rights of Software and Open Source"

    • Speaker: Bradford L. Smith (Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Microsoft)
    • Speaker: Lawrence Lessig (Professor, Stanford Law School)
    • Moderator: IKEDA Nobuo (Senior Fellow, RIETI)
    • Discussion Summary
  • 2001.10.19

    RIETI Policy Symposium "System Design in the Age of Broadband"

BBL Seminars

  • May 28, 2003

    "Lessons for Japan from the U.S. Growth Resurgence"

    • Speaker: Dale W. Jorgenson (Professor, Department of Economics, Harvard University)
    • Moderator: MOTOHASHI Kazuyuki (RIETI Senior Fellow / Associate Professor, Institute of Innovation Research, Hitotsubashi University)
  • Semptember 10, 2002

    "UK: From e.government to e.transformation"

    • Speaker:Andrew Pinder (e-Envoy, Office of e-Envoy, British Government)
    • Moderator: MOTOHASHI Kazuyuki (RIETI Senior Fellow / Associate Professor, Institute of Innovation Research, Hitotsubashi University)
    • [Handout (PDF:122KB)]
  • June 27, 2002

    "Are the Tools the Rules?: The Future of the Digital Commons"

    • Speaker: Dewayne Hendricks (FCC Technical Advisory Committee)
    • Moderator: IKEDA Nobuo (Senior Fellow, RIETI)
    • [Handout (PDF:507KB)]
  • May 24, 2002

    "E-democracy? What Can We Learn from the US Case?"

    • Speaker: Steven L. Clift (Online Strategist and Speaker, Democracies Online)
  • June 4, 2002

    "A Technologist View of Washington DC and the FCC"

    • Speaker: David Farber (Professor, University of Pennsylvania)
    • Moderator: IKEDA Nobuo (Senior Fellow, RIETI)
  • January 15, 2002

    "The Information Technology Industries and the U.S. Economy"

    • Speaker: Dale Jorgenson (Professor, Harvard University)
    • Commentator: NEZU Rizaburo (Director, RIETI)

Columns

These titles are at the time of release.

Opinion

Reports

Papers

  • "Firm level analysis of information network use and productivity in Japan"

  • "Japan's Patent System and Business Innovation: Reassessing Pro-patent Policies"

  • "Economic Growth of Japan and the United States in the Information Age"

    • Dale W. Jorgenson, Professor, Harvard University and MOTOHASHI Kazuyuki, Senior Fellow, RIETI
    • [PDF:236KB]
  • RIETI Discussion Paper Series 02-E-002

    "The Spectrum as Commons" (Revised)

  • RIETI Discussion Paper Series 03-E-009

    "Property Rights and the New Institutional Arrangement for Product Innovation in Silicon Valley"

  • On PSART 2003, Denver Colorado.

    "Spectrum Buyouts"

  • GLOCOM Platform 2002

    "Is IPv6 Necessary?"

    • IKEDA Nobuo, Senior Fellow, RIETI and YAMADA Hajime, Glocom
    • (HTML)
  • "Beyond the Internet Telecomvisions, 2001."

    • IKEDA Nobuo, Senior Fellow, RIETI
    • (HTML)
  • On Berkeley-Hitotsubashi Conference on The Coming of the Information-Intensive Century, 1999.

    "Architectural Changes in the Information and Communication Industries"

  • On MITI International Conference, 1998.

    "The Open-Source Software as a Mechanism to Allocate Attention"