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"My phone rings, and a friend is there. He has a point, and idea really, that explains much about the current legal landscape in tech. You need to know about it.\u00A0Enter the excellent\u00A0Michael Celiceo\u00A0[@mceliceo].\u00A0What follows is a slurry of his ideas, my synthesis, and a decent slug of\u00A0vitriol.\r\n\r\nThat in mind, we can cut\u00A0this for you into a single idea: Don't innovate, litigate (or legislate)! Now, ready for the long version? Let's get into it.\r\n\r\n\r\n\u00A0The Situation\r\n\r\nYou are a company that has been in business for some time. You make money. You are built on a certain market reality. But things have changed. Some company that\u00A0doesn't know the territories\u00A0is all up in your business. What the heck are you going to do?\r\n\r\nThat's the good version, really. It gets worse. Imagine that you are not losing to a company at all, but are instead dying due to an\u00A0ideal. Such as the free information movement that fuels the Pirate Bay, among other groups. It's anathema for those who have built a career and have\u00A0built profitable businesses\u00A0on doing things in a single, certain way.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u00A0The solution?\r\n\r\nLitigate! We mean it. That seems to be way for a certain class of companies to move forward. Think Viacom v. YouTube, or anything involving Grooveshark. It all boils down to the maxim that we are working on: If you cannot innovate, litigate.\r\n\r\nThere is some pushback, however. Firms such as Twitter are fighting back, by\u00A0promoting\u00A0defensive IP, and other such ideas, but they are the minority. In Michael's words:\r\n\r\n\r\nIt's often more profitable to litigate or legislate instead of innovate.\u00A0And this the case that the Movie and Recording Industries [MPAA, etc]\u00A0has undertaken on behalf of its members.\u00A0The market has shifted, so what are they to do?\u00A0Instead of innovating, and finding new ways to\u00A0build new markets and businesses,\u00A0what they do is what all companies might do when threatened: lawyer up and fight the wrong battle\u00A0in an attempt to\u00A0maintain\u00A0the status quo.\r\n\r\nThen again, so what? Well, this is a regressionary path to short-term highs. Litigation along these lines is a\u00A0\u201Crecreational drug\u201D\u00A0method of\u00A0salvation; short, expensive, and unfulfilling. It won't work past the next few quarters. Just look at the graphs. Lawyers are not a long-term business plan.\r\n\r\nSo here's the big gist: suing or retaining fleets of lobbyists in an attempt to litigate or legislate your way out of the problem is not a long-term strategy.\u00A0\u00A0It\u2019s best used by established companies to buy time to build out new markets and businesses, not a strategy to keep dying businesses alive during significant market changes.\u00A0The point is that you can now better find a death spiral amongst the news; when you see this, you can now know what is up. You are welcome."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/04/20/losing-market-share-litigate-dont-innovate/>