overview

issues

sell-offs

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related
Guides:

Networks &
the GII

Publishing

Privacy




related
Profiles:

Directories

Engines

Search
behaviour

Aust & NZ
Numbering

     issues

This note considers questions about the future of 'colour pages' publishing, the status of directories as intellectual property, competition policy and the chillingly aggressive stance of some trademark owners.

It covers -

• introduction - making sense of the directories business
• futures - print, search and premium service
• directories as IP - questions about Feist, DtMS and copyright in directories in Australia, the US and elsewhere
• competition policy - one colour pages directory or many in the era of telco competition
• overreaching? - genericide and debate about use or misuse of trade mark protection in characterisation of directories

     introduction

As the preceding page indicated, the colour pages directory business poses challenges for publishers, whether those publishers are dominant telephone service providers or private equity groups seeking to flip an investment.

They also pose challenges for regulators, consumers and other entities concerned with access to information, competition policy and the shape of intellectual property protection in an era in which machines may engage in much of the 'sweat of the brow' that some regimes encourage through copyright law.

Challenges include whether -

• telcos should spin off or sell their directory operations (eg for a quick injection of capital) or instead retain those cash cows
• returns forecast by private equity owners, which as noted in the following page of this note have aggressively accumulated directory publishers, will be realised as consumers shift their search from print to the web
• major directory publishers are unduly exploiting market advantages and should accordingly be forced to unbundle their colour pages operations
• some publishers, in response to perceived threats regarding trade mark genericide, are overreaching through 'cease & desist' letters to websites that merely refer to a particular directory and would not be reasonably confused with that product.

   next page (sell-offs)