Reindeer Link Sausages

Thanks to remora duty and other TMI, this will be a minimalist sausage plate, not even qualifying as a platter — even though it's rather chewy and filling.

• Yet another lament about the "end" of music, and musical history... which, reading not far between the lines, appears to be based on the idea that "music" is limited to "the stuff that Serious People listen to at leisure." The contrast with the changing nature of "popular" music success is both amusing and frightening.
• NPR comments (again) on e-books... but there's the usual hole in the story: The effect on the production cycle. It's sort of ironic that I've recently been rereading an underappreciated speculative fiction series that takes joy in paper, because at least paper doesn't keep track of what I'm reading (although now that I think about it, Idomeni paper certainly could).
• Here's an interesting jurisprudence issue regarding the so-called "agency model" (which is actually a "resale price maintenance agreement") for e-books. After the Supreme Court's ill-considered opinion in Leegin Leather Products, it is no longer a per se violation of federal antitrust law for a manufacturer to require a retailer to maintain a minimum price level. (It may still be a violation of federal antitrust law... but that must be judged under the so-called "rule of reason," which basically means that the lawyers win.) But what about state antitrust law? And, in particular, what if the purchaser is in Maryland (which formally prohibits all minimum-price agreements), the manufacturer is in New York (which may, or may not, do so), and the retailer is incorporated in Delaware (no prohibition) and headquartered in Washington state (no prohibition)? Do we then have a "dormant Commerce Clause" problem that prevents Maryland from enforcing its statute, in favor of its own consumers, against the out-of-state Big Brazilian River? Might this be a good question for an exam in either Antitrust or Federal Courts? Are these questions too rhetorical for early mornings?

  Meanwhile, the European Commission has just issued new guidelines on horizontal cooperation in marketplaces that will bear some scrutiny regarding "standardized" terms...

• According to a certain madman living in Edinburgh, the 'net is made out of meat; more specifically, bacon.