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Distribution revolution
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On Rear Vision this week we look at the recent history of the digital distribution revolution. Over the last hundred years of media history, content has become cheaper to produce and distribute.
Content used to be king for the analogue media conglomerates. Now in courts and in the marketplace they’re fighting off challenges from new digital distribution companies.
Broadcast: Sun 24 Aug 2014, 12:05pm
Professor Susan Crawford
Visiting professor in Intellectual property at Harvard University. Author of The Captive Audience: The telecom Industry and monopoly power in the new gilded age. Yale University Press
Associate Professor Jennifer Holt
Associate Professor ,film and television studies at the University of California , Santa Barbara . co-author Distribution Revolution University of California press.
media commentator , Reuters Business
Frank Rose
Writer and speaker on digital culture and correspondent for Wired Magazine
Associate Professor Matthew Rimmer
Associate professor at the ANU College of Law Canberra
Stan Correy: This week on Rear Vision, media mergers and the digital distribution revolution.
Journalist [archival]: Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox confirming it made an offer to buy Time Warner…
Journalist [archival]: Time Warner has officially rejected an $80 billion formal offer that they received last month from 21st Century Fox…
Journalist [archival]: A proposal to unite two of the world's most powerful media conglomerates set Time Warner's stock surging and the business world buzzing…
Man [archival]: Can there be synergies in a Fox…who are they buying, Time Warner? I can't remember the names, my head is spinning so much…
Journalist [archival]: A merger would create a media colossus…
Stan Correy: Hello, this is Rear Vision on RN and via the web, I'm Stan Correy.
Soon, if media conglomerates keep merging, there might only be one big media entertainment corporation controlling content and distribution in the United States. And that possible future will in turn affect how Australians use the internet, what film and television programs they can access online and how much they pay.
Audiences in the US and Australia have plenty of choice, say the big media companies, there's online video and subscription or pay television. And the media companies also say there's plenty of legitimate competition from new digital giants like Apple, Amazon and Netflix.
But in reality, if consumers don't pay the high prices demanded by the media companies, they are treated as pirates. It's a political nightmare.
Chris Uhlmann [archival]: This is the internet age. I don't know enormous amounts about it but I can't imagine it costs any more to do it.
Malcolm Turnbull [archival]: No, but Chris, look, anyone is entitled, people are entitled to sell their products for whatever price they like. That's their right. My only…and I'm not suggesting that the government should be setting prices here, but I'm just saying that if you want to discourage piracy, the best thing you can do, and the music industry is a very good example of this, the way they've responded, the best thing you can do is to make your content available globally, universally and affordably.
Stan Correy: Digital distribution is causing havoc in the courts, the marketplace and in government. Multibillion dollar mergers excite the market, but audiences are increasingly captive to a system that looks more like the US railway industry of the late 19th century, dominated by very powerful railway barons. That's the view of Harvard law professor and former technology adviser to President Obama, Susan Crawford.
Susan Crawford: The media conglomerates in America have a pretty good thing in the consolidation of the distribution networks so far because it's a system that's perfectly engineered to raise revenues for both sides. Online video at the moment is not affecting the popularity of the media conglomerates' very shiny bundles of programming and they are able to force those bundles through a guaranteed distribution chain and pass those costs along to consumers. It's all been working out quite well so far. The problem is that the distribution networks can shape that marketplace now because they've become so powerful.
Stan Correy: Digital technology just makes it so easy to find, copy and transmit information.
The Distribution Revolution is the title of a new book to be published next month in the United States. One of the authors is Associate Professor Jennifer Holt from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Jennifer Holt: These legacy companies that are built primarily on content, they have been trying to adapt their distribution networks but I don't think they quite have the formula figured out. So we are at this pivotal moment when we've been there before and there's this long history of is content king or is distribution king? And the way these original empires of entertainment were built was to combine content and distribution. They didn't have to make those choices. It's the same way that the old studios consolidated their power; they bought up all the theatres so that everybody had to go and see what they were producing, you didn't really have a choice. They expanded that model with the new media conglomerates that were built in the '80s and '90s, and now there is a moment where they are trying to determine what the most efficient, effective, and important avenues of distribution are and how to control them.
[Music: Game of Thrones theme]
Stan Correy: Every day there are more and more stories of consumers who want to use digital technology in creative ways and the media conglomerates who want to stop them. The media companies' historical preference is called windowing, literally dividing up the content and presenting it in an array of digital windows to get top dollar.
Rupert Murdoch's on again/off again bid to take over Time Warner wasn't about providing more consumer choice but getting control of distribution networks and sports rights. And 21st Century Fox isn't the only company bidding for Time Warner, the giant telco Comcast owns the distribution pipelines as well as content and it has a merger proposal on the table and it's causing concern in Washington DC.
Journalist [archival]: At the first public hearing of the proposed $45 billion merger between Comcast and Time Warner cable, lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee voiced concern about higher prices for consumers and too much power over what Americans watch on TV and online.
Charles Grassley [archival]: Consumers want to know whether a combined Comcast-Time Warner will be in a better position to expand high-speed internet access. Will consumers have higher cable bills? Will they have more or less content choices?
Stan Correy: The companies that provide our news and entertainment are getting bigger every day. But Rupert Murdoch still describes his company as a swift-footed new economy entrepreneur.
Rupert Murdoch [archival]: 21st Century Fox is an amazing company and our future has never been brighter. While we remain opportunistic and nimble, we are strategically a complete company and have a clear sense of where we are going.
Jack Shafer: It's always difficult to predict technological change but what we've seen over the last 100 years of media is that media has become increasingly cheaper to produce and increasingly cheaper to distribute and increasingly easier for new entrants to come in and create what's being created already.
Stan Correy: Jack Shafer, media analyst for Reuters Business.
Jack Shafer: There have been a couple of cases where that has not been true. There hasn't been a new genuine successful motion picture studio created. Steven Spielberg and his partners tried to create the Dreamworks studio to have their own independent production and distribution business, and they were unable to really knock that door down. But that was probably like trying to enter the newspaper business as the newspaper business is beginning its slide. I think it is a truism that everything becomes faster, everything becomes less expensive, and this is a real threat to the companies that are deeply invested in old technology and very expensive technology.
Stan Correy: For over 30 years, journalist Frank Rose has been following how digital technology has changed the media. He thinks that most of the people running media business today are products of the couch potato era of television. The natural laws of consumption that media conglomerates often talk about are products of another age.
From his office in New York, Frank Rose:
Frank Rose: The industrial age mindset of mass media is really no accident, it's just how things evolved, starting actually in the mid 19th century with high-speed steam-powered printing presses that made it possible to produce very large numbers of newspapers and railroads and other distribution mechanisms that enabled you to get them to people pretty quickly. And from there it just evolved, from movies and radio and television, all of which worked on what's essentially a broadcasting model, that is mainly from one to many. And it was a very efficient way of distributing information but really at the cost of turning information into a product rather than a service, and treating everyone the same, creating huge masses of people or at least imagining huge masses of people. And digital is fundamentally different, it does not encourage you to look at people as masses, it encourages you to look at individuals.
Stan Correy: As Frank Rose explained, wars between old media and new technologies aren't new. In the 1930s, the new broadcast medium of radio challenged the old mass media of newspapers. In the US, it was called the press/radio war. In Australia the battle lasted throughout the 1930s and into the 1940s and it was between the ABC and the newspapers led by Sir Keith Murdoch.
Here's a reading from a report from ABC archives describing a meeting between the Newspaper Association and ABC management over the right of the ABC to collect its own news.
Reading: I would particularly invite your attention to the last page of Mr Holtz's letter with its display of power, its claim to monopoly and its threat of action against the Commission if the latter dared to exercise its right to collect its services independently of the Combine. The last page is of a piece with a remark by Sir Keith in course of a conversation with Mr Moses that the 'Commission's proper function is to entertain people, and not to encroach on the newspapers' sphere' and that 'if you people think you are going to usurp the functions of a newspaper you will get your wings clipped'.
Excerpt from War of the Worlds:
Orson Wells: On this particular evening, October 30, the Crosley service estimated that 32 million people were listening in on radios.
Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News. At twenty minutes before eight, central time, Professor Farrell of the Mount Jennings Observatory, Chicago, Illinois, reports observing several explosions of incandescent gas, occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars…
Stan Correy: In the US press/radio war of the 1930s, it wasn't Martians the newspapers feared but radio, and they used the panic caused by Orson Welles' radio drama to warn of the dangers of the new broadcast technology.
Frank Rose: The example of newspapers versus radio in the '30s is certainly historically apt. And if you recall in 1938 Orson Welles did this famous or infamous radio broadcast of War of the Worlds, the HG Wells novel about invaders from Mars, and he did this as a radio program, and people tuning in in the middle of it thought that Martians were actually invading and there were scenes of mass panic all across the US. It was unbelievable.
And part of it, part of the reason this was played up so much in the news media was because newspapers viewed radio as an interloper and as a dangerous new technology, so therefore they were eager to give play to a story like this one. Today what we're seeing is certainly a case of new technology threatening and ultimately I think it's going to trump older technologies, but the fundamental difference is that until now in the 20th century…whatever the technology, whether it was movies or print or radio or television they were mass media, they operated on a one-to-many broadcast model, and that's just not the case anymore. What digital technology does is that it breaks that up completely, and it means that distributors of news and entertainment have to fundamentally rethink how they're going to interact with the public.
Stan Correy: You're with Rear Vision on RN and via the web. I'm Stan Correy, and today we're looking at the recent history of the digital distribution revolution and how it's causing havoc in the courts, the marketplace and in government.
The new digital technology hasn't yet trumped the old way of doing business in the US. Hollywood entertainment companies like Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox are worried about audiences stealing their content by using new digital technologies. But they are even more concerned about other media distribution companies like Comcast.
Susan Crawford is now Professor of Law at Harvard University, and Rear Vision spoke to her via Skype.
Susan Crawford: So at this point if Comcast is permitted to merge with the number two cable distributor, Time Warner cable, that combination will pass 70% of American households. So Hollywood is quite worried actually. In order to reach the people who love their content, they're going to have to figure out how to get through the door of a single gatekeeper who controls access to most American households. And the only thing that beats scale is scale. So on the programming side we're going to see even more consolidation than we have already experienced. There are only about six media conglomerates in the United States that serve up 90% of programming, and now we're going to see fewer, they are going to consolidate.
Stan Correy: It's common to hear of old entertainment empires fading as the new digital based companies take control. That's not exactly what's happening, says Jennifer Holt.
Jennifer Holt: Well, I see that they are under siege in some ways and not in others. These companies, as they were amassing during the late '80s and '90s, were bringing together various strands of media, film and broadcast television and cable television, and now they're all trying to adapt to an entirely new delivery method for all of these media forms. So in some ways they are under siege in the sense that they are subject to the kind of tyranny of data-driven production that is going on right now, which is all very much oriented around what various digital platforms are able to glean from their users and their viewers and how much emphasis is being put on those various elements of data and translating that into our entertainment. So big data has really started to take on a very prominent role in our entertainment universe in ways that we are both aware of and often unaware of. And also the growing contingency of very tech-savvy audiences have them on their toes because now audiences are able to find content in a host of ways—illegal and legal—which don't necessarily funnel into the conglomerate coffers.
Stan Correy: Tech-savvy audiences all around the world are adept at an annoying media companies. In recent weeks, the Times and the Sun newspapers, owned by News Corp, have been warning British football fans not to replay premier league goals using the social media technology Vine. Here's how Channel 4 in Britain reported the story:
Journalist [archival]: See it, tweet it, repeat it. But fans who share unofficial videos of goals on the internet might be breaking the law, and the premier league has vowed to clamp down.
Journalist [archival]: Fans can basically self-published their own instant replays online. So if I'm watching a game and I see a particularly good goal or a good save, all I have to do is this; I wait for the instant replay and I use an app called Vine. Once I hit the screen, Vine starts recording. It records six seconds of gameplay, and once I'm done I can publish it instantly to Twitter.
Stan Correy: That report about the social media video technology Vine by Channel 4's technology writer, Geoff White. And it's a classic illustration of what digital expert Frank Rose calls the clueless attitude of many content providers to what's happening in the digital universe. The audience may not own the content, but in the digital world their behaviour counts more than it did in the old mass media days.
Frank Rose: The first moment really was the introduction of the remote control which happened back in the '70s, and until then you had to literally get up and walk across the room to change your TV channel, and that really started to revolutionise the way people watched TV. And then of course Sony introduced the video cassette recorder, Sony and Philips both. And then of course you had eventually digital video recorders which did the same thing without bothering with a cassette. And now you have high speed internet and the emergence of companies like Netflix that distribute programming over the internet, and that just leads to more and more audience control.
Now the audience not only doesn't have to watch a TV show when it's aired, they don't even have to subscribe to the cable package that distributes the TV show in many cases. So I think that's a fundamental development. But a big problem I think that the media companies have is that they are generally sort of clueless when it comes to new technologies and they kind of simultaneously rush to embrace them before they really understand them and resist their implications.
Stan Correy: And the media companies resist via copyright law. And very punitive copyright law. Here's James Murdoch, currently co-chief operating officer of 21st Century Fox, speaking in 2010:
James Murdoch [archival]: You need governments to play ball. These are property rights. These are basic property rights. There is no difference from going into a store and stealing a packet of Pringles or a handbag and stealing something online, right? And the idea that there is this new consumer class that somehow are thieves but we call them consumers, and we say we have to be customer friendly when they're stealing stuff, is lunacy, right? This is the basic condition for investment and economic growth, is some level of sanctity around property rights, whether it's my house or a movie I've made, okay? And there's no difference, and I think it's crazy, frankly, if people say, 'Oh, it's different, these kids, you know, these crazy kids…' No, punish them.
Stan Correy: Murdoch might be annoyed and surprised at the views of one of Hollywood's new power brokers. Ted Sarandos is the chief content officer for streaming video giant Netflix and a Fox competitor in the video streaming business. He told the authors of the book Distribution Revolution that a lot of anti-piracy efforts are just sport. For every technological solution to piracy, a counter-technology emerges.
Here's Sarandos speaking last year:
Ted Sarandos [archival]: There is a problem when I mentioned piracy on movies around the world, but television is also driving a tonne of that piracy now and, again, not because people are becoming increasingly dishonest, I don't believe that, I think it's because the internet is this enormous global unfragmented platform. In every other form of distribution besides the internet there's a physical need for distribution to be fragmented, you know, the satellite signal only covers half the Earth at the same time, wires have to be run, prints have to be delivered. But on the internet there's no reason that you can't push play anywhere in the world and watch the same thing and watch whatever you want, whenever you want. And everyone is using this a marketing platform.
Frank Rose: I call piracy market failure because it fundamentally happens…I mean, there are certainly exceptions, but most of it happens when people can't get what they want legitimately.
Stan Correy: Frank Rose covers the digital business world for Wired magazine. He says most media companies invariably blame consumers. To admit fault would mean that their media business is based on industrial era economic models that no longer work.
Frank Rose: There have been a number of studies that have shown this, studies all over the world, and they show that when people are able to get something, when they are able to buy something or rent it, you know, some media property, they will do so. When it's not available they will turn to other means of distribution, which is to say piracy. So if media companies give the market what it wants, piracy goes down. If they don't, piracy goes up. It's pretty much as simple as that.
Stan Correy: Over the past decade in the US and in Australia there have been quite vicious legal and media campaigns where traditional content providers have challenged consumer use of digital technology. There are winners and losers on both sides. In Australia at the moment there's an intense lobbying campaign by Rupert Murdoch's Foxtel and the movie distributors to change federal copyright laws in their favour.
Associate Professor of Law Matthew Rimmer is a copyright expert from the ANU. Like Frank Rose in the US, he thinks copyright owners are using out-dated business models to fight their campaigns.
Matthew Rimmer: It's entirely true that copyright owners have been given a range of rights through successive reforms but often have not been very good at innovating to make their works widely and flexibly accessible to consumers. So there is a great deal of frustration that copyright owners have been very much focused upon protecting and defending old business models, rather than innovating with new business models, and as a result they have lost a lot of the opportunities.
So Steve Jobs with Apple saw a real opportunity with the battles breaking out between Napster and the music industry for a legitimate player to come in and provide access to digital files at a relatively fair price. And as a result, Apple was able to kind of insert itself into the relationship between the music industry and creators and consumers, and really now has something of a chokehold in terms of that relationship.
Similarly Amazon.com has shown a great deal of innovation in terms of building up its publishing empire and offers a great marketplace in the net. Really publishers had the opportunity to do that themselves but they missed that opportunity. And in relation to Netflix you can see that Netflix is satisfying a very definite consumer demand in the United States for access to a wide range of copyright content on a subscription basis, and that seems to be much more attractive than the very expensive packages that are being offered by some of the pay television providers like Foxtel. So there's a real tension there in terms of whether or not copyright owners are best off spending their money trying to defend their old business models and chasing after pirates, or whether they should be engaging in research and development to be ensure that they are not left behind by the next wave of disruptive technologies.
Stan Correy: Matthew Rimmer.
You would expect Susan Crawford to have strong opinions on the copyright issue and how it's affecting consumers in accessing the internet. Crawford is now Visiting Professor in Intellectual Property at Harvard University. She thinks the copyright wars may be distracting people from the bigger problem; the concentration of corporate control of the internet.
Susan Crawford: The whole industry is so concentrated that they've been able to make a deal. Right now Hollywood is not that worried about piracy online because they're cooperating with the distribution networks on something called the six strikes scheme that allows the content industry to complain about piracy and people who are pirating long-form intellectual property to the distribution networks and have those people or subscribers removed from the network if they're pirates. So in fact these guys are frenemies in a sense, that Hollywood and the distribution networks are in cahoots working together and are able now to defeat piracy in a way that would have been more difficult if there was greater competition in the distribution network side.
Stan Correy: Some people looking at digital distribution say that this is breaking down old models, but your book was called Captive Audience. Some people say the power is moving to the audience, but in a sense that's not your opinion, is it?
Susan Crawford: Well, the audience only gets to get online if they have a wire going into their home. This is just what some people call a natural monopoly, it's quite expensive to build two sets of wires to homes and nobody is stepping up to claim this market from the cable operators here in the United States. So they pretty much reign without constraint from either competition or oversight in this country. And so only so much a user can do if their distributor has complete power over their connection.
Stan Correy: So the power is with the distributors rather than…digital is not giving audiences power, only if they are connected do they have that power to, I suppose…via decisions about programs and things like that.
Susan Crawford: That's right. So the first step is getting online and for that first step we have a very few actors in the United States who have enormous market power.
Stan Correy: Professor Susan Crawford from Harvard Law School. My other guests: Associate Professor Jennifer Holt from film and television studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Jack Shafer, media commentator with Reuters Business; Frank Rose, digital business correspondent with Wired magazine; and Matthew Rimmer from the ANU College of Law.
Today's sound engineer is Simon Branthwaite. I'm Stan Correy, thanks for listening.
Presenter Stan Correy
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The Wildlife Protection and Hunting Law
In document The bear as barometer: the Japanese response to human bear conflict (Page 83-86)
6.2 The legislative framework for wildlife management
6.2.1 The Wildlife Protection and Hunting Law
As noted, one of the key laws regulating wildlife management is the Wildlife Protection and Hunting Law, which was revised from the Hunting Law in 1963. The law’s stated purposes are ‘to protect birds and mammals, to increase populations of birds and mammals, and to control pests through the implementation of wildlife protection projects and hunting controls’.4 As its original name suggests, the law’s initial purpose was the regulation of hunting, and this continues to be its predominant function. The law gives the Ministry of the Environment the authority to designate game species, of which there are about 50. Game animals include Hokkaidō brown bears, Asiatic black bears, wild boar (Sus leucomystax), deer (Cervus nippon nippon); foxes (Vulpes vulpes), hares (Lepus brachyurus), squirrels (Tamias sibiricus), badgers (Procyon lotor), raccoon dogs (Nyctereutes procyonoides), and minks (Mustela vison).5 All other wild animals are designated as protected species under the law. The law also designates areas in which hunting is prohibited, regulates hunting periods, harvest rates, and hunting methods. One key characteristic of the legislation is that it designates non-hunting zones, as opposed to hunting zones: thus, in Japan hunting is permitted in any area which is not specifically designated as a non-hunting zone.
There are two key issues regarding the function of this law in protecting animals. Firstly, while it is illegal to hunt all non-game species under the law, this does not mean that these animals are comprehensively protected. Inadequate monitoring means that poaching is relatively common in relation to species such as the bear, and that poachers are rarely apprehended. Secondly, and more
importantly, though protected from hunting, these species are not protected from the threat of habitat destruction, and it will be this, rather than over-hunting, which will lead most endangered species further towards extinction. Thirdly, some species are designated as games species despite the fact that they are either endangered or extinct over a substantial part of their range. The Asiatic black bear is a case in point. The Asiatic black bear has five isolated populations extending over the west of Japan which are designated as either extinct or endangered according to the Ministry of Environment’s own criteria (see Figure 9 for distribution map), but under the law the bear is designated as a game species. In prefectures where it is either designated as endangered or thought to be extinct, prefectural regulations prohibit or limit hunting. However, if the bear is thought to present a risk to human safety or to be responsible for pestilence, it may be culled (control-killed) as a pest.
Beyond its designation of wildlife as non-game species, the Wildlife Protection and Hunting Law provides for some additional, if limited, protection for wildlife. The law gives the Minister of the Environment or the relevant prefectural governor the authority to designate areas as ‘wildlife protection zones’ (chōjū hogoku ), in which game hunting of wildlife is prohibited. (Note that the control-killing of wildlife considered to be pests is still permitted in these areas.) As of 2003, there were 56 nationally designated wildlife protection zones and 3,796 prefecturally designated zones. Wildlife in these zones is protected from hunting, but not from habitat loss or degradation: land-reclamation, forestry and other forms of economic activity are still permitted.
Additional protection against habitat destruction is provided by ‘special protection zones’ (tokubetsu hogochiku ), which may be designated within these ‘wildlife protection zones’. In these zones, all construction, land-development, reclamation projects, cutting of forest, mining and other industrial activities require the prior consent of the Minister or prefectural governor. However, the Minister or prefectural governor can only withhold his or her consent where the action(s) in question ‘will bring about serious harm to wildlife or to wildlife habitat’ (though it is not clear by whom, and by what criteria, this is judged). In all other cases, the Minister or prefectural governor is obliged to give his or her consent. Because the ‘special protection zones’ involve comparably stringent restrictions on the use of land, land-owners and users tend to oppose any applications for their designation. Consequently, as of 1999, only about 23 per cent of nationally designated wildlife protection zones had been designated as special protection zones, while only six per cent of prefecturally designated wildlife protection zones had been designated as special protection zones.6
An understanding of the historical development of Wildlife Protection and Hunting Law is useful in order to understand the nature of the law today, as much of its history is still reflected in the current law. The Wildlife Protection and Hunting Law has its origins in the hunting controls which were
established to protect the hunting grounds used by the feudal lords in medieval Japan. In 1873, the first hunting regulations were enacted, primarily to control the use of guns. These regulations included an annual firearms licensing system, and set down hunting seasons and the areas in which hunting could take place, but made no restrictions on what species could be hunted. However, as the populations of some species became increasingly depleted, there was a transition to the idea of ‘conserving’ species which had until then been regarded solely as ‘game’. In 1892, 14 bird species and one animal became protected animals by imperial edict. The number of protected animals was subsequently increased to 22 in 1901, and 60 in 1910.7
Despite the increased legal protection for wildlife, the populations of many species continued their decline. This was as a consequence of habitat destruction (primarily the reclamation of wetlands and the cutting of natural forest); an increase in hunter numbers; and technological developments in traps, guns and other hunting equipment. In 1918, a fundamental change was made to the Hunting Law: specific species were designated as game species—a departure from the previous system, whereby all species had been regarded as ‘game’ unless designated otherwise. The revised law also introduced a mechanism for prohibiting or limiting the hunting of game animals as necessary. In 1950, in another important change, the authority to limit or prohibit the hunting of specific wildlife, previously limited to the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, was revised to include prefectural governors.8
However, the downward slide in wildlife populations continued, and in 1963 there was another major revision of the Hunting Law. In this revision, greater emphasis was placed on wildlife protection, reflected also in a change of name: to the Wildlife Protection and Hunting Law. In 1971, responsibility for wildlife conservation was passed from the Forestry Agency (within the then Ministry of the Agriculture and Forestry) to the newly established Environment Agency.9 This development was not as positive for wildlife protection as it may appear, as the Environment Agency had very little power within government—especially in comparison to the ministries whose responsibilities lay in the utilisation of natural resources for development, such as the then Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Ministry of Construction, and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. Nevertheless, concomitant with the Environment Agency taking over responsibility for nature conservation, there was inherently less internal conflict of interest concerning core areas of jurisdiction than was previously the case with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Nevertheless, a prime area of conflict continues to be that between utilisation and conservation of forest lands: the economic interest of what is now the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries lies in utilising and generating maximum profit from forested lands, which is at odds with the conservation function of national parks.
The prima facie strengthening of these wildlife protection mechanisms proved little match for the ‘development’ of wildlife habitat which was occurring at a rapid pace over this period. 10 The clearing of indigenous forest; extensive afforestation with coniferous species; dam and road construction; reclamation of wetlands and bays; the building of resorts, golf courses and other facilities all threatened important habitats for wildlife. The Resort Law, enacted in 1987, only compounded the problem of disappearing wildlife habitat: McCormack (1996) states for example that during the late 1980s and early 1990s, 26.7 per cent of Kyūshū’s inland area was incorporated into plans for 135 resorts, including 100 golf courses.11 Similarly, ski fields sprang up in many previously undeveloped mountain areas.
Ironically, this rapid loss in wildlife habitat was to lead to a policy shift from wildlife ‘conservation’ to ‘management’—in other words, the control of certain ‘problematic’ wildlife species (gaijū ) through culling. As habitat decreased or became more fragmented, the incidence of agricultural and forestry pestilence and human injury caused by wildlife such as bears, serow, deer, and monkeys (Macaca fuscata) increased exponentially from the 1980s. This led to calls to weaken the restrictions on hunting and reduce the populations of wildlife causing these problems. At the same time, researchers and academics urged the government to move from what was viewed as an archaic hunting system to a system of wildlife management based on scientific knowledge. Finally, the Environmental Agency capitulated, and the Wildlife Protection and Hunting Law was again revised. The revision included the introduction of The Specific Wildlife Planning System in 1999 (detailed below), which allowed for the regulation of populations of wildlife species causing pestilence, and the devolution of authority for regulating hunting and wildlife management to prefectural governments.12
This leads to the question of the role of natural parks, which encompass important areas of wildlife habitat, in the wildlife conservation function. This aspect will be examined in the next section.
The global distribution of bear symbolism and significance
The cultural significance of the Asiatic black bear in Japan
The effect of forestry on the environment and rural society
Physical characteristics, diet and life-cycle of Ursus thibetanus (japonicus)
Hunting, culling and poaching
Human-bear conflict in Japan
The Wildlife Protection and Hunting Law (You are here)
The development of the National Park system
The Law for the Conservation of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
Wildlife management in practice—the fissure between legislation and reality
The role of non-governmental organisations and research organisations
Public awareness, perceptions and discourse on human-bear conflict
Media coverage of the bear problem
The symbolism of discourse on human-bear conflict
Bears and humans in pre-historic Japan
The development of the Japanese geomentality and the sacralisation of mountains
Beliefs about bears in upland folklore
The bear’s place in matagi culture
Bears in ‘lowland’ culture: the araguma
Bears and humans in pre-history
The bears of Nametoko: sessh ō , fate, and the bear as moral exemplar
Distribution and population status
Bear management in Iwate Prefecture
Bear management at the municipal level
Animal welfare issues relating to bears


The End of the Chávez Era?
On December 8, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez announced that his cancer has returned. Unlike past announcements, this time around Chávez publicly acknowledged that his odds of survival may not be great. Chávez took the astonishing, and quite unprecedented, step of naming a successor, foreign secretary Nicolas Maduro.
What happens when someone larger-than-life dies? On December 8, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez announced that his cancer has returned. Unlike past announcements, this time around Chávez publicly acknowledged that his odds of survival may not be great. Chávez took the astonishing, and quite unprecedented, step of naming a successor, foreign secretary Nicolas Maduro. This amounts to Chávez’s first admission—at least in public—that Venezuela’s future may not include him.
Photo Credit: AP
This prospect has been lurking in the shadows since Chávez’s 2011 announcement that he had cancer. But until now, Chávez had refused to give such thoughts any credence. The nature of Chávez’s illness remains a secret. Apart from Chávez, his doctors, and a few close advisors, it is unlikely that anyone knows the full severity of Chávez’s cancer. Chávez has suggested that he may not make it through his current term, which ends January 9. The exact timing of the end remains a mystery, but one that may be resolved within weeks or months rather than years. But it is clear that Chávez’s days as president are numbered.
Does this mean that the Chávez era is, or will soon be, over?
The answer to this question hinges, in part, on the question of who Venezuela’s next president will be. In the likely event that Chávez dies or leaves office before the fourth year of his new six-year term, a presidential election would be held within 30 days. Given their chronic inability to defeat Chávez, Venezuela’s opposition understandably relishes the chance to face off against another opponent. Chávez has made his opinion of who this should be crystal clear. “If something were to happen that would incapacitate me,” Chávez told supporters, “My firm opinion, as clear as the full moon—irrevocable, absolute, total—is that you elect Nicolas Maduro as president.”
Maduro is seen as a faithful follower of Chávez, and one of the more “radical” members of Chávez’s inner circles, making it likely that a Maduro presidency would mean the continuation of many of the policies of the Chávez years. It is likely that Chávez’s departure will lead to some infighting amongst his supporters. But the prospect that a Maduro presidency could provide greater space for internal dissent and questioning should be seen as a welcome development, given that these were often in short supply due to Chávez’s outsized personality and limited tolerance of dissent by his supporters.
For this to happen Maduro would have to prevail against the opposition in a new election. The prospect of a new presidential election—this time without Chávez—heightens the significance of Venezuela’s gubernatorial election scheduled for December 16. Henrique Capriles, the man Chávez defeated in October, is running for re-election as governor of Miranda state. Capriles lost Miranda in the October 7 presidential election, but by less than 7,000 votes (less than 0.5%). He is running neck-and-neck with Elías Jaua, who until recently served as vice president under Chávez, and who is seen as a strong candidate. If Capriles wins on Sunday, he would likely retain his position as the leader of Venezuela’s opposition. If he loses it will probably set off an ugly scramble amongst those seeking to be the new opposition standard bearer.
Maduro would clearly benefit from this second scenario. But if Capriles wins re-election and retains his place as the (relatively unquestioned) leader of Venezuela’s opposition the situation would be quite distinct. While Capriles lost to Chávez by 11%, the 6.5 million votes he won were the most that the opposition has ever obtained and far more than what Chávez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) won in the 2010 legislative election. Maduro’s chances of victory against Capriles are far from certain. A poll conducted in April showed that Maduro’s support—as a potential presidential candidate—was just 12.69% compared to 46.13% for Capriles. Chávez’s backing of Maduro is likely to change this, potentially quite significantly. It is also likely that Maduro would receive a boost from the profound emotional outpouring that Chávez’s death would trigger amongst his supporters. Whether this would allow Maduro to defeat Capriles is not, however, clear.
It is hardly surprising that most of the commentary regarding what a post-Chávez Venezuela might look like has focused on the question of presidential politics. But it is a grave mistake to think that the future of Venezuela depends solely on the identity of its president. To do so is to dismiss the profound significance of the social and political changes that Venezuela has experienced over the past 14 years. Contrary to mainstream media portrayals, the reason Chávez has remained popular over the years—and why he won an unprecedented fourth re-election in October with 55% of the vote—is not because he is a demagogue. Chávez’s popularity stems from the material and symbolic benefits his administration has provided ordinary Venezuelans year after year.
The material benefits provided to Venezuelans since Chávez came to power are significant. Since Chavez came to power Venezuela’s poverty was cut in half, and millions have benefited from government-provided healthcare, education, and subsidized food. Millions more have benefited from government housing, and various other forms of economic and social assistance. There is little doubt that Nicolas Maduro would continue Venezuela’s famous social missions. And it is significant that Capriles promised to continue these programs if elected president. Venezuela’s missions provide benefits that are an important legacy of the Chávez era that will not end the moment that Chávez ceases to be president.
The reason for this has less to do with the goodwill of Venezuela’s political leaders (including Chávez himself). Instead it is related to the second achievement of the Chávez era, which is arguably of much greater significance than the material benefits just discussed: the emergence of a mass movement of people who are deeply committed to radical social, economic, and political change. The Venezuelan state has played a key role in fostering this movement. And it is closely tied to Chávez’s party, the PSUV. But fortunately Venezuela’s popular movement transcends the limits of partisan politics and state power.
This is clearest when looking at the thousands of social organizations that have been created during the Chávez era. In addition to health councils, mother’s clubs, and urban land committees, the most important of these are the thousands of communal councils created since 2005. Despite government (and opposition) attempts to use these councils for overtly political ends, many councils include both Chavistas and non-Chavistas and operate with a high degree of autonomy vis-à-vis political leaders. This autonomy has been crucial to the success of some of the most impressive institutional experiments of the Chávez era, such as participatory budgeting. As my research shows, these experiments have often succeeded despite (rather than because of) the efforts of Chavista political officials. This belies the image of a movement that is dependent upon one man. And it underscores a point of fundamental importance. No matter who is president, the popular movement that has emerged during the Chávez era will remain.
Gabriel Hetland is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on participatory budgeting in Venezuela, Bolivia, and the United States.


Robert Durst, real estate tycoon convicted of murder, dies
by: ANDREW DALTON and BRIAN MELLEY, Associated Press
Posted: Jan 10, 2022 / 12:55 PM CST
Updated: Jan 10, 2022 / 05:53 PM CST
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Robert Durst, the wealthy New York real estate heir and failed fugitive dogged for decades with suspicion in the disappearance and deaths of those around him before he was convicted last year of killing his best friend, has died. He was 78.
Durst died of natural causes Monday in a hospital outside the California prison where he was serving a life sentence, according to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Durst had been held in a hospital lockup in Stockton due to a litany of ailments.
Durst was convicted in September of shooting Susan Berman at point-blank range at her Los Angeles home in 2000. He was sentenced Oct. 14 to life in prison without parole.
Durst had long been suspected of killing his wife, Kathie, who went missing in New York 1982 and was declared legally dead decades later.
But only after Los Angeles prosecutors proved he silenced Berman to prevent her from telling police she helped cover up Kathie’s killing was Durst indicted by a New York grand jury in November for second-degree murder in his wife’s death.
Westchester County prosecutors, who had been trying to get Durst transferred there to face the charge, said they planned to reveal new details about the case in coming days.
“After 40 years spent seeking justice for her death, I know how upsetting this news must be for Kathleen Durst’s family,” District Attorney Miriam Rocah said in a statement. “We had hoped to allow them the opportunity to see Mr. Durst finally face charges for Kathleen’s murder because we know that all families never stop wanting closure, justice and accountability.”
Los Angeles prosecutors told jurors Durst also got away with murder in Texas after shooting a man who discovered his identity when he was hiding out in Galveston in 2001. Durst was acquitted of murder in that case in 2003, after testifying he shot the man as they struggled for a gun.
Deputy District Attorney John Lewin said Los Angeles jurors told him after the verdict that they believed Durst had killed his wife and murdered Morris Black in Texas.
Durst’s undoing was in large part due to his hubris.
After beating the charge in Texas, in a bid to rehabilitate his image, he reached out to filmmakers who had portrayed his life — not favorably — in the 2010 big screen feature, “All Good Things,” starring Ryan Gosling as Durst. He offered to sit down for a series of lengthy interviews about his life.
It was a decision he told jurors he deeply regretted.
Durst, who later said he was using methamphetamine during the interviews, made several damning statements including a stunning confession during an unguarded moment in the six-part HBO documentary series “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.”
The show made his name known to a new generation and brought renewed scrutiny and suspicion from authorities.
The night before the final episode aired, Durst was arrested in Berman’s killing while hiding out under an alias in a New Orleans hotel, where he was caught with a gun, more than $40,000 cash and a head-to-shoulders latex mask for a presumed getaway.
The finale’s climax came with him mumbling to himself in a bathroom while still wearing hot mic saying: “You’re caught! What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”
The quotes were later revealed to have been manipulated for dramatic effect but the production — done against the advice of Durst’s lawyers and friends — dredged up new evidence including an envelope that connected him to the scene of Berman’s killing as well as incriminating statements he made.
Police had received a note directing them to Berman’s home with only the word “CADAVER” written in block letters.
In interviews given between 2010 and 2015, Durst told the makers of the “The Jinx” that he didn’t write the note, but whoever did had killed her.
“You’re writing a note to the police that only the killer could have written,” Durst said.
His defense lawyers conceded in the run-up to trial that Durst had written the note, and prosecutors said it amounted to a confession.
Clips from “The Jinx,” and “All Good Things” had starring roles at trial.
As did Durst himself. He took the risk of again taking the stand for what turned out to be about three weeks of testimony. It didn’t work as it had in Texas.
Under devastating cross-examination by prosecutor Lewin, Durst admitted he lied under oath in the past and would do it again to dodge trouble.
“‘Did you kill Susan Berman?’ is strictly a hypothetical,” Durst said from the stand. “I did not kill Susan Berman. But if I had, I would lie about it.”
The jury promptly returned a guilty verdict.
It long appeared he would avoid any convictions.
Durst went on the run in late 2000 after New York authorities reopened an investigation into his wife’s disappearance, renting a modest apartment in Galveston and disguising himself as a mute woman.
In 2001, the body parts of a neighbor, Black, began washing up in Galveston Bay.
Arrested in the killing, Durst jumped bail. He was caught shoplifting a sandwich six weeks later in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he had gone to college. Police found $37,000 cash and two handguns in his car.
He later quipped that he was “the worst fugitive the world has ever met.”
He would testify that Black had pulled a gun on him and died when the weapon went off during a struggle.
He told jurors in detail how he bought tools and downed a bottle of Jack Daniels before dismembering Black’s body and tossing it out to sea. While he was cleared of murder, he pleaded guilty to violating his bail, and to evidence tampering for the dismemberment. He served three years in prison.
Durst had bladder cancer and his health deteriorated during the Berman trial. He was escorted into court in a wheelchair wearing prison attire each day because his attorneys said he was unable to change into a suit. But the judge declined further delays after a 14-month pause during the coronavirus pandemic.
At his sentencing, Durst entered the courtroom with a wide-eyed vacant stare. Attorney Dick DeGuerin said he was “very, very sick” — the worst he looked in the 20 years he spent representing him.
Near the end of the hearing after Berman’s loved ones told the judge that her death upended their lives, Durst coughed hard and appeared to struggle to breathe. His chest heaved and he pulled his mask down below his mouth to gulp for air.
He was hospitalized two days later with COVID-19 and DeGuerin said he was on a ventilator. But Durst apparently recovered and was transferred to state prison where mug shots showed no sign of a ventilator.
The son of real estate magnate Seymour Durst, Robert Durst was born April 12, 1943, and grew up in Scarsdale, New York. He would later say that at age 7, he witnessed his mother’s death in a fall from their home.
He graduated with an economics degree in 1965 from Lehigh University, where he played lacrosse. He entered a doctoral program at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he met Berman, but dropped out and returned to New York in 1969.
He became a developer in the family business, but his father passed him over to make his younger brother, and rival, Douglas the head of the Durst Organization in 1992.
Durst broke ties with his family, reaching a settlement with a family trust. He was estimated to have a fortune of about $100 million.
Douglas Durst testified at trial that he feared his brother wanted to kill him.
“Bob lived a sad, painful and tragic life,” he said in a statement Monday. “We hope his death brings some closure to those he hurt.”
In 1971, Robert Durst met Kathie McCormack, and the two married on his 30th birthday in 1973.
In January 1982, his wife was a student in her final year at medical school when she disappeared. She had shown up unexpectedly at a friend’s dinner party in Newtown, Connecticut, then left after a call from her husband to return to their home in South Salem, New York.
Robert Durst told police he last saw her when he put her on a train to stay at their apartment in Manhattan because she had classes the next day.
Prosecutors said Berman, the daughter of a Las Vegas mobster, posed as Kathie Durst to call Albert Einstein College of Medicine the next morning to say she was sick and wouldn’t be at her hospital rotation. The call provided an alibi for Robert Durst because it made it appear his wife made it safely to Manhattan after he saw her.
He would divorce her eight years later, claiming spousal abandonment, and in 2017, at her family’s request, she was declared legally dead.
Kathie McCormack Durst’s family said they plan to provide an update on Jan. 31 — the 40th anniversary of her disappearance — into an investigation of others who helped cover up her killing, attorney Robert Abrams said.
Robert Durst is survived by his second wife Debrah Charatan, whom he married in 2000. He had no children.
Under California law, a conviction is vacated if a defendant dies while the case is under appeal, said Laurie Levenson, a law professor at Loyola Law School.
Attorney Chip Lewis said Durst had appealed.
Associated Press writer Michelle A. Monroe in Phoenix contributed.
This Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021 photo, released by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, shows Robert Durst, the eccentric New York real…
This Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021 photo, released by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, shows Robert Durst, the eccentric New York real estate, who was sentenced in October, 2021 to life in prison without chance of parole for the murder of his best friend more that two decades ago. (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation via AP)


Warning Letters: More Trouble, Less Solution!
Patent and Utility Models
By Selin Sinem Erciyas and Maral Büyükkürkçü
Sending a warning letter is not a pre-condition to enforce patent rights as per Turkish Law. However, considering it is a cost-effective and fast way to solve disputes, patent owners may choose to send warning letters to perceived infringers.
In 2014, a global pharmaceutical company filed a patent infringement action against a Gx company asking the IP Court to request and examine the related evidence; namely, the marketing authorisation dossier of the Gx drug filed before the Ministry of Health (“MoH”), and to stop and prevent the infringement if so determined. Before filing the action, the patent owner requested the Gx company to provide the relevant characteristics of the Gx product to assess patent infringement. The Gx company did not comply with the request, and the patent owner requested the IP Court to examine the MA dossiers of the Gx product and assess the possible infringement. The patent infringement action against the Gx Company was rejected after the court expert panel examined the MA dossiers and concluded that the patent was not infringed upon.
While the patent infringement action was ongoing, the patent owner sent a warning letter to the company manufacturing the potentially infringing products, i.e. another company than the Gx company, for the sole purpose of informing it of the ongoing legal action. As the act of manufacturing infringing products also constitutes patent infringement the patent owner explained the scope of protection of its patent, and why there may be a risk of patent infringement. After referring to the ongoing patent enforcement action against the Gx company, the patent owner requested the manufacturing company only “to watch out for the patent rights.” It is important to underline that the manufacturing company was not threatened, and it was not stated in the letter that there may be a court action if the patent rights are infringed upon. As well, the manufacturing company was not requested to cease manufacturing activities, nor to take any other action concerning the potentially infringing products.
Upon receipt of the warning letter, the manufacturing company contacted the Gx company and requested information proving that the patent holder’s right was infringed. However, the Gx company did not respond to the manufacturing company. T Therefore the manufacturing company suspended its manufacturing process.
After the finalization of the infringement action, in 2016, the Gx company filed an unfair competition action before the Commercial Court claiming moral and material damages against the patent owner, alleging that the manufacturing company ceased the production process due to the letter sent by the patent owner as the patent owner is also one of the customers of the manufacturing company and alleged that the patent owner implicitly caused the fact that the manufacturing company decided not to conduct business with it anymore unless the manufacturing of the Gx products ceased.
In its defence, the patent owner stated that the tone of the letter was appropriate and objective. The letter was limited to informing the manufacturing company of its patent rights, the risk of patent infringement, and the ongoing action, without any kind of threat. More importantly, the patent owner was driven by the Gx company to file a patent infringement action by the Gx company not informing it of the perceived infringing characteristics of the Gx product when requested, and the manufacturing company was driven to cease the manufacture of the Gx products by the Gx company, as no information was provided to them about the supposed infringement of the patent.
Referring to case law from the European Courts, the patent owner explained to the Court that it was not negligent in the aspects of the wording, scope of recipients, and time of delivery when sending the letter. The patent owner emphasized the case law of the Madrid Courts that even if there is a threat in the warning letter that a lawsuit may be filed against the recipients, it cannot justify actions of unfair competition when the content of the letter is accurate.
The Commercial Court examined the evidence and determined that the content of the letter reflected the facts and, as of the date of the letter, it was not known if the Gx company was infringing upon the patent or not. The Commercial Court acknowledged that the tone and wording of the letter was accurate, and the Gx company did not provide any information to the manufacturing company about non-infringement actions; thus, the manufacturing company halted manufacturing pending the outcome of the court action.
Quite surprisingly, and at conflict with these determinations, the Court evaluated that the patent owner made the manufacturing company believe that there was a patent infringement and, thus, the Gx company was acting contrary to the law, which led the manufacturing company to halt the production of the Gx products. Additionally, the Court considered that the patent owner filed a patent infringement action, although it should have known that the patent was not infringed upon. Consequently, the patent owner, in informing the manufacturing company of the ongoing action, should be deemed to have acted against the principle of integrity.
Consequently, the Court decided that the act of sending a letter to the manufacturing company constitutes unfair competition and, therefore, the Gx company’s moral damages should be compensated. The court rejected the material damage claim of the Gx company, since it had not been solidified and proven.
In our view the Commercial Court’s decision is quite problematic since it was the Gx company that did not explain to the manufacturing company why it was not infringing upon the patent and, therefore, this led the manufacturing company to believe that it might be committing an illegal act. It is erroneous to blame the patent owner with creating a pejorative environment against the Gx company by filing a patent infringement action and informing relevant third parties of this action, as the patent owner had no other choice but to file a court action to have the patent infringement risk assessed. As well, there were no grounds to argue that the patent owner “should have known” of the (non-)infringement, as the characteristics of the Gx product may only be known by the Gx company.
The decision of the Commercial Court has been appealed before the District Court by both parties, and the appeal is ongoing.
First published by Kluwer Patent Blog, in 13.05.2021
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Earl Robertson New York Americans 1939
Earl Robertson, New York Americans, New York Americans History, 1939 New York Americans, Earl Cooper Robertson, 1939, 1939 Ishockey, 1939 Ice Hockey, 1939 Hokej, 1939 Hockey, 1939 Hockey Sur Glace, 1939 EisHockey, Antique Ice Hockey, Antique Hockey, 1937 Stanley Cup Champion, Springfield Indians History, Brooklyn Americans History, Detroit Red Wings History, Hollywood Stars History, Pittsburgh Hornets History, Windsor Bulldogs History, Edmonton Eskimos History, Oakland Sheiks History, Tacoma Tigers History, Vancouver Monarchs History, Regina Falcons History
Earl Cooper "Robbie" Robertson - Born November 24, 1910 in Bengough, Saskatchewan – Died January 19, 1979 was a professional ice Hockey goaltender
Robertson started out as a goalie with the Bengough Juniors, and then the Regina Falcons in 1925-26. A couple of seasons later, he went to the West Coas of Canadat to tend goal for the Vancouver Monarchs junior club and then turned pro with the Victoria Cubs of the PCHL in 1928-29.
Robertson then joined the Tacoma Tigers of the PCHL in 1930-31. His stay with the club was short, however, as he headed south to play for the Oakland Sheiks and then the Hollywood Stars of the Cal-Pro League.
In 1932-33, Robertson returned to Canada to play goal for the Edmonton Eskimos of the Western Canada Hockey League / WCHL. There, he performed consistently with a respectable goals-against average during his two seasons with the club.
From 1934 to 1936, Robertson played for the Windsor Bulldogs of the IAHL and seemed to only get better with experience. The Detroit Red Wings took notice of the goaltender's skills and purchased his rights from the Bulldogs. The Wings' brass tucked Robertson away with their minor-league affiliate the Pittsburgh Hornets for the start of the 1936-37 campaign. He put in a solid season and was rewarded with a shot in Detroit at the start of the playoffs. It must have been quite breathtaking for the netminder to progress from the Hollywood Stars to the Wings, and then play only six playoff games with a stingy 1.41 goals-against average, and was in net the day Detroit Red Wings won their third Stanley Cup in 1937.
But in spite of his success, Roberston was traded to the New York Americans shortly after the confetti from the victory parade had been swept up. The Amerks were a club that had their bright moments, but couldn't seem to get on track to win a championship. During his four seasons with the club, the Americans' fortunes only seemed to sag with time. By 1940-41, Robertson finished the season with a 6-22-8 record.
In 1941-42, his club became known as the Brooklyn Americans, but a change in name could do little to revive Robertson's fading career. He appeared in only 12 games before heading to the minors with the Springfield Indians where he retired with a winning record, closing out his career with 26 win's, 15 losses, 3 ties and 2 shutouts in 44 games.


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The Last Waltz | Tower Theater | 11/15/19
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