I don't think I've ever had a CFL that was as bright as its "equivalent".
Not at first, no... give it a minute or two and yes. but by then you are accustomed to the brightness and less sensitive to the difference.
I'd never even heard of Sparc Intl. before and worked for several years on Sun hardware..
No need to be a dick about it..
There is only one "RIAA", and only one "RIAJ".
What about the Recording Industry Association of Argentina and the Recording Industry Association of Jamaica?
When you are struggling to stay out of poverty, I'm sure it's a lot harder to decide whether or not you should return a cell phone or camera you found lying around.
Actually, I'd imagine it makes that decision much easier...
So the real question is: "Should art be treated as any other product"
And the reason you pay your plumber by the hour with no price discrimination for usage is simply that his cost for research and development is 0.
A system with no ip laws would not work in your world. Who would found research+development in for example solar panels, if your competitors could just copy your design when you were done, thus producing cheaper because they did not have as much research+development to pay for as you did.
What would happen in a modern world with no ip protection is that the cost of goods, would be much closer to their Production cost, but that research and development of new goods would be much slower.
The point though, is that we don't quantify and track the Research & Design costs, and having too long of an artificial monopoly granted stagnates adoption of new technology. To continue your example, if every new invention had a rolaty assigned to it in perpetuity, then a simple Yo-Yo would become prohibitive (Someone has to get paid the royalty for the ball-bearing concept, the string concept, the wheel concept, etc.) The result is that no matter what people invented, no-one would adopt them because the costs would continue to rise.
In an ideal world (to maximize both adoption and R&D) the costs of R&D for a given product would be nailed down to a hard number, and then the creator would be given an artificial monopoly (patent or copyright) that would last only until the creator had recuperated his costs; at that point it would become part of the public domain, so that the reduced costs will speed adoption.
To reuse your example, if it cost IBM $40million to develop a chip, they should have a patent on that chip until they have made a net $40million dollars on sales of that chip. At that point, AMD or whoever could begin making chips and you are back to your free-market competition.
The problem with this with art, is that the 'costs' are so much more subjective; If an artist finds that he has to spend 3 months meditating on top of a mountain in Peru in order to write his next big hit, is that worth more than the the prolific genius who dashes out 3 chart-toppers in a week? Assuming that the music is equally good, perhaps not...
I agree with your conclusion
Read that at first as 'I agree with your concussion
"A car is just a big purse on wheels." -- Johanna Reynolds
