Fair share? Was that a euphenism? IANAMP (Movie Producer), but I'm willing to bet that fairness never shows its face when the pie that is a movie budget gets carved up. :)

-Matt

I'm going to assume the "government" being referred to above is the US Goverment.

The advent of drug laws as we know them was with the Temperance movement. Another good read is here. Rather than being written toward alcohol prohibition like the Temperance article, this is oriented toward Marijuana Prohibition. The second link is (IMO, anyway) very conservatively written for someone who's simply trying to find out the history of it.

To save the lazy out there some considerable reading, yes drugs were converted to a criminal issue with little good reason or due dilligence on behalf of the legislators. By comparison, Alcohol Prohibition made all kinds of sense...and we all can see that Alcohol Prohibition (which was the 18th Amendment, btw!) was repealed from law wholesale. What should that mean about Marijuana Prohibition?

-Matt

I hate to use the same link twice in the same thread, but please read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law

The effects may have become somewhat varied (to be euphemistic) in the last 400 years, but the source of copyright, in essence, is the protection and encouragement of authors.

-Matt

I'll be darned if I can recall the source now, but copyright was just as much in effect in the days of kings and scribes as it is today.

Wikipedia has it back to 1662.

-Matt

Numbers please.

I can say on the opposite side of your point that Apple has announced blockbuster year after blockbuster year of increasing growth at the iTunes Music Store and now are the largest music seller in the land.

At the same time, they haven't started shutting down the music sections at Best Buy or Walmart.

I can't say your facts are incorrect, but the trends don't point that way generally.

-Matt

P.S. If the elimination of piracy is your goal, you're setting yourself up for failure. It goes with business. Apple has the correct perspective - you must simply outcompete the pirates.

Are you saying that copyright law is another form of PIRACY???

If so, I think I may be inclined to agree.

-Matt

I'd say in the example of drug companies that's simply the cost of doing business. No amount of propaganda or lobbying for copyright legislation (domestic or foreign) is going to give one control over behavior of inDUHviduals in another country. (That's not the way successful legislation works...it is the way fascism works, but that's a different story.)

(BTW, who is Billy Tauzin???? Funny (as in "funny smelling", not as in "funny, ha ha") that he was on the radar of both industries we're talking about here.)

Look at it from another point of view: If what you're doing is "so revolutionary" then how is someone in Brazil knocking off your product in short order? Perhaps it wasn't so revolutinary after all? "Revolutionary"....perhaps that word doesn't mean what you think it means? (revolutionary != we spent a ton of money on it)

I think time to be realistic for drug and music companies: No matter how much you spend/waste on the drugs/artists you're developing, they won't necessarily be profitable or even worth it. Ditto for all the money you spend/waste promoting those drugs/artists.

U.S drug companies and commercial radio are both currently a laughing stock.

I'm going out on a limb here, but perhaps the drug companies should focus more on cures and less on treatments than they do today?

To me, they're ultimately hung up on Gilette's business model. Buy the razor (aka pester your doctor for the perscription) and they sell you new blades for life (aka you get some relief from your symptom, but e.g. your eyes will bleed the whole time). Likewise, music companies perhaps should focus less on what they think we should like/listen to (Clear Channel is an abomination in the truest sense of the word, and only the tip of the industry's iceberg) and more on what we actually like and listen to?

I'd also argue that drug companies make way too much money (yes, it's possible). If that weren't true, they wouldn't have as many problems selling their drugs. (Let's all recall our supply and demand graphs from econ 101....lower prices = more people can afford your product = higher demand) They -- like the music industry -- create their own problems, then do their best to blame others for the results (i.e. lobby the government for special treatment).

On another front....

Print publishing is a more interesting example to me. If they stay with print media (books, paper) they don't have the piracy issue (not really) but as the world moves more and more to digital and print publishing tries to follow, they suffer more and more of the related problems....such as piracy. Thoughts? Personally I still like to pick up a book when I want to read -- it's a very, very good medium -- but I'm going to be called old-fashioned for that before too much longer.

-Matt

Actually the problem you run into before you get to the population is the people who make those movies. Obviously they have the money to do it, regardless if they make money.

Further, thanks to modern Hollywood, putting butts in seats is far far from the only way these a**hats make money.

To quote the authority, Yoghurt: "Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs-the T-shirt, Spaceballs-the Coloring Book, Spaceballs-the Lunch box, Spaceballs-the Breakfast Cereal, Spaceballs-the Flame Thrower.

[turns it on]"

-Matt

The US cell market is a complete wasteland as far as competition in handsets. It all revolves around what the knuckleheads at Verizon (,etc, ad nauseum) think you want and how they think you want to see it.....for the low low price of a 2 year contract.

That is the essence of why Nokia doesn't sell (many) phones here - it's the vendors. Customers have no real say in the matter...not really...and the range of Nokia phones typically offered is terrible. (Unless you're of the rarified minority who a) is aware of and b) can consider paying $x00 for an unlocked "mostly functional" Nxx[x], of course. Heh.)

To wit:

AT&T's offering: Nokia Surge, 6350, Mural

Verizon: 7705, 7205, 6205, 2605, 2705

Sprint: none at all

That is an utterly unremarkable (not to say flip phones are bad) lineup of Nokia phones. No E-series or N-series even showing....c'mon.

-Matt

We've had Microsoft/Wintel hegemony for pushing 20 years now. (I was first denied purchase of a PC without Windows in 1991. OS/2 rulez!) Apple runs their own OS on the Intel side now for crying aloud.

That many Mac owners also have Windows should be surprising to no one....it's called "survival", and this far into the story I don't see how it's news. Many long-time Mac people have Windows around just to cope. Many, many frustrated Windows users simply keep their old systems around after making the switch. Duh. :-)

On another front, just to answer all the followups about what's cheaper: Apple's are cheaper that (e.g.) Dell's if you're comparing like systems. Dell offers lesser systems for less (junk IMO), and they even offer greater systems for even more (worth it only to a tiny segment of people). It is not accurate, nor has it been for years now, to say that Apple's are more expensive than Dell's.

-Matt

Sounds like you're talking only about cell service then? The only sanctioned monopoly there is on RF spectrum. Not really what we're talking about all the way around though.

It is one of the few markets they "compete" in. Even that's a bizarre form of competition designed around lock-in though.

Captain Obvious:

Both incorrect in substance as well as rating - it's not insightful. (Though no offense intended!)

While it's a near-certainty at this point that the world would be a better place without Verizon, they are a (sanctioned) monopoly in most markets where they operate. Also, many non-monopolies are operating well outside the "do what the customer wants, or else" version of Capitalism. They do more or less what they want, within the comfy dictates of the FCC.

This is why the poster has a problem with Verizon offering this "flavor" of IPv6.

Your argument would hold water (e.g.) if this were the old days of IPv4 Internet and you or I were complaining about getting a "full connection" from our local mom and pop ISP. In that scenario one could (in most towns) walk up the street and get the better connection you were looking for from another mom and pop.

(No concidence that in those days the likes of Verizon - or what would become them - was fully regulated, were much, much smaller. There was no room for the "Verizon flavor" of the Internet.)

-Matt

If this were true, would we need a news article telling us about it? Noo.

-Matt