Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of ...

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Now That DRM Is Dead...

Commenter Eli Dourado asks this in response to my last post on DRM.

If the fixed cost of producing a record is tending toward zero (as it is), and the marginal cost of reproducing the record is very near zero, what happens to the price of music? It seems like eventually it will have to go way way down. It may be the case that musicians will give away the digital recordings to make money on tour. Labels provide a valuable service in promoting artists (and a less valuable service in screening them), but it's hard to see how they will be able to survive in their current incarnation.

I think that the price of music won't change all that much, at least at the top end. Assuming that copyright law doesn't change the artist ultimately owns his/her own destiny.

Artists won't have to compete on price because they are essentially monopolists - distribution companies (ultimately the iTunes, Napster, Launch and similar service) will have to compete on breadth of artists and features.

I think that ultimately the Labels will play a limited role in production if at all - their role will be replaced by small firms that will assist artists with production, PR and advocate services, negotiating compensation rates with the online service providers.

The days of controlling the music industry is coming to end - and not a moment too soon.

Inequality Doesn't Matter

Brad DeLong doesn't think inequality matters.

Nor should we worry a great deal that some people are richer than others. Some people work harder, apply their intelligence more skillfully or simply have been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. But I don't see how alternative political-economic arrangements could make individuals' relative wealth closely correspond to their relative moral or other merit.

Unless it can be used for political gain.

the increase in inequality that we have seen in the past generation is predominantly a result of failures of social investment and changes in regulations and expectations. It has not been accompanied by any acceleration in the overall rate of economic growth. For the most part, it looks like these changes in economy and society have not resulted in more wealth, but only in an upward redistribution of wealth -- a successful right-wing class war.

In a world where the poor make less than $1 a day inequality is just bad luck. In the US where most poor own their home, have a car, a refrigerator and cable TV its a problem that must be fixed because it just isn't fair.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Odd Bedfellows

I don't know much about the details of the case, but the results of the vote in Cunningham v. California seem more than a little odd.

Her opinion was supported by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and by Justices Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter, John Paul Stevens and Clarence Thomas There were two dissenting opinions -- one by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, supported by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, and one by Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., joined by Kennedy and Breyer.

Scalia and Thomas agreeing with Ginsburg and Stevens with Breyer and Alito dissenting? How often does that happen - split decisions that split the liberal and conservative Justices?

Is This Ad Hominem?

Someone states a position on an a topic. The reply is this:

I find it inconsistent that you think X but find that Y is ok.

Is that an ad hominem argument?

Monday, January 22, 2007

Death of DRM Imminent

I've said previously that media companies that ditch DRM will find a goldmine at the end of the rainbow.

It is beginning to look like the Big Four may be starting to agree with me.

Most of the big players are experimenting with DRM-less distribution and the content providers: Amazon, Yahoo, and others are all providing MP3s for download.

Heck, EMI is even partnering with a company in China (the home of IP piracy of all stripes) to provide advertising supported downloads.

This is going to put Apple (and to a lesser extent Microsoft) in the lurch as they have spent huge amounts of capital propping up systems and devices that rely on DRM to lock consumers in.

I'll see this as damning evidence against the power of monopolies, though I doubt haters of capitalism will see it in quite the same way.

More thoughts on the NYT piece here.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Another Silly Question

The right gets chastised for not evaluating Iraqi and American lives one-for-one.

The way you can tell that, fundamentally, the right's Iraq hawk pundits are deeply unserious people is that you'll see things like Reuel Marc Gerecht making this argument: "I can understand--though not appreciate--Americans who don't want to see Americans dying in Iraq because they value American lives more highly than they do Iraqi ones. This sentiment, more common on the right than on the left, inevitably leads to a bigoted isolationism that allows nefarious forces to run amok." The view that American lives are more valuable than Iraqi lives is obviously false. The view that the American government should value American lives more highly than it values Iraqi lives is, I think, quite different, fairly intuitive, and certainly not something that advocates of neoconservative foreign policy deny in anything resembling a consistent manner.

Isn't that the exact same argument that the left uses on trade - American jobs are more valuable than foreign jobs?

Friday, January 19, 2007

Hello Castro Part II

Does anyone really believe that this is only going to last for 1.5 years?

The National Assembly has given initial approval to a measure that would let President Hugo Chavez enact laws by decree for 1 1/2 years, a key step in what the leftist leader calls an accelerating march toward socialism.

I feel great sympathy towards the citizens of Venezuela - they just lost their freedom today.

More thoughts at: Coyote Blog

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Sweet Justice

It would be sweet, sweet justice if Castro died prematurely because of the ineptitude of his own socialized medical system.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro has long prided himself on Cuba’s doctors and free public health care system, but that system seems to have let him down after he fell ill in July , U.S.-based doctors said on Tuesday.

Based on a report in Tuesday’s edition of Spain’s El Pais newspaper, the doctors – who have no first-hand knowledge of Castro’s condition – said Castro had received questionable or even botched care at the hands of health experts on his communist-ruled island.

But come on - how is the libertarian and conservative blogosphere even reporting this? Doctors that have no first-hand knowledge of Castro's condition? Its pure conjecture and I'm embarrassed to even be wasting the time on this.

Those that are quoting this as some sort of "proof" that socialized medicine doesn't work should be ashamed of themselves.

Can't Beat 'Em So Just Beat 'Em Down

The Weather Channel’s most prominent climatologist is advocating that broadcast meteorologists be stripped of their scientific certification if they express skepticism about predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming.

I suppose its too much to ask to have The Weather Channel distance themselves to such a clearly anti-scientific stance isn't it?

If scientists that fall clearly on pro-global warming side of the debate can't distance themselves from people that want to bypass scientific process then expect the politicalization of the debate to continue.

Profit Isn't the Problem

Canadian researches think they have found a non-toxic, very effective drug for cancer treatments.

A small, non-toxic molecule may soon be available as an inexpensive treatment for many forms of cancer, including lung, breast and brain tumours, say University of Alberta researchers.

But there's a catch: the drug isn't patented, and pharmaceutical companies may not be interested in funding further research if the treatment won't make them a profit.

You can almost hear the sneer associated with that dirty profit word can't you?

But profit isn't the problem here - the problem is the prohibitively expensive approval process that pharmaceuticals have to go through to get drugs to market.

If a drug company could get a drug to market without spending a billion dollars in research they would be falling over themselves to bring a non-toxic cancer drug to market.

So before you complain about those greedy drug companies remember that they can only make money by helping people - its the government that is preventing them from doing so.