In a previous post, Flip said...
> If a group has conspired to fix prices, the government tries to STOP
> them from communicating on prices - with the theory being that the
> market will return prices to 'market levels'.
At least you are actually addressing a point.
The Government accused them of colluding on prices and told them to stop.
on this we apparently agree. At that point we seem to begin to disagree.
I would think that at that point, justice and morality (if not law) would
decree that, since the market had not determined the level of the price,
then it would be up to the accused and adjudged conspirators to make it
so.
> Your proposal that you should end price fixing by forcing the companies
> to fix prices at a different level is absurd.
Um, your wording here is more than a bit misleading. I believe it is
another intentional attempt to muddy the waters here and put words into
my mouth. My use of the word co-operative may well have been a problem
for you and was probably a bad choice of words, but I meant it in the
sense of cooperating with the spirit of the law not conspiring once again
with each other.
I never said the companies should be "forced to fix" prices. Actually, I
agree with you on this to the extent that it is their product and this is
a free economy...as such they can charge whatever they want for their
product, so long as they do not engage in illegal collusion to fix that
price across the entire industry.
I merely indicated that the artificially high prices which people have
been complaining about and you insist are a product of our free market
system are instead a product of the collusion that the industry most
certainly did indulge in. If the industry wants to be able to take your
stance that the price of their product is a naturally derived consequence
of our free market system then they will have to voluntarily (in the
spirit of cooperation, you see) make some sort of adjustment to those
prices to compensate for the effects of the price-fixing of which they
were found guilty. Failing that, they will still remain guilty of
charging prices that were arrived at by illegal means. The market and
the public will indeed return those prices to "market levels" but,
unfortunately for you and the folks at the RIAA, one of the tools now
available to the public is the ability to swap files on their computers.
Combined with their ability to not buy the product that makes for a
powerful motivating force for the free market you claim to believe in.
The p2p community also has the ability to not care whether moralists such
as yourself can not see that their actions are, while technically
described by the same word as stealing the hubcaps off that BMW you seem
to crave so much, a bit more justifiable than common theft.
Call it what you will, flip. Theft. Protest. Sharing. Stealing. The
end result is the same. The members of the RIAA are going to have to
take a long hard look at their business model if they want to survive
and, in the course of that long hard look, are going to have to realize
that they no longer hold all the aces in the game and are going to have
to make some concessions based on fairness, both to the artists they
supposedly represent and to the public they crave as their customers.
Now would you leave me alone and stop putting words in my mouth? I really
do have to go make the Gulf of Mexico safe for surfers and beach bunnies.
--
Captain Q.
<the terror of the VERY high seas>
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