Slimebeast said:
trent44 said:
I think it is rather odd, the route these IP holders have taken to try and secure their "potential" profits. What is an Intellectual Property anyway? Short story: it is a government sanctioned monopoly over and idea. In terms of macroeconomics (large scale economy), it is a flat out retarded move.
Why? Simple, monopolies maximize profits by minimizing marginal benefits to the population. i.e. You pay more & you get less. Yes, this is nice for the head honchos that scrape by on multimillion dollar bonuses each year while clearing out unessessary costs by say laying off 15,000 workers. The American dream for one man, The American nightmare for many... People fear loosing their jobs now days because the market is starting to canabalize itself. Wallstreet is going back up and unemployment is still through the roof, what gives?
Well, besides profit maximizing greed that americans have begun to chant as though it were an ultimate means to all salvation, one thing that is keeping a lot of jobs from being created? Intellectual Properties. I.P.s prevent many many competitors form entering an occupied marketspace, and it also prevent the jobs those competitors would create. Even in the events where competitors can enter the market, there is more initial capital needed as the barrier to entry to the market, as it is raised by redundant research and lawsuits.
So what needs to happen? Resructuring of the current business model. The shift from I.P. focused profits to goods/service focused profits. How do can you compete if there it no I.P. system in place? Make higher quality products, cut costs that are actually wasteful (such as CEO salaries and bonuses), provide service people actually want enough to pay for. This also means you can free up billions of dollars of lawsuits and redundant research and wasted time.
What about Media? How can we convert media from I.P. based profit to service based profit? Comissioned Art = service. Music Concert = service. Video game Subscriptions = Service. Etc. But, wait are you actually saying I have to continually put in hours of work to make money, rather than rely on this convinent system of secured profits? Where dead men 20 years in their grave are making more profit EACH YEAR, than a guy busting his ass 80 hours a week for his entire life could ever hope to make? Yes, you would have to continually work for profits...just like everyone else...
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I hate this kind of argument. Socialism.
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How is this socialism?
The firms would be privately owned, less government regulation, more resouces freed up from lack of I.P. related lawsuits and redundant research, and there would be more competitors in the market. All that sounds like free market to me.
Cutting cost of upper management salaries rather than cutting tons of jobs keeps the economy at a more sustainable level, people without jobs cannot inject money back into the economy, cashflows slow, business slows down, then corporations start closing because there arent enough customers with purchasing power...sound familar?
Now, I guess this part could have been misinterpreted. I did mention that continually profiting off and I.P. would no longer be viable in an economic system without I.P.s. What I listed were simply a few examples (new business models could be made) of how those previously I.P. focused businesses could be converted to good/service focused businesses. Continually profiting off goods/service business models after you are dead would still be viable...
