I'm going to refer this one to the excellent economics text Man, Economy, and State by Murray N. Rothbard. To summarize the counterpoints:
(1) Wages would not drop to zero in an economy unencumbered by minimum wages. This is because labor is a required element in the production process of all consumer goods, and exists in limited supply. The goods that consumers desire cannot be provided without paying wages which make it worthwhile for laborers to work. Most jobs in the US economy, for example, pay a higher rate than minimum wage. The reason for this is that the individuals who fill those position have a productivity above minimum wage; their contribution to the final product justifies their pay. If the standard pay in any given area is too low, then workers will leave that area in search of better employment, which will tend to drive the wages up since the supply of labor has decreased. The system is self-regulating.
(2) There ought to be a word for the fear of rich individuals / big companies. This comes up far too often. First, people generally become rich either by saving their income, or by investing in markets that are undervalued compared to their actual worth to consumers. In the former case, I cannot see how anyone could think that anything unethical or immoral has occurred; they earned an "honest living" and chose to save their earnings. There may be some who did not in fact earn an "honest living", but their error is not in being rich. In the latter case, the investments are actually helpful to the economy because they improve the market's ability to supply consumers with the products that they value most. This is an example of entrepreneurial profit, and is also self-regulating: the market's value will rise as more investments are made in it, and the profits in the market will decrease to match the pure rate of interest.
(3) CEOs typically report to (and are paid by) the companies' shareholders, represented by the companies' boards of directors. It is those shareholders who should be upset about excessive CEO pay raises, since the CEO is ultimately their agent, chosen to be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the company. If the lower-paid workers are continuing to work for these companies, then they must believe their wages better those available elsewhere. I do think that the various directors should keep a closer eye on CEO salaries (for their own benefit), and progress is being made in this area.
I am aware of the problem of "sweatshop" working conditions. From the article:
Some defenders of sweatshops hold that even products manufactured as a result of child labor should not be boycotted. According to a UNICEF study an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 Nepalese children turned to prostitution after the U.S. banned that country's carpet exports in the 1990s. Also, after the Child Labor Deterence Act was introduced in the US, an estimated 50,000 children were dismissed from their garment industry jobs in Bangladesh, leaving many to resort to jobs such as "stone-crushing, street hustling, and prostitution," - "all of them more hazardous and exploitative than garment production" according to the UNICEF study.
Perhaps, instead of shutting down their best hope of income, you should offer them better jobs where they are, or make it easier for them to immigrate to countries with higher standards of living, so that both you and they could benefit. If alternatives to the sweatshops existed the sweatshops would not remain viable. Setting a minimum wage does stop sweatshops, but it accomplishes this goal by driving the jobs out of the country entirely. The "liberated" workers are then left with worse jobs than the "oppressive" sweatshops offered.
I would agree that the exploitive practices of some sweatshops are wrong, and should be stopped. I do not believe that child labor is itself one of them, unless it is harmful to the child or against the wishes of the child or the child's guardian(s). However, every person (even a child) has certain personal rights which ought to be respected by others as a matter of basic human dignity. Those who do not respect those rights should be punished in accordance with their crimes. That, however, is primarily a social matter, not an economic one.
Even if that were true (and I'm not saying that it is), then there would be no advantage in having minimum-wage laws. As I mentioned in reply to another post, however, increases in the costs of labor factors tend to shift the demand away from labor-intensive processes. The costs of products do not rise evenly throughout the economy, even if the costs of labor rise evenly, because every product requires a different amount of labor.
In addition, there are some kinds of high-elasticity labor which are only cost-effective at low hourly rates (primarily "unskilled" labor). With the minimum wage in place these jobs simply do not exist. Primarily affected by this are young and/or inexperienced individuals. With the real minimum wage at about $10-11 (an estimate) due to mandantory payroll taxes and benefits, in most industries a college education and/or several years' on-the-job experience is necessary before productivity exceeds the costs of employment. Basic services, in particular, are hard to find at any reasonable price, and consumers spend more time on things they'd rather not have to do themselves while others, who would be willing to perform these tasks for less than the minimum wage, remain unemployed.
Contrary to popular belief, economics does not assume that people have perfect information or that everyone acts in a way that they will not later regret. Obviously, people make mistakes, and sometimes the value of what is purchased does not exceed the opportunity cost of purchasing it. I am sure that you would agree, however, that most individuals do try to fulfill those ends which they value most, which is the essence of rational self-interest. This is all that economics assumes: that given the choice, people will choose the good they expect will best fulfill their highest-valued goal(s). How those values are determined can be completely arbitrary, and can only be known by observing the choices the individual makes.
Since this really isn't the place for a complete explanation of practical economics, I'll just refer you to the excellent (free!) e-book Man, Economy, and State by Murray N. Rothbard, which should answer most of your questions.
You're right; I left out the concept of elasticity of demand in hopes of simplifying the argument at bit. It is possible that the price can increase without any reduction in demand. The only certainty is that a price increase will not increase demand. However, the elasticity of demand (change in demand for each unit change in price) is greater when there are close substitutes available for the product (water or juice instead of milk, for example). The actual price-point varies from one person to another, but on the whole people will drink less milk if the price of milk increases significantly. A change of 20 may not be significant enough to alter demand much, but if the price went from $1.00/gal to $5.00/gal I'm sure we would notice a change in sales.
Even when there are no close substitutes, there is always the option of going without the product and spending one's money on something different, or saving for the future. Thus, no products not directly necessary for survival are truly inelastic. When the prices of labor factors increase, then those products which require less labor will be favored. In any event, the prices of the end product tend to increase faster than the wages of the laborers, and if the minimum-wage policy is applied across the entire economy the purchasing power of the money will decrease. Even if people, on average, make more money than they did before, there will be fewer products to spend it on. Thus, the standard of living will be lower.
How about this: On any page which hosts images, add a link to a WMF file with the patch. That way the first time someone opens the page in an exploitable program, the patch is applied automatically and the remaining images can't cause any damage.
We have minimum wage laws and free competition that other countries don't have.
Someone else (an AC) already noticed this error, but I though I'd point out exactly why this is a contradiction.
Minimum wage laws impose artificial restrictions on the economy. Like any price floor, they encourage oversupply and drive down demand, which results in unemployment. For a simple thought experiment to demonstrate this point, consider the following:
Employee A starts out in an economy with no minimum-wage laws, making $2.50/hour for 40 hours/week. For every 120 hours of labor and $50 worth of material, the employer can sell a product for $400 ($50 over monetary cost). This increase is a result of the employee's time-preference: the employer has advanced $350 in wages and materials, in exchange for getting an additional $50 when the product is sold. We'll assume for the moment that this is the pure interest rate, the average monetary rate of time-preference. In other words, $350 three weeks from now is, on average, worth $100 in one week, another $100 in two weeks, and yet another $100 in three weeks (the rate is exaggerated for the purposes of example).
A minimum-wage law is passed, requiring wages to be $3.00/hour or higher. The amount of labor required to produce the product remains unchanged, so the cost of labor and materials is now $410. Assuming that the pure rate of interest remains unchanged, the final price of the product will be $460. Raising the price will decrease demand, and so less of the product will be sold. As a result, although the wages have increased by $0.50/hour, the number of hours of labor required for all the products combined will decrease. This may result in unemployment for some, reduced hours for all, or some combination of the two. In the end, the total amount of money spent on labor may increase, remain the same, or decrease. In any event, the product itself will be harder to come by. If the minimum wage applies across the entire economy, then the purchasing power of the money will decrease because there will be less to buy.
Of course, the major problem is that Sony isn't person-like at all, it more resembles a government. So it should be treated as a government. Companies shold have to establish their legitimacy like democrasies [sic], either by being so numerous and compeditive [sic] that consumers have endless arbitrary choice, or by allowing everyone, not just the sstock [sic] holders, to vote.
<sarcasm>Just like real governments allow non-citizens to vote, right?</sarcasm> Assuming that changes were made to eliminate limitations on the shareholders' liability, then corporations would be nothing more than purely voluntary organizations; unlike a government, no one is forced to do business with them. Their customers "vote" by choosing whether or not to buy from them, which in the end will determine Sony's future more surely than anything the shareholders might do. The shareholders have the right to vote on corporate issues because they are part-owners in the corporation; they are only exercising control over the use of their own resources, the same as any individual would.
The only ones hurt by Sony's recent debacle were the ones who voluntarily purchased Sony's products. IMHO they have just cause to seek recompense for the cost of the defective "audio" CDs, and for any damage that those defective discs caused to their property, provided that Sony actually tried to pass off these crippled discs as regular audio CDs (which I'm not entirely sure of). If the discs were labelled as DRM'd, then caveat emptor. They should have read the labels more thoroughly. Perhaps they'll be more careful where they spend their money next time.
Changing topics a bit, I do agree that voiding all of Sony's existing IP would be a major blow to the company, but that isn't what you proposed the first time. Your original proposal was that Sony should be prevented from owning IP in the future, which is rather more difficult to accomplish in practice. Either way, it's not a bad idea, provided that they actually did something wrong (as mentioned above). It may be a bit excessive, though, since the actual damages from their deception were probably significantly less than the proposed punishment.
I like the idea, but how would you go about enforcing it? What's to stop Sony from just licensing all of their IP from "Sony R&D" (hypothetical), an otherwise unrelated corporation? Then Sony wouldn't actually own any IP, but the overall effect would remain unchanged. When sentencing a corporation, you have to remember that the corporation isn't actually a real person; if the punishment is too stringent, then the owners will simply disband and you'll be left with nothing to enforce the sentence against. I'd personally rather that they made the sentence binding on the corporation's shareholders, as they are part-owners in the corporation and direct its operation to an extent determined by the number of shares they each own.
Example: Company A has 1000k shares of stock outstanding, owned by persons B (200k shares), C (300k shares), and D (500k shares). A has assets worth $13.2m. The stock (par) value is thus ($13.2m / 1000k) or $13.20 / share. As is, if a court order against A requires payment of $13.2m or higher, then all the shares devalue to $0.00 and at most $13.2m can be paid in damages before the corporation goes bankrupt. However, if the shareholders are held directly responsible, then the difference between the damages and the $13.2m in assets would be held against the shareholders directly, as an outstanding debt. If the company does $30m in damages to customers, then the balance of $16.8m ($16.80 / share) would be paid by the owners and directors of the company. As it is, if the company is crippled, or bankrupted, then those shareholders can always take their money elsewhere, starting the cycle all over again.
So much for making monetary damages work. Regarding your proposal: if you really wanted to ban Sony from owning IP, you'd have to ban their current shareholders (the owners of Sony) from holding stock in any corporation that controls or licenses IP, and from holding/licensing it themselves. Only then could you be sure that the company wouldn't just be re-created under a new name.
Still, those 30 friends should bear most (possibly all) of the responsibility, since they're the ones actually calling me. You haven't actually done anything to me. Either way, taking you (or them) to court isn't going to resolve any personal differences between us. We'd both be better off if I found out why you had all your friends try to annoy me, and fixed that instead. If it can't be fixed (which is quite rare), I can always stop answering the phone. Jumping straight to coercion (e.g. lawsuits) is how wars get started...
I would think that one criteria you didn't list would be even more significant to this case: inciting imminent lawless action.
Since when is it "lawless action" to reload a web page with the refresh button? Is a person "incit[ing] imminent lawless action" if they ask a bunch of friends to call the school's main office (for example)? Why should that be any different? If it was illegal to call the office (or load the web page) then this would make sense, but those actions are not illegal at present. How can it be a felony to incite lawful action?
That a contract is required for transfer of rights is a basic principle of noncoercive (free market) economics. There are two ways of acquiring rights to property (in any system of economics) that do not involve coercion: homesteading (appropriating a previously-unowned property right) and contract (the previous owner willingly transferring a property right). The only other way to acquire property is by theft (previous owner forced to forfeit the right). Buying and selling occur frequently enough that most people place them in a category by themselves, but they are fundamentally based on the willing transfer of property rights, which is (by definition) a contract.
If the minor can renounce a contract, then he/she can renounce the transfer of his/her (parents') money to the store; the purchase cannot be binding. Clearly, to be fair, the store's property would have to be returned as well. This is different from a refund in that refunds are given at the store's convenience; they are under no obligation to do so. However, if the minor renounces the implied contract, then the store is holding his/her (parents') money and retaining it would qualify as theft, as only the implied contract gave them rights to it.
By "age of consent" (which is probably the wrong term) I merely meant the age at which a person is assumed to have obtained the capacity to think and act for him/herself, independently of his/her parents or guardians, and was not referring to any particular choice, although your example would probably qualify.
Ignoring all of these confusing terms, the point that I was trying to get across was that society should either consider someone a minor, lacking the ability to make his/her own decisions, or an adult, possessing such abilities. The point at which the transition from minor to adult occurs is open for debate. It simply seems foolish (IMHO) to grant minors ownership of property of any sort, since by definition minors do not possess the experience necessary to guide their choices; any interaction with adult society must occur through their legal guardian(s) or not at all. To do otherwise places on them responsibility for choices that they (by definition) are not qualified to make.
I, personally, would like to know why it is considered legal to sell anything to a minor, considering that minors cannot enter into legally binding contracts (in the general case, not counting underage emancipation). Without the use of a binding (though implicit) contract, how can a minor buy or sell? It seems strange that minors are unable to enter into formal contracts, yet are entrusted with ownership of property and the ability to buy and sell, which are derived from contract law. If the laws were consistent in this regard, then there would be no need to worry about kids buying "inappropriate" games/movies/books/etc. without their parents' knowledge, because no store would take the risk on a non-binding exchange involving property known to belong to a third party (it can't belong to the minor).
A number of people would probably object to the idea that no one under 18 can own property, but in my opinion that is an issue with the age of consent and not the principle expressed above. Eighteen years is far too long to remain a minor in modern society. It is ironic that despite being trusted to drive a car by 16 in many places (Indiana included), minors are not trusted to make their own moral choices until they turn 18. Driving poses far more direct, demonstrable danger to others than purchasing a violent video game.
I didn't say that humans, as individuals, have "inherent" rights. I said that there are rights inherent to members of human society. The term "right", in fact, doesn't have much meaning outside of society. Without society, your "rights" are those things which you can protect by yourself. Within society, however, there are restraints on certain kinds of involuntary interpersonal relationships. The restrained relationships are called rights. For example, "property rights" are a set of restrictions on everyone else which give you specific control over your property. In general, your body, will, labor, etc. are considered forms of property which "inalienably" belong to you (meaning that society does not permit them to be held by others). These rights form the basis of all human laws. A human being who recognizes these rights could not violate them by taking anyone's life, whatever he/she may have done, without being self-contradictory.
Humans throughout history have found these rights to be both justified and necessary for humans to function in a society. They have also struggled to overcome the non-social instincts present in human beings in order to put them into practice. There is little argument, however, that those societies which best recognized these rights, and respected them, gained much from doing so.
I take it that you wouldn't object, then, if the rest of us got together and decided that the kind of lives that we want don't include you, theorized that we could achieve that by killing you, and went ahead and put that theory into practice? After all, it's not like you have any "inherent" rights...
It's true that this could happen anyway, whether or not you have such a right, but most people (IMHO) would not believe that such an action was justifiable, on the basis that individuals have "inherent" rights that the wishes of others cannot overrule. The meaning of "inherent" in this context can be debated, but I think that the spirit of the phrase is that there are certain rules regarding individual autonomy that cannot be violated without threatening the core axioms which allow human society to exists in the first place. The U.S. Constitution calls these "rights"; you may call them something else. That doesn't change the fact that they are a necessary part of the human social structure.
I believe the GP did include theatrical showings as one area in which they could still make money off of the movie. After all, they still haven't shown any links between "piracy" and losses (of potential revenue) at the box office, with the possible exception of really poor movies that no one wants to see in theatres anyway once they know how bad the film is. If that's where they make most of their money, and "piracy" doesn't affect it much, then shouldn't they rely more on theatrical showings? They could treat "pirated" recordings as promotional material, similar to how the music labels generally treat free radio broadcasts.
As for the DVD market, I would say that should have learned by now that it's not worth it. Sure, they might take in a ton of revenue from DVDs, but you have to consider the costs as well. These costs would include not only the physical manufacturing and distribution of the DVDs, but also investments in DRM, lobbying for stricter laws, compromises made with hardware manufacturers, people waiting for DVD releases, etc. Taking these into account, I doubt DVDs make all that much net profit.
The GP's proposal does sound a bit radical, but I thing the underlying idea is actually quite reasonable. It would certainly be worth further consideration, IMHO.
Actually, if you use the low-level package installer (rpm or dpkg, usually), you can almost always specify the prefix ("root directory") to use for installation. In Debian, for example, you can run "dpkg --instdir=$HOME/usr -i package.deb" to install a package into your home directory. That still requires administrative priviledges though, because it's using the system package database. If you want to avoid root altogether, then you can use --root instead of --instdir after setting up your own package database. This is typically used by the Debian installer to install.deb packages into the newly-created root directory, but you could use it to install things locally. Or you could just use "dpkg --unpack file.deb" to extract all of the necessary files. Of course, you'll have to set up $LD_LIBRARY_PATH if you install any libraries outside of the system directories, and some programs are sensitive to the paths that they were configured with.
However, putting all of the error-correction information in one place isn't all that reliable should that part of the disc become damaged. With smaller pits, you have the ability to scatter the error-correction information over a greater area.
Wondering what they're doing is one thing. Spying on them is another.
It's perfectly natural for parents to want to keep up on their kids' activities. However, removing what little autonomy kids have these days by constantly tracking their movements and actions is seriously detrimental to any child's development. The right way to go about this would be to cultivate a trust relationship with one's kids, so that when they say they're going to a friend's house you can take them at their word and not worry about what they might be doing instead.
Kids don't always make the best decisions, but their choices are often quite rational given the limited information and experience that they possess. It is important to understand that trust implies more than just always telling the truth: kids need to know, from experience, that their parents are looking out for their best interests and not just settings limits arbitrarily. Answering the "why" questions is one part of this; letting them make mistakes occasionally is another. People learn best from their mistakes, and keeping kids out of (reasonable) trouble is an excellent way to ensure that they are unable to handle it later on.
The problem with this objection, of course, is that *no* economic system works very well unless its participants are acting in accordance was some approximation of rational self-interest. There are some, such as socialism, which can do without self-interest on the part of the majority, in exchange for placing control over the economy in the hands of a few individuals with no real responsibilities toward their subjects. How, exactly, is such a system in any way an improvement over capitalism?
All forms of democracy require self-interest on the part of the population to prevent a fall into socialism or dictatorship. In fact, there exists no form of government which does *not* have this condition. No government, no matter how well intentioned, can long withstand apathy from its citizenship without straying from its original ideals. Economic systems are subject to the same rule, as all forms of economics, other than capitalism/free-market systems, place control over the economy in the hands of the goverment.
It is a long-standing tradition on the Internet that posting something in a public forum, or on a web site, confers the right to access the information to everyone on the 'net, whether or not they requested the data in question from the original site. It's like saying something in public: people have the right to quote you, even those who heard it second-hand, because you said it in a public place. Many basic Internet technologies, such as caching/filtering proxies, or Usenet, depend on this tradition. Things like the Google cache, which is like a traditional proxy in many ways, are just as dependent on the public nature of the Internet. Of course, commercial interests are attempting to change the traditions, but it remains to be seen just how much influence such interests really have in cyberspace.
The news organization have three realistic choices. They can restrict access to subscribers, removing themselves from the Google news feeds and probably cutting traffic to their site significantly. They can let Google index their publicly-available pages like everyone else. Or they can work out a private arrangement with Google allowing them to profit from their stories while remaining listed among the news feeds (Google Exclusives, anyone?).
Competition can come in many forms. Other labels is one solution, as evidenced by the success of groups like Magnatune, which is experimenting with a "shareware-like" business model. Individuals dealing directly with e.g. iTMS, or distributing through their own web sites, is another form of competition. Even piracy is competition in a real sense, whether or not the industry regards it as such, and despite its nature as a black market. The industry has been forced to find ways to make their services more appealing than P2P downloads, either by increasing the risks of using P2P (through lawsuits) or by finding ways to make their own services more valuable (which they're still working on). Piracy, of course, is far from an optimal solution, because it clashes with the models on which the artists' compensation is currently based. However, it may eventually lead to the adoptance of business models whose successes do not depend on draconian copyright laws, and I would consider that a positive outcome.
Yup. Except that I don't think they've abused their copyrights, this is exactly what copyrights are meant to do. The problem is that copyrights are no longer held by individuals (as a whole), nor do they expire (unless you forget to renew). Without the threat of expiration, there is no incentive to lower prices & capture the low-price portion of the demand curve near the end of the copyright term.
Technically speaking, copyright are intended to encourage artists to create, not grant copyright holders unlimited control over distribution. The latter is just the mechanism chosen to facilitate the former, and there are some exceptions to their control over distribution, such as compulsory licensing for radio broadcasts. I have yet to see a proposal for preventing corporations from holding copyrights which would be both enforcable and fair to the artists; remember that most artists originally do own the copyrights to their songs, but willingly transfer that right to the label as part of their contract. As long as the right exists, it can be transferred through a contract. All the artist has to do is grant the corporation exclusive permission to make copies. It would be unreasonable to stop artists from granting such permission, and preventing them from choosing to make such permission exclusive goes against the idea of copyright altogether.
Yup yup. But if we want copyright reform (that benefits the consumer and the creator, not just the copyright holder) we need better public awareness of their abuses. Bad publicity associated with a boycott is more effective than lost sales occurring as a direct result of a boycott. It's really a PR war, and people who pirate music aren't helping the cause.
Agreed, but I still think that competition is a more effective weapon than a boycott, because it proves to the labels that their customers will support a better system.
I suppose I have a bit more faith in the free market. However, let's suppose for a moment that the copyright system is necessary and justified, and try to find the right balance for the duration of the copyright term.
Looking at copyright as an incentive program, a universal contract between buyers and sellers in the music market, we can see that it is the seller's desire to have an unlimited copyright term, and the buyer's to have no copyright at all. The seller's interest is primarily driven by desire to be paid. The best term, therefore, is the shortest one that overcomes the seller's opportunity cost, which provides the necessary incentive to create.
The majority of the seller's money is made within the first few years after the song is released. A copyright term of as little as five years would probably be more than enough to ensure the artist an acceptable profit. Of course, given a choice between five years and 50 years, the artist would choose 50, but given the choice between five years of copyright or choosing another job, the artist would probably take the five years' worth of copyright, as the actual difference in profit between five and 50 years is often almost negligible. Five years gives the artist time to become well-known. For artist who is already well known, the term could be even less than that, since most of the interested buyers would make their purchases early on. The better known the artists is, the shorter the copyright term necessary to cover most of the purchases. By the time the term drops below about six months, you could probably do without the copyright entirely by employing pre-orders and live concerts exclusively.
My argument was based more on the well-known artists and less on those just starting out, with the intention of only promoting those good enough to develop a following early on, but a reasonably short copyright (1-10 years) may indeed prove acceptable to society as a whole on an economic/incentive basis. It would not be acceptable to me, because copyright relies inherently on coercion by the majority to be effective, and I am of the opinion that reliance on coercion and/or force against those who did not first demonstrate the same is a proof of the system's injustice. Using force against one's opponents is proof that one was unable or unwilling to convince them with reason.
Thanks for the well-reasoned response. Constructive criticism is always useful. That said, I do not agree with many of your conclusions:
The real marginal cost is zero. But the real cost is not zero. Real cost includes overhead, the costs of creating the content, etc. For this discussion, I'd even add in marketing costs, as they are relevant to the considerations made by the companies distributing the music, and should probably be considered by the consumer when judging what price is fair.
I probably shouldn't have used an economics term ("real cost") here. What I meant to say is that the cost of actually making the copy -- taking one set of bits, duplicating it, and transferring the duplicate to another person -- is nearly zero. It is true that in the grand scheme of things one must take into account overhead, recording, marketing, etc., as these all factor into the cost of actually getting access to music, but these areas are not the ones under pressure. Technology has had an effect on these areas, but the greatest change is in the cost of distribution. The old system -- copyright combined with predatory recording contracts -- allows the labels to use their control of the marketing and recording areas to maintain their stranglehold on distribution despite advances in technology.
This only works for established artists with an extant high demand for their product -- I don't think it would work for 99% of the artists out there.
I would argue that there is a significant oversupply of music artists right now, although perhaps not quite 99%. The star system and decades of misinformation regarding the risks and compensations of becoming a professional music artist have attracted far more producers than the market can support. As a result, artists have no bargaining power. Unless an artist is already a major success, the label has the power to dictate the terms of the recording contract. The artists accepts this on the basis of the belief that becoming a professions artist will pay off in the long run. When all is said and done, many artists end up seriously in debted to the labels, with little to show for it. What you call "extant demand" I call "a reasonable chance of success." If a band (or an individual) cannot attract enough attention in their own community (geographical or technological) to demonstrate "extant demand", they probably shouldn't be going into music as a career. I realize that many (particularly artists) will probably disagree with me here, but this is the way that most other industries work. Why should music be any different?
They sometimes pay for themselves on opening weekend. Most movies do not; in fact, most movies don't cover costs from theatrical release -- although some of this is due to creative accounting. This model depends on the occasional blockbuster, which isn't the model I'd want to see for music... I'd hate to have the music industry have the same content problems as the movie industry.
Now that I think about it, you're probably right about movies in general. My statements was based on statistics for the movies which I had chosen to see in theatres, which no doubt skewed the results somewhat. That said, I do think that most profitable movies make at least a significant portion of their cost back within the first few weeks, with only a small portion of the revenue coming from the eventual DVD sales. Between the initial sales and later concerts, I think that an artist could do the same. I agree that it would be a shame if music followed the same route as movies in regards to content, but I think that (after the oversupply problem mentioned above has been corrected) artists will not suffer the same issues due to smaller and more frequent releases, resulting in greater interaction with their audiences.
Well, the market is the same size -- it's just that a different portion of the market will
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I'm going to refer this one to the excellent economics text Man, Economy, and State by Murray N. Rothbard. To summarize the counterpoints:
(1) Wages would not drop to zero in an economy unencumbered by minimum wages. This is because labor is a required element in the production process of all consumer goods, and exists in limited supply. The goods that consumers desire cannot be provided without paying wages which make it worthwhile for laborers to work. Most jobs in the US economy, for example, pay a higher rate than minimum wage. The reason for this is that the individuals who fill those position have a productivity above minimum wage; their contribution to the final product justifies their pay. If the standard pay in any given area is too low, then workers will leave that area in search of better employment, which will tend to drive the wages up since the supply of labor has decreased. The system is self-regulating.
(2) There ought to be a word for the fear of rich individuals / big companies. This comes up far too often. First, people generally become rich either by saving their income, or by investing in markets that are undervalued compared to their actual worth to consumers. In the former case, I cannot see how anyone could think that anything unethical or immoral has occurred; they earned an "honest living" and chose to save their earnings. There may be some who did not in fact earn an "honest living", but their error is not in being rich. In the latter case, the investments are actually helpful to the economy because they improve the market's ability to supply consumers with the products that they value most. This is an example of entrepreneurial profit, and is also self-regulating: the market's value will rise as more investments are made in it, and the profits in the market will decrease to match the pure rate of interest.
(3) CEOs typically report to (and are paid by) the companies' shareholders, represented by the companies' boards of directors. It is those shareholders who should be upset about excessive CEO pay raises, since the CEO is ultimately their agent, chosen to be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the company. If the lower-paid workers are continuing to work for these companies, then they must believe their wages better those available elsewhere. I do think that the various directors should keep a closer eye on CEO salaries (for their own benefit), and progress is being made in this area.
I am aware of the problem of "sweatshop" working conditions. From the article:
Perhaps, instead of shutting down their best hope of income, you should offer them better jobs where they are, or make it easier for them to immigrate to countries with higher standards of living, so that both you and they could benefit. If alternatives to the sweatshops existed the sweatshops would not remain viable. Setting a minimum wage does stop sweatshops, but it accomplishes this goal by driving the jobs out of the country entirely. The "liberated" workers are then left with worse jobs than the "oppressive" sweatshops offered.
I would agree that the exploitive practices of some sweatshops are wrong, and should be stopped. I do not believe that child labor is itself one of them, unless it is harmful to the child or against the wishes of the child or the child's guardian(s). However, every person (even a child) has certain personal rights which ought to be respected by others as a matter of basic human dignity. Those who do not respect those rights should be punished in accordance with their crimes. That, however, is primarily a social matter, not an economic one.
Even if that were true (and I'm not saying that it is), then there would be no advantage in having minimum-wage laws. As I mentioned in reply to another post, however, increases in the costs of labor factors tend to shift the demand away from labor-intensive processes. The costs of products do not rise evenly throughout the economy, even if the costs of labor rise evenly, because every product requires a different amount of labor.
In addition, there are some kinds of high-elasticity labor which are only cost-effective at low hourly rates (primarily "unskilled" labor). With the minimum wage in place these jobs simply do not exist. Primarily affected by this are young and/or inexperienced individuals. With the real minimum wage at about $10-11 (an estimate) due to mandantory payroll taxes and benefits, in most industries a college education and/or several years' on-the-job experience is necessary before productivity exceeds the costs of employment. Basic services, in particular, are hard to find at any reasonable price, and consumers spend more time on things they'd rather not have to do themselves while others, who would be willing to perform these tasks for less than the minimum wage, remain unemployed.
Contrary to popular belief, economics does not assume that people have perfect information or that everyone acts in a way that they will not later regret. Obviously, people make mistakes, and sometimes the value of what is purchased does not exceed the opportunity cost of purchasing it. I am sure that you would agree, however, that most individuals do try to fulfill those ends which they value most, which is the essence of rational self-interest. This is all that economics assumes: that given the choice, people will choose the good they expect will best fulfill their highest-valued goal(s). How those values are determined can be completely arbitrary, and can only be known by observing the choices the individual makes.
Since this really isn't the place for a complete explanation of practical economics, I'll just refer you to the excellent (free!) e-book Man, Economy, and State by Murray N. Rothbard, which should answer most of your questions.
You're right; I left out the concept of elasticity of demand in hopes of simplifying the argument at bit. It is possible that the price can increase without any reduction in demand. The only certainty is that a price increase will not increase demand. However, the elasticity of demand (change in demand for each unit change in price) is greater when there are close substitutes available for the product (water or juice instead of milk, for example). The actual price-point varies from one person to another, but on the whole people will drink less milk if the price of milk increases significantly. A change of 20 may not be significant enough to alter demand much, but if the price went from $1.00/gal to $5.00/gal I'm sure we would notice a change in sales.
Even when there are no close substitutes, there is always the option of going without the product and spending one's money on something different, or saving for the future. Thus, no products not directly necessary for survival are truly inelastic. When the prices of labor factors increase, then those products which require less labor will be favored. In any event, the prices of the end product tend to increase faster than the wages of the laborers, and if the minimum-wage policy is applied across the entire economy the purchasing power of the money will decrease. Even if people, on average, make more money than they did before, there will be fewer products to spend it on. Thus, the standard of living will be lower.
How about this: On any page which hosts images, add a link to a WMF file with the patch. That way the first time someone opens the page in an exploitable program, the patch is applied automatically and the remaining images can't cause any damage.
Only partly joking...
Someone else (an AC) already noticed this error, but I though I'd point out exactly why this is a contradiction.
Minimum wage laws impose artificial restrictions on the economy. Like any price floor, they encourage oversupply and drive down demand, which results in unemployment. For a simple thought experiment to demonstrate this point, consider the following:
Employee A starts out in an economy with no minimum-wage laws, making $2.50/hour for 40 hours/week. For every 120 hours of labor and $50 worth of material, the employer can sell a product for $400 ($50 over monetary cost). This increase is a result of the employee's time-preference: the employer has advanced $350 in wages and materials, in exchange for getting an additional $50 when the product is sold. We'll assume for the moment that this is the pure interest rate, the average monetary rate of time-preference. In other words, $350 three weeks from now is, on average, worth $100 in one week, another $100 in two weeks, and yet another $100 in three weeks (the rate is exaggerated for the purposes of example).
A minimum-wage law is passed, requiring wages to be $3.00/hour or higher. The amount of labor required to produce the product remains unchanged, so the cost of labor and materials is now $410. Assuming that the pure rate of interest remains unchanged, the final price of the product will be $460. Raising the price will decrease demand, and so less of the product will be sold. As a result, although the wages have increased by $0.50/hour, the number of hours of labor required for all the products combined will decrease. This may result in unemployment for some, reduced hours for all, or some combination of the two. In the end, the total amount of money spent on labor may increase, remain the same, or decrease. In any event, the product itself will be harder to come by. If the minimum wage applies across the entire economy, then the purchasing power of the money will decrease because there will be less to buy.
<sarcasm>Just like real governments allow non-citizens to vote, right?</sarcasm> Assuming that changes were made to eliminate limitations on the shareholders' liability, then corporations would be nothing more than purely voluntary organizations; unlike a government, no one is forced to do business with them. Their customers "vote" by choosing whether or not to buy from them, which in the end will determine Sony's future more surely than anything the shareholders might do. The shareholders have the right to vote on corporate issues because they are part-owners in the corporation; they are only exercising control over the use of their own resources, the same as any individual would.
The only ones hurt by Sony's recent debacle were the ones who voluntarily purchased Sony's products. IMHO they have just cause to seek recompense for the cost of the defective "audio" CDs, and for any damage that those defective discs caused to their property, provided that Sony actually tried to pass off these crippled discs as regular audio CDs (which I'm not entirely sure of). If the discs were labelled as DRM'd, then caveat emptor. They should have read the labels more thoroughly. Perhaps they'll be more careful where they spend their money next time.
Changing topics a bit, I do agree that voiding all of Sony's existing IP would be a major blow to the company, but that isn't what you proposed the first time. Your original proposal was that Sony should be prevented from owning IP in the future, which is rather more difficult to accomplish in practice. Either way, it's not a bad idea, provided that they actually did something wrong (as mentioned above). It may be a bit excessive, though, since the actual damages from their deception were probably significantly less than the proposed punishment.
I like the idea, but how would you go about enforcing it? What's to stop Sony from just licensing all of their IP from "Sony R&D" (hypothetical), an otherwise unrelated corporation? Then Sony wouldn't actually own any IP, but the overall effect would remain unchanged. When sentencing a corporation, you have to remember that the corporation isn't actually a real person; if the punishment is too stringent, then the owners will simply disband and you'll be left with nothing to enforce the sentence against. I'd personally rather that they made the sentence binding on the corporation's shareholders, as they are part-owners in the corporation and direct its operation to an extent determined by the number of shares they each own.
Example: Company A has 1000k shares of stock outstanding, owned by persons B (200k shares), C (300k shares), and D (500k shares). A has assets worth $13.2m. The stock (par) value is thus ($13.2m / 1000k) or $13.20 / share. As is, if a court order against A requires payment of $13.2m or higher, then all the shares devalue to $0.00 and at most $13.2m can be paid in damages before the corporation goes bankrupt. However, if the shareholders are held directly responsible, then the difference between the damages and the $13.2m in assets would be held against the shareholders directly, as an outstanding debt. If the company does $30m in damages to customers, then the balance of $16.8m ($16.80 / share) would be paid by the owners and directors of the company. As it is, if the company is crippled, or bankrupted, then those shareholders can always take their money elsewhere, starting the cycle all over again.
So much for making monetary damages work. Regarding your proposal: if you really wanted to ban Sony from owning IP, you'd have to ban their current shareholders (the owners of Sony) from holding stock in any corporation that controls or licenses IP, and from holding/licensing it themselves. Only then could you be sure that the company wouldn't just be re-created under a new name.
Still, those 30 friends should bear most (possibly all) of the responsibility, since they're the ones actually calling me. You haven't actually done anything to me. Either way, taking you (or them) to court isn't going to resolve any personal differences between us. We'd both be better off if I found out why you had all your friends try to annoy me, and fixed that instead. If it can't be fixed (which is quite rare), I can always stop answering the phone. Jumping straight to coercion (e.g. lawsuits) is how wars get started...
I would think that one criteria you didn't list would be even more significant to this case: inciting imminent lawless action.
Since when is it "lawless action" to reload a web page with the refresh button? Is a person "incit[ing] imminent lawless action" if they ask a bunch of friends to call the school's main office (for example)? Why should that be any different? If it was illegal to call the office (or load the web page) then this would make sense, but those actions are not illegal at present. How can it be a felony to incite lawful action?
That a contract is required for transfer of rights is a basic principle of noncoercive (free market) economics. There are two ways of acquiring rights to property (in any system of economics) that do not involve coercion: homesteading (appropriating a previously-unowned property right) and contract (the previous owner willingly transferring a property right). The only other way to acquire property is by theft (previous owner forced to forfeit the right). Buying and selling occur frequently enough that most people place them in a category by themselves, but they are fundamentally based on the willing transfer of property rights, which is (by definition) a contract.
If the minor can renounce a contract, then he/she can renounce the transfer of his/her (parents') money to the store; the purchase cannot be binding. Clearly, to be fair, the store's property would have to be returned as well. This is different from a refund in that refunds are given at the store's convenience; they are under no obligation to do so. However, if the minor renounces the implied contract, then the store is holding his/her (parents') money and retaining it would qualify as theft, as only the implied contract gave them rights to it.
By "age of consent" (which is probably the wrong term) I merely meant the age at which a person is assumed to have obtained the capacity to think and act for him/herself, independently of his/her parents or guardians, and was not referring to any particular choice, although your example would probably qualify.
Ignoring all of these confusing terms, the point that I was trying to get across was that society should either consider someone a minor, lacking the ability to make his/her own decisions, or an adult, possessing such abilities. The point at which the transition from minor to adult occurs is open for debate. It simply seems foolish (IMHO) to grant minors ownership of property of any sort, since by definition minors do not possess the experience necessary to guide their choices; any interaction with adult society must occur through their legal guardian(s) or not at all. To do otherwise places on them responsibility for choices that they (by definition) are not qualified to make.
I, personally, would like to know why it is considered legal to sell anything to a minor, considering that minors cannot enter into legally binding contracts (in the general case, not counting underage emancipation). Without the use of a binding (though implicit) contract, how can a minor buy or sell? It seems strange that minors are unable to enter into formal contracts, yet are entrusted with ownership of property and the ability to buy and sell, which are derived from contract law. If the laws were consistent in this regard, then there would be no need to worry about kids buying "inappropriate" games/movies/books/etc. without their parents' knowledge, because no store would take the risk on a non-binding exchange involving property known to belong to a third party (it can't belong to the minor).
A number of people would probably object to the idea that no one under 18 can own property, but in my opinion that is an issue with the age of consent and not the principle expressed above. Eighteen years is far too long to remain a minor in modern society. It is ironic that despite being trusted to drive a car by 16 in many places (Indiana included), minors are not trusted to make their own moral choices until they turn 18. Driving poses far more direct, demonstrable danger to others than purchasing a violent video game.
I didn't say that humans, as individuals, have "inherent" rights. I said that there are rights inherent to members of human society. The term "right", in fact, doesn't have much meaning outside of society. Without society, your "rights" are those things which you can protect by yourself. Within society, however, there are restraints on certain kinds of involuntary interpersonal relationships. The restrained relationships are called rights. For example, "property rights" are a set of restrictions on everyone else which give you specific control over your property. In general, your body, will, labor, etc. are considered forms of property which "inalienably" belong to you (meaning that society does not permit them to be held by others). These rights form the basis of all human laws. A human being who recognizes these rights could not violate them by taking anyone's life, whatever he/she may have done, without being self-contradictory.
Humans throughout history have found these rights to be both justified and necessary for humans to function in a society. They have also struggled to overcome the non-social instincts present in human beings in order to put them into practice. There is little argument, however, that those societies which best recognized these rights, and respected them, gained much from doing so.
I take it that you wouldn't object, then, if the rest of us got together and decided that the kind of lives that we want don't include you, theorized that we could achieve that by killing you, and went ahead and put that theory into practice? After all, it's not like you have any "inherent" rights...
It's true that this could happen anyway, whether or not you have such a right, but most people (IMHO) would not believe that such an action was justifiable, on the basis that individuals have "inherent" rights that the wishes of others cannot overrule. The meaning of "inherent" in this context can be debated, but I think that the spirit of the phrase is that there are certain rules regarding individual autonomy that cannot be violated without threatening the core axioms which allow human society to exists in the first place. The U.S. Constitution calls these "rights"; you may call them something else. That doesn't change the fact that they are a necessary part of the human social structure.
I believe the GP did include theatrical showings as one area in which they could still make money off of the movie. After all, they still haven't shown any links between "piracy" and losses (of potential revenue) at the box office, with the possible exception of really poor movies that no one wants to see in theatres anyway once they know how bad the film is. If that's where they make most of their money, and "piracy" doesn't affect it much, then shouldn't they rely more on theatrical showings? They could treat "pirated" recordings as promotional material, similar to how the music labels generally treat free radio broadcasts.
As for the DVD market, I would say that should have learned by now that it's not worth it. Sure, they might take in a ton of revenue from DVDs, but you have to consider the costs as well. These costs would include not only the physical manufacturing and distribution of the DVDs, but also investments in DRM, lobbying for stricter laws, compromises made with hardware manufacturers, people waiting for DVD releases, etc. Taking these into account, I doubt DVDs make all that much net profit.
The GP's proposal does sound a bit radical, but I thing the underlying idea is actually quite reasonable. It would certainly be worth further consideration, IMHO.
Actually, if you use the low-level package installer (rpm or dpkg, usually), you can almost always specify the prefix ("root directory") to use for installation. In Debian, for example, you can run "dpkg --instdir=$HOME/usr -i package.deb" to install a package into your home directory. That still requires administrative priviledges though, because it's using the system package database. If you want to avoid root altogether, then you can use --root instead of --instdir after setting up your own package database. This is typically used by the Debian installer to install .deb packages into the newly-created root directory, but you could use it to install things locally. Or you could just use "dpkg --unpack file.deb" to extract all of the necessary files. Of course, you'll have to set up $LD_LIBRARY_PATH if you install any libraries outside of the system directories, and some programs are sensitive to the paths that they were configured with.
However, putting all of the error-correction information in one place isn't all that reliable should that part of the disc become damaged. With smaller pits, you have the ability to scatter the error-correction information over a greater area.
Wondering what they're doing is one thing. Spying on them is another. It's perfectly natural for parents to want to keep up on their kids' activities. However, removing what little autonomy kids have these days by constantly tracking their movements and actions is seriously detrimental to any child's development. The right way to go about this would be to cultivate a trust relationship with one's kids, so that when they say they're going to a friend's house you can take them at their word and not worry about what they might be doing instead. Kids don't always make the best decisions, but their choices are often quite rational given the limited information and experience that they possess. It is important to understand that trust implies more than just always telling the truth: kids need to know, from experience, that their parents are looking out for their best interests and not just settings limits arbitrarily. Answering the "why" questions is one part of this; letting them make mistakes occasionally is another. People learn best from their mistakes, and keeping kids out of (reasonable) trouble is an excellent way to ensure that they are unable to handle it later on.
The problem with this objection, of course, is that *no* economic system works very well unless its participants are acting in accordance was some approximation of rational self-interest. There are some, such as socialism, which can do without self-interest on the part of the majority, in exchange for placing control over the economy in the hands of a few individuals with no real responsibilities toward their subjects. How, exactly, is such a system in any way an improvement over capitalism?
All forms of democracy require self-interest on the part of the population to prevent a fall into socialism or dictatorship. In fact, there exists no form of government which does *not* have this condition. No government, no matter how well intentioned, can long withstand apathy from its citizenship without straying from its original ideals. Economic systems are subject to the same rule, as all forms of economics, other than capitalism/free-market systems, place control over the economy in the hands of the goverment.
It is a long-standing tradition on the Internet that posting something in a public forum, or on a web site, confers the right to access the information to everyone on the 'net, whether or not they requested the data in question from the original site. It's like saying something in public: people have the right to quote you, even those who heard it second-hand, because you said it in a public place. Many basic Internet technologies, such as caching/filtering proxies, or Usenet, depend on this tradition. Things like the Google cache, which is like a traditional proxy in many ways, are just as dependent on the public nature of the Internet. Of course, commercial interests are attempting to change the traditions, but it remains to be seen just how much influence such interests really have in cyberspace.
The news organization have three realistic choices. They can restrict access to subscribers, removing themselves from the Google news feeds and probably cutting traffic to their site significantly. They can let Google index their publicly-available pages like everyone else. Or they can work out a private arrangement with Google allowing them to profit from their stories while remaining listed among the news feeds (Google Exclusives, anyone?).
Competition can come in many forms. Other labels is one solution, as evidenced by the success of groups like Magnatune, which is experimenting with a "shareware-like" business model. Individuals dealing directly with e.g. iTMS, or distributing through their own web sites, is another form of competition. Even piracy is competition in a real sense, whether or not the industry regards it as such, and despite its nature as a black market. The industry has been forced to find ways to make their services more appealing than P2P downloads, either by increasing the risks of using P2P (through lawsuits) or by finding ways to make their own services more valuable (which they're still working on). Piracy, of course, is far from an optimal solution, because it clashes with the models on which the artists' compensation is currently based. However, it may eventually lead to the adoptance of business models whose successes do not depend on draconian copyright laws, and I would consider that a positive outcome.
Technically speaking, copyright are intended to encourage artists to create, not grant copyright holders unlimited control over distribution. The latter is just the mechanism chosen to facilitate the former, and there are some exceptions to their control over distribution, such as compulsory licensing for radio broadcasts. I have yet to see a proposal for preventing corporations from holding copyrights which would be both enforcable and fair to the artists; remember that most artists originally do own the copyrights to their songs, but willingly transfer that right to the label as part of their contract. As long as the right exists, it can be transferred through a contract. All the artist has to do is grant the corporation exclusive permission to make copies. It would be unreasonable to stop artists from granting such permission, and preventing them from choosing to make such permission exclusive goes against the idea of copyright altogether.
Agreed, but I still think that competition is a more effective weapon than a boycott, because it proves to the labels that their customers will support a better system.
I suppose I have a bit more faith in the free market. However, let's suppose for a moment that the copyright system is necessary and justified, and try to find the right balance for the duration of the copyright term.
Looking at copyright as an incentive program, a universal contract between buyers and sellers in the music market, we can see that it is the seller's desire to have an unlimited copyright term, and the buyer's to have no copyright at all. The seller's interest is primarily driven by desire to be paid. The best term, therefore, is the shortest one that overcomes the seller's opportunity cost, which provides the necessary incentive to create.
The majority of the seller's money is made within the first few years after the song is released. A copyright term of as little as five years would probably be more than enough to ensure the artist an acceptable profit. Of course, given a choice between five years and 50 years, the artist would choose 50, but given the choice between five years of copyright or choosing another job, the artist would probably take the five years' worth of copyright, as the actual difference in profit between five and 50 years is often almost negligible. Five years gives the artist time to become well-known. For artist who is already well known, the term could be even less than that, since most of the interested buyers would make their purchases early on. The better known the artists is, the shorter the copyright term necessary to cover most of the purchases. By the time the term drops below about six months, you could probably do without the copyright entirely by employing pre-orders and live concerts exclusively.
My argument was based more on the well-known artists and less on those just starting out, with the intention of only promoting those good enough to develop a following early on, but a reasonably short copyright (1-10 years) may indeed prove acceptable to society as a whole on an economic/incentive basis. It would not be acceptable to me, because copyright relies inherently on coercion by the majority to be effective, and I am of the opinion that reliance on coercion and/or force against those who did not first demonstrate the same is a proof of the system's injustice. Using force against one's opponents is proof that one was unable or unwilling to convince them with reason.
Thanks for the well-reasoned response. Constructive criticism is always useful. That said, I do not agree with many of your conclusions:
I probably shouldn't have used an economics term ("real cost") here. What I meant to say is that the cost of actually making the copy -- taking one set of bits, duplicating it, and transferring the duplicate to another person -- is nearly zero. It is true that in the grand scheme of things one must take into account overhead, recording, marketing, etc., as these all factor into the cost of actually getting access to music, but these areas are not the ones under pressure. Technology has had an effect on these areas, but the greatest change is in the cost of distribution. The old system -- copyright combined with predatory recording contracts -- allows the labels to use their control of the marketing and recording areas to maintain their stranglehold on distribution despite advances in technology.
I would argue that there is a significant oversupply of music artists right now, although perhaps not quite 99%. The star system and decades of misinformation regarding the risks and compensations of becoming a professional music artist have attracted far more producers than the market can support. As a result, artists have no bargaining power. Unless an artist is already a major success, the label has the power to dictate the terms of the recording contract. The artists accepts this on the basis of the belief that becoming a professions artist will pay off in the long run. When all is said and done, many artists end up seriously in debted to the labels, with little to show for it. What you call "extant demand" I call "a reasonable chance of success." If a band (or an individual) cannot attract enough attention in their own community (geographical or technological) to demonstrate "extant demand", they probably shouldn't be going into music as a career. I realize that many (particularly artists) will probably disagree with me here, but this is the way that most other industries work. Why should music be any different?
Now that I think about it, you're probably right about movies in general. My statements was based on statistics for the movies which I had chosen to see in theatres, which no doubt skewed the results somewhat. That said, I do think that most profitable movies make at least a significant portion of their cost back within the first few weeks, with only a small portion of the revenue coming from the eventual DVD sales. Between the initial sales and later concerts, I think that an artist could do the same. I agree that it would be a shame if music followed the same route as movies in regards to content, but I think that (after the oversupply problem mentioned above has been corrected) artists will not suffer the same issues due to smaller and more frequent releases, resulting in greater interaction with their audiences.