This would be a monopolistic situation if Apple had 98% market share
A monopoly, as defined in the United States, is having greater than 25% market share in any particular market. Whether the iPod holds this sort of market share cannot be confirmed as we don't know the scope of the market.
That said, holding a monopoly is not illegal. What would be illegal is if Apple were to use this monopoly as leverage to gain an unfair advantage in another market. Apple is not doing this. Microsoft did.
Why go to such lengths; didn't they catch someone last year using only simple watermarking? Is there any conclusive evidence that the academy members are responsible for enough piracy to make this worthwhile?
Carmine Caridi, an Academy member and acting veteran, was caught sending tapes to a man he said he thought was a film buff, who had been redistributing them on the internet.
Theres an AP story that's a little shy on technical details, but the watermarks were how this was uncovered.
Highly informative post.
While hoping not to stray too far off topic, just wanted to add a little bit.
While the British lease on "Hong Kong" (like you said, Kowloon, in particular all that was north of the Yau Ma Tei/Prince Edward area) was set to expire, the British wanted to keep the land permanently, but were faced by strong Chinese opposition, who essentially said they would build another Berlin wall dividing their land and Hong Kong Island, which would severely cripple the regions infrastructure, and essentially ruin the lives of all those living in Hong Kong.
The British gave China their land to prevent this from happening, for the sake of all those living in Hong Kong, and to allow Hong Kong to remain on its track to prosperity as a port and hub to greater China. They did so, however, under a compromise that would force China to promise Hong Kong Basic Law and Hong Kong's free market economy would remain unharmed for 50 years.
July 1st, the anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to the Chinese, draws citywide protests, which the Chinese have cleverly embraced and encouraged residents to do the same, as a celebration of national pride, unity, and patriotism.
One of the effects of ecstasy is that the user may lose the ability to monitor and control water levels in the body--so simply put, they do not know how much water they have or need. As a result, the two most prevalent causes of death as a result of ecstasy usage are heatstroke (severe overheating, and not enough water) and drinking too much (hyponatremia).
As a Hong Kong resident I can tell you I would have absolutely no reservations whatsoever about letting my 13 year old daughter roam the streets of even the darkest parts of HK at 3am alone. The only crime here is organised (not that that's acceptable), but the streets are absolutely safe.
This robot cop is to be used primarily to educate youths on crime and the dangers of joining triad rings, not to actually fight crime RoboCop-style.
Hutchison Global Communications, a Hong Kong based telecommunications company and ISP, has been offering broadband internet access to Hong Kong residents over their power lines for over a year now.
At downstream bandwidth upwards of 1.5mbits (and infrastructure to cater to upgrades of up to 10mbits) and at a cost of less than US$18/month, the service has been quite successful thus far, and as a subscriber, I cannot recall a single outage due to problems with the power lines (and not trouble at their network centres or regularly scheduled maintenance operations).
While hoping not to stray too off-topic, I've had a small experience with Sprint PCS quite recently.
As an extremely dissatisfied Sprint PCS customer (service was terrible in my area) I was looking for any way to break free from my contract, which I was unable to do a number of months without paying a $150 cancellation fee.
Upon receiving a notice from Sprint PCS that they would start charging for the previously free-of-charge service that allowed you to check your airtime usage from your phone, I called them and asked that my contract be terminated immediately as these were not the terms I had agreed to at the time I signed the contract. They offered me a better deal in an attempt to convince me stay with their service, which I declined, and happily closed my accout.
I advised my friends who were also hoping to leave their Sprint PCS contracts to do the same when they started charging a "Number Portability Tax" (this too before it was implemented), and they encountered similar success.
IANAL, but it seems to me that should you wish to terminate your contract when they change the terms you have a very firm legal ground to stand on. Whether or not they can terminate the contract when they change the terms, however, is another story.
Your mobile phone has nothing to do with number portability.
Phones in the places you have mentioned, such as Hong Kong, use GSM mobile phone networks, at either 800 MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz or 1900MHz. North America uses 1900MHz GSM networks, which are not used in many places elsewhere. In Europe and Asia, GSM phones are made dual band, that is, they are able to cater to 2 frequencies, the 2 common ones. A different (and oftentimes more expensive) phone is needed if you wish to use it in the US, a tri-band phone. GSM phones allow for the phone configurations to be interchangable by simply placing a different chip (SIM card) in the phone, provided by the phone company, which contains the necessary phone provider details. Switch provider and just switch your SIM card, and you're good to go.
However, North America's largest cellular phone providers have built digital networks that run on either CDMA or TDMA technology. So the main problem here is different providers use different phone technologies, so they will never be interchangable. CDMA and TDMA networks exist elsewhere in the world, including Hong Kong, but are slowly becoming obselete as they are replaced by the better GSM networks.
GSM networks do exist in North America. T-Mobile's network is GSM, AT&T offers GSM coverage in a few large cities.
As a result, places like Hong Kong have a much more competitive market. I have seen advertised 3000 minutes for $20, 600 minute plans as low as $5/month. But then again, preparing a small densly populated city for a new telecommunications network is a lot easier and less costly than preparing a large predominantly suburban nation for the same.
Simple business. If the consumer is willing to pay the long distance charges, why should Disney?
I don't know about you, but I will take my children to a Disney theme park. Sure, I'm contributing to a corporate money-making machine, but a few bucks on long distance charges that I shouldn't have to pay isn't enough to put me off. If only you'd seen the look on my 6-year-olds face as Mickey was signing him an autograph in Anaheim. Or the look on mine when I did the same some years ago.
I haven't bought an RIAA CD in over 2 years. But I'm not going to deprive my children of entertainment I think is worth the price. I continue to see Hollywood produced blockbusters, albeit usually on DVD, because I think the entertainment is worth the price. Shoddy business practices aside, I enjoy the entertainment. The MPAA is not teaching me business ethics, nor is Disney teaching my son the same. They are providing me with entertainment.
Some things should be taken at face value.
Re:Naturally it IS price fixing
on
LCD Price Fixing?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
this is simple free-market economics.
firms in an oligopoly (when a handful of large firms hold a very large percentage of market share amoungst them) cannot compete on price.
sure, one LCD manufacturer could sell an LCD for $100 and still turn in abnormal profits, but this only means the other firms will meet their price--which means less profit for everybody. official cartels are illegal, but price is pretty much set by the first firm to enter the market, other firms know to price similarly to maximise profit.
because firms in oligopoly cannot compete with one another with price, they must compete with other non-price related things, such as improving their quality, advertising, new features, etc. this is how you see LCD companies competing.
coca-cola could drop their prices to $2/12pack while still making profits, but as pepsi would follow suit, both companies would be making less abnormal profits. hardly makes sense for either. a firm may choose to do this, however, to drive a competing smaller firm out of business, creating a monopoly for itself, so it could then raise prices to higher-than-ever levels. this is known as predator pricing.
a cartel, that is, when firms get together and agree on a price, is illegal. when market forces guide market equilibrium in oligopolistic competition, no legal faux pas has occured.
price discrimation allows firms to maximise profits selling products in two markets that respond differently to price changes (different price elasticities of demand). in order for firms to price discriminate, a buyer must be unable to sell a good he has bought in one market in the other. for example, firms can price childrens clothing and adult clothing differently as both markets respond differently to changes in price, and goods bought in one market cannot be sold in the other.
since there would have been nothing to stop a buyer selling one good in the other market in the case of dvds, the dvd-makers needed to create an artificial barrier, the region coding. this allows them to benefit by pricing goods appropriately to maximise profits in each market, lower prices in a price elastic market, and higher prices in a price inelastic market.
i apologise, its been years since i've studied microeconomics, but it goes something like that.
i personally think limiting choice is the ultimate sin, however i think many of you are missing the point in this proposed legislation.
i haven't been following this situation closely, but i do not believe this to be an anti-MS lobby nor a promotion for open source software. security is a primary concern for any government, and this is where i believe open source software provides the biggest advantage--you know exactly what you are getting. although we all dismissed the chinese allegations of backdoors in windows as absurd, although cynical of me, there is nothing to stop a closed sourced piece of software from doing something like that. you are putting a great deal of trust in the software company, trust that i believe governments shouldn't give.
in a say, MS vs Linux choice, many may choose the former because they are already more familiar with it... and it only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch.
there are many other security advantages of OSS over closed source, i'm sure some of you are far more imaginative than myself.
i can see why governments may consider this for security, and perhaps compatibility issues, but i dont think this is a good idea from an economic standpoint.
this is certainly an issue worthy of debate, but as i am a hong kong resident myself, the article is somewhat misleading
when purchasing, yes, "purchasing" an octopus card, you are required to present no identification whatsoever, unless you wish to purchase a student octopus card, in which case you must produce a valid hong kong student card, no details of which are recorded.
you do have the option, however, to purchase an octopus card with a photograph of yourself on the back. these are more expensive, and i personally see no benefits of this other than the feel-good factor, and possibly to circumvent theft of octopus cards, which is becoming a growing problem, particularly amoungst students.
octopus cards are now very widely accepted in hong kong. everybody is expected to have one, and although it is not required in any circumstances, just about everybody has one. you can use your octopus for slightly discounted MTR (hong kong's widely used subway system) fares, its original intended purpose, and today to pay fares on just about all buses, ferries, as well as today a large number of 7-11s and McDonald's restaurants. using the octopus card is just a matter of placing it over a sensor, and refilling it is just a matter of handing your card and a couple of hundred bucks to a 7-11 storeclerk.
however, every purchase is recorded on a hong kong central network, and any MTR customer service staff, 7-11 store clerk, and McDonald's trainee can view your entire spending history by simply placing your card on the reader and hitting a diagnostics button--and it is not uncommon for them to do so.
I would much prefer to see them improve the ease of browsing their cache. Specifically, if a cached site is 404, then present a cached version of the site where all clicks within the site simply link to the cached version, unlike today where all clicks are native (and therefore lead to more 404's). Granted that wouldn't be of any use for links to dynamic pages, but anything is better than what they have today.
so in other words, you want google to mirror the entire world wide web? am i the only person that finds that impractical/unethical/debatebly legal/the other gazillion reasons slashdot listed for linking to articles instead of posting them?
Slashdot Mirror
This would be a monopolistic situation if Apple had 98% market share
A monopoly, as defined in the United States, is having greater than 25% market share in any particular market. Whether the iPod holds this sort of market share cannot be confirmed as we don't know the scope of the market.
That said, holding a monopoly is not illegal. What would be illegal is if Apple were to use this monopoly as leverage to gain an unfair advantage in another market. Apple is not doing this. Microsoft did.
Free iPod
They did find the playstation 2 though.
Leave your playstation at home. At university, the only time you will spend playing it is time you should be spending doing something else.
If you're not at class, studying, or involved in social activities, you should be sleeping.
Start plastering "FREE KATIE.COM" stickers everywhere!
She wants to be left alone, not to raise awareness or gain publicity.
Why go to such lengths; didn't they catch someone last year using only simple watermarking? Is there any conclusive evidence that the academy members are responsible for enough piracy to make this worthwhile?
Carmine Caridi, an Academy member and acting veteran, was caught sending tapes to a man he said he thought was a film buff, who had been redistributing them on the internet.
Theres an AP story that's a little shy on technical details, but the watermarks were how this was uncovered.
Highly informative post. While hoping not to stray too far off topic, just wanted to add a little bit. While the British lease on "Hong Kong" (like you said, Kowloon, in particular all that was north of the Yau Ma Tei/Prince Edward area) was set to expire, the British wanted to keep the land permanently, but were faced by strong Chinese opposition, who essentially said they would build another Berlin wall dividing their land and Hong Kong Island, which would severely cripple the regions infrastructure, and essentially ruin the lives of all those living in Hong Kong. The British gave China their land to prevent this from happening, for the sake of all those living in Hong Kong, and to allow Hong Kong to remain on its track to prosperity as a port and hub to greater China. They did so, however, under a compromise that would force China to promise Hong Kong Basic Law and Hong Kong's free market economy would remain unharmed for 50 years. July 1st, the anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to the Chinese, draws citywide protests, which the Chinese have cleverly embraced and encouraged residents to do the same, as a celebration of national pride, unity, and patriotism.
Actually, hyponatremia can be a direct result of ecstasy use.
One of the effects of ecstasy is that the user may lose the ability to monitor and control water levels in the body--so simply put, they do not know how much water they have or need. As a result, the two most prevalent causes of death as a result of ecstasy usage are heatstroke (severe overheating, and not enough water) and drinking too much (hyponatremia).
Hong Kong is one of the safest cities in the world.
As a Hong Kong resident I can tell you I would have absolutely no reservations whatsoever about letting my 13 year old daughter roam the streets of even the darkest parts of HK at 3am alone. The only crime here is organised (not that that's acceptable), but the streets are absolutely safe.
This robot cop is to be used primarily to educate youths on crime and the dangers of joining triad rings, not to actually fight crime RoboCop-style.
Hutchison Global Communications, a Hong Kong based telecommunications company and ISP, has been offering broadband internet access to Hong Kong residents over their power lines for over a year now.
At downstream bandwidth upwards of 1.5mbits (and infrastructure to cater to upgrades of up to 10mbits) and at a cost of less than US$18/month, the service has been quite successful thus far, and as a subscriber, I cannot recall a single outage due to problems with the power lines (and not trouble at their network centres or regularly scheduled maintenance operations).
While hoping not to stray too off-topic, I've had a small experience with Sprint PCS quite recently.
As an extremely dissatisfied Sprint PCS customer (service was terrible in my area) I was looking for any way to break free from my contract, which I was unable to do a number of months without paying a $150 cancellation fee.
Upon receiving a notice from Sprint PCS that they would start charging for the previously free-of-charge service that allowed you to check your airtime usage from your phone, I called them and asked that my contract be terminated immediately as these were not the terms I had agreed to at the time I signed the contract. They offered me a better deal in an attempt to convince me stay with their service, which I declined, and happily closed my accout.
I advised my friends who were also hoping to leave their Sprint PCS contracts to do the same when they started charging a "Number Portability Tax" (this too before it was implemented), and they encountered similar success.
IANAL, but it seems to me that should you wish to terminate your contract when they change the terms you have a very firm legal ground to stand on. Whether or not they can terminate the contract when they change the terms, however, is another story.
A lakh is 100,000, a measure of quantity.
1.5 lakh is 150,000.
Your mobile phone has nothing to do with number portability.
Phones in the places you have mentioned, such as Hong Kong, use GSM mobile phone networks, at either 800 MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz or 1900MHz. North America uses 1900MHz GSM networks, which are not used in many places elsewhere. In Europe and Asia, GSM phones are made dual band, that is, they are able to cater to 2 frequencies, the 2 common ones. A different (and oftentimes more expensive) phone is needed if you wish to use it in the US, a tri-band phone. GSM phones allow for the phone configurations to be interchangable by simply placing a different chip (SIM card) in the phone, provided by the phone company, which contains the necessary phone provider details. Switch provider and just switch your SIM card, and you're good to go.
However, North America's largest cellular phone providers have built digital networks that run on either CDMA or TDMA technology. So the main problem here is different providers use different phone technologies, so they will never be interchangable. CDMA and TDMA networks exist elsewhere in the world, including Hong Kong, but are slowly becoming obselete as they are replaced by the better GSM networks.
GSM networks do exist in North America. T-Mobile's network is GSM, AT&T offers GSM coverage in a few large cities.
As a result, places like Hong Kong have a much more competitive market. I have seen advertised 3000 minutes for $20, 600 minute plans as low as $5/month. But then again, preparing a small densly populated city for a new telecommunications network is a lot easier and less costly than preparing a large predominantly suburban nation for the same.
Simple business. If the consumer is willing to pay the long distance charges, why should Disney?
I don't know about you, but I will take my children to a Disney theme park. Sure, I'm contributing to a corporate money-making machine, but a few bucks on long distance charges that I shouldn't have to pay isn't enough to put me off. If only you'd seen the look on my 6-year-olds face as Mickey was signing him an autograph in Anaheim. Or the look on mine when I did the same some years ago.
I haven't bought an RIAA CD in over 2 years. But I'm not going to deprive my children of entertainment I think is worth the price. I continue to see Hollywood produced blockbusters, albeit usually on DVD, because I think the entertainment is worth the price. Shoddy business practices aside, I enjoy the entertainment. The MPAA is not teaching me business ethics, nor is Disney teaching my son the same. They are providing me with entertainment.
Some things should be taken at face value.
this is simple free-market economics.
firms in an oligopoly (when a handful of large firms hold a very large percentage of market share amoungst them) cannot compete on price.
sure, one LCD manufacturer could sell an LCD for $100 and still turn in abnormal profits, but this only means the other firms will meet their price--which means less profit for everybody. official cartels are illegal, but price is pretty much set by the first firm to enter the market, other firms know to price similarly to maximise profit.
because firms in oligopoly cannot compete with one another with price, they must compete with other non-price related things, such as improving their quality, advertising, new features, etc. this is how you see LCD companies competing.
coca-cola could drop their prices to $2/12pack while still making profits, but as pepsi would follow suit, both companies would be making less abnormal profits. hardly makes sense for either. a firm may choose to do this, however, to drive a competing smaller firm out of business, creating a monopoly for itself, so it could then raise prices to higher-than-ever levels. this is known as predator pricing.
a cartel, that is, when firms get together and agree on a price, is illegal. when market forces guide market equilibrium in oligopolistic competition, no legal faux pas has occured.
simple economic theory of price discrimination.
price discrimation allows firms to maximise profits selling products in two markets that respond differently to price changes (different price elasticities of demand). in order for firms to price discriminate, a buyer must be unable to sell a good he has bought in one market in the other. for example, firms can price childrens clothing and adult clothing differently as both markets respond differently to changes in price, and goods bought in one market cannot be sold in the other.
since there would have been nothing to stop a buyer selling one good in the other market in the case of dvds, the dvd-makers needed to create an artificial barrier, the region coding. this allows them to benefit by pricing goods appropriately to maximise profits in each market, lower prices in a price elastic market, and higher prices in a price inelastic market.
i apologise, its been years since i've studied microeconomics, but it goes something like that.
i personally think limiting choice is the ultimate sin, however i think many of you are missing the point in this proposed legislation.
i haven't been following this situation closely, but i do not believe this to be an anti-MS lobby nor a promotion for open source software. security is a primary concern for any government, and this is where i believe open source software provides the biggest advantage--you know exactly what you are getting. although we all dismissed the chinese allegations of backdoors in windows as absurd, although cynical of me, there is nothing to stop a closed sourced piece of software from doing something like that. you are putting a great deal of trust in the software company, trust that i believe governments shouldn't give.
in a say, MS vs Linux choice, many may choose the former because they are already more familiar with it... and it only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch.
there are many other security advantages of OSS over closed source, i'm sure some of you are far more imaginative than myself.
i can see why governments may consider this for security, and perhaps compatibility issues, but i dont think this is a good idea from an economic standpoint.
I feel like I should be able to be logged in at msdn.microsoft.com using my work/business hotmail account,
;)
work/business hotmail account? wow, there's something you would have expected on slashdot
this is certainly an issue worthy of debate, but as i am a hong kong resident myself, the article is somewhat misleading
when purchasing, yes, "purchasing" an octopus card, you are required to present no identification whatsoever, unless you wish to purchase a student octopus card, in which case you must produce a valid hong kong student card, no details of which are recorded.
you do have the option, however, to purchase an octopus card with a photograph of yourself on the back. these are more expensive, and i personally see no benefits of this other than the feel-good factor, and possibly to circumvent theft of octopus cards, which is becoming a growing problem, particularly amoungst students.
octopus cards are now very widely accepted in hong kong. everybody is expected to have one, and although it is not required in any circumstances, just about everybody has one. you can use your octopus for slightly discounted MTR (hong kong's widely used subway system) fares, its original intended purpose, and today to pay fares on just about all buses, ferries, as well as today a large number of 7-11s and McDonald's restaurants. using the octopus card is just a matter of placing it over a sensor, and refilling it is just a matter of handing your card and a couple of hundred bucks to a 7-11 storeclerk.
however, every purchase is recorded on a hong kong central network, and any MTR customer service staff, 7-11 store clerk, and McDonald's trainee can view your entire spending history by simply placing your card on the reader and hitting a diagnostics button--and it is not uncommon for them to do so.
I would much prefer to see them improve the ease of browsing their cache. Specifically, if a cached site is 404, then present a cached version of the site where all clicks within the site simply link to the cached version, unlike today where all clicks are native (and therefore lead to more 404's). Granted that wouldn't be of any use for links to dynamic pages, but anything is better than what they have today.
so in other words, you want google to mirror the entire world wide web? am i the only person that finds that impractical/unethical/debatebly legal/the other gazillion reasons slashdot listed for linking to articles instead of posting them?