"It seems unfair that Davis needs a majority of votes to remain in office, but a replacement candidate could be selected by a plurality. It is possible, and quite likely, that Davis will be voted out with 60% or fewer votes. That would mean 40% or more voters essentially voted for Davis, but he would not be the winner, one of the 400+ other candidates on the ballot would and in all liklihood that candidate will have received far fewer than 40% of the votes. "
That 40%, if it exists, has the option to vote for an alternative candidate, even though they voted no on the recall effort.
"The truth is, even with the billions in painful cuts already made, California is unable to make the cuts necessary to truly balance the budget. This situation is not new; Republican Governor Pete Wilson faced similarly staggering budget problems when he took office over a decade ago. His solution was to not only cut spending, but to increase revenues by raising rates on the top tax bracket by about one percent. Like Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr., Wilson raised rates on top brackets and the economy soared. He recognized what an impediment to economic recovery the budget crisis was, and stayed honest with Californians about the decisions that had to be made."
Currently, the wealthies people pay the highest percentage of their income in taxes. Yet your solution to the budget crisis seems to be to tax these people even more? Why do you feel it is ethical to unfairly tax the most productive members of Califoria society, to solve California's budget problems, but are unwilling to make the average person take some responsibility for providing tax revenue for service rendered by California govt. for all Californians? As a practical matter, do you think this solution will drive these people away from California, and create an even greater budget problem, rather than solving it?
"We deserve better than rich businessmen and career politicians trading money for power and power for money. Successful leadership is founded on trust. The time has come to restore that trust, and work together to repair this government! "
Your quote implies leigislation is largely bought by businessmen. However, Davis has been accused of being a puppet of labor unions, enacting anti-business legislation that is driving business away from California. Do you intend to continue this trend, and if so, how will this affect the budget as more businesses leave California, reducing tax revenue?
What your cited article fails to mention is that the money microsft deducts to bring their tax liability to 0 is paid for by Microsoft's employees when they exercise their stock options. So the govt. still gets their money, but from MS employees taking a gamble on MS stcok options, instead of MS. BTW, MS stopped giving out stock options recently, so this is a non-issue currently.
http://www.fool.com/portfolios/rulemaker/2000/rule maker000217.htm
"I think governments funding OSS projects that benefits the governments are no worse (or better, for that sake) than you contributing to the OSS projects that you benefit from..."
OSS software isn't all good software. Linux is great, but there's a lot of horrible stuff out there. By putting the govt. in charge of sw development, you are destroying sw competiton in your country, since the risk of competing against sw that is free (as in beer) is too high. Therefore, the lack of competiton causes innovation to stagnate. Linux is good because the people who work on it care about it. People developing Sw on a govt. salary won't likely care. My response for the US was a quick answer, but even without the tax issues, it's a big mistake to destroy competiton in the sw industry by nationalizing software.
"The government shouldn't support museums or fund artist either? Not! "
Many would argue they shouldn't, especially when ou see what kind of art your tax dollar is supporting. Those that support govts. donating to museums can at least argue it's important to preserve history. Software is a tool, however, and claiming donating to sw is somehow a necessity for human culture is a stretch at best. Maybe sw is your passion, but everyone has a passion and it's not the govt's job to support people's interests.
"What you are arguing is that the govt should put the rights of corporations above the rights of individuals. A small group of people have choosen to create Free Software. Why should that group not be encouraged and supported. Why must government only encourage greed?
"
A corporation is simply a group of individuals asking for the right to free trade, which is a basic right of people, they're not asking for govt handouts (or at least shouldn't be). A govt. should encourage greed because channeled into productive work by people who respect the right of others, it has done more good for the human race than altruism ever has.
"I do think that the original example it too biased toward Free Software. [I have a post below] I do think that free projects should be given some support, with equal access to the code for free and corporate interests. Although, I would encourage sponsorship of projects too eccentric or narrow to be of commercial interest. I would like to see and analog to PBS or NEA where already successful projects can get "help" for improvement, or where independant minds can develop ideas and give them to the public outright."
A person does not have the right to demand the result of someone elses labor. You seem to think this is a basic right. An independent mind understands that he can't demand that someone gives him what he needs to be independent using the force of govt. And if you think govt handouts will make someone more independent, you are mistaken. He will turn into a beggar, grovelling before the whims of some elected offcial placed in charge of our tax dollars earmarked for this campaign.
"The govenment has already stuck it's nose into the "free" market by allowing monopolies of copyright and patent. What about the huge tax credits for developing "accessable" software and "healthcare" software..the benificaries are huge corps, not hte little people. What about defence contractors paid to develop stuff. Then paid again to build it...and again with patents? Why can't little people be paid to just create stuff he wants to give away to everyone? Why only mega-corps that take our tax money and then outsource the production overseas?"
Free market cannot exist without govt. Anarchy allows the violation of basic human rights through theft. Calling copyright of a book a monopoly is silly. An author is competing against every other author. Especially with today's technology, the cost of reproduction is low compared to the cost of creation. Therefore, allowing anyone to copy someones work is no better than letting someone steal your merchadise. Either way, your net assets have been reduced, and the incentive to find a new profession becomes greater. As for tax credits, I agree with you. There should be a simple flat tax, with no credits for investing, buying a house, having kids, etc. BTW, mega corporations that make a profit pay taxes, they don't receive taxes. Only companies losing money get away without paying taxes if their lawyers are good, and even then they pay payroll tax. As for paying a contractor for defense, that the govts job, to protect it's citizens rights from foreign invaders. I have no problem with the govt spending money on software for it's own needs, but it has no right propping up free software just because citizens think they have a right to free software at the expense of the tax payer.
"What you want is a "product" and not a "service". What you're asking for is for the government to provide free every product which does "good for the public". This would include, soap, laundry detergent, deoderant (heh), cars, bikes, clothes, scissors, pens, pencils, paper, toilet paper, paper clips, computers, books, magazines (aka toilet paper), etc etc (you get my point).
No, the question is asking whether the government should fund the development of software that's freely available for the public good. There's a big difference between providing copy-able bits and providing physical products. You're drawing an unwarranted parallel between a single government program and full-scale socialism."
The parent's example are much more basic necessities than software. Why do you think taxpayers should pay programmers for software put have to shell out their own money for soap? If you want to make the US a socialist country, I'd think you'd put soap before software?
Most libertarians would argue that roads and libraries should not be forced on taxpayers, but privitized. This idea is just 1 more step away from captialism, towards communism.
The reason we have public roads is that someone in government decided government was more capable of managing roads than private owners. This point is debatable as any true libertarian will tell you. In the end, if there are potholes in the road, your only recourse is to beg the city to fix it. By having govt. fund software, you are removing the incentive for companies to compete in producing software since it's hard to compete with no cost software. Therefore, if you want new software in this new system, or need modifications, you'll need to go beg the govt. to fund it, because it's too risky for a company to do it when the govt will write a free version sooner or later. The result, a lot of crappy software with no real motivation for fixing it because the programmers are there because they are paid, not because they want to be there, as is now the case with OSS. There is no more competition to drive innovation, and software stagnates.
If something is funded privately, the people making the dicision are doing it with their own money. If the govt is funding a project, they are using taxpayer money, and better have a damn good reason for spending it, not just because some people don't want to pay companies for software.
A government should NOT use taxpayer money to support free software beyond fees to actually use the software. It is a direct infringement on a basic freedom to force a taxpayer to subsidize free software. Services such as a police department and court system are necessary govt functions which are required to protect an individual's freedom. A person has no basic right to free software, however, and no person should have to pay so that someone else can get free software. Once a government points a gun at me and tells me I must pay to support free software, that government is stealing the product of my labor and giving it to others who have no right to it. If people want to right software, and give away the source, they have the right to do so. They have no right to demand that tax payers support this effort, however, and to do so is a step towards communism, which places the imagined rights of the collective above the rights of an individual.
" Using your theory, the person who spent hours laboring trying to develop the universal joint wouldn't be able to apply for a patent. After all, he just took a bunch of gears and stuff (which he didn't invent) and threw in some joint parts and an axle (which he didn't invent) and called it new."
I agree. I guess your counterexample illustrates how hard it is to quantify what seem "intuitively obvious" about what constitutes the difference between a frivolous patent and a legitimate invention.
I'm not trying to say whether or not the SCO case has merit. My only point is that no one knows for sure, and this case may force SCO to show in public the evidence, which is what everyone is asking for. The case is different than the German case because SCO is simply stalling there by giving in to Suse and shutting their mouth there for now. If things go well for them in the US, they'll be back there using the same tactics.
It seems like a lot of people are filing patents that simply combine 2 or more already existing technologies. This case is basically a patent combining online auction with online purchase, two separate things that the patent owner didn't invent, but simply called the combination his invention. Then there's the RIM case where NTP patented sending email over a wireless device. NTP invented neither email or wireless devices. There's also a guy trying to sue people for compression in streaming video, who didn't invent either streaming video or compression. It seems to me a patent that talks about combining 2 technologies in a vaugue way is not fair. All you're doing is patenting an application of an existing technology. It seems unfair to be able to restrict the use of a technology for which you don't own the patent by coming up with a specific application of the technology and patenting it. For instance, if I owned the patent for a streaming video system, and someone came along and sued me because I decided to use compression technology to stream the video, they're limiting what I can do with my own invention.
"They still were. Them happening to be right about him being a criminal doesn't excuse it. If you have all kinds of secrets from the people who are supposed to ostensibly be your boss (We, the people, remember?) you have to expect them to get really cranky and upset with you. The FBI had no business being so secretive about it all."
One conspirator is still at large. There are reasons for secrecy, one being not to tip off co-conspirators that you're on to them.
"But no, its IMHO, more like someone sells you a TV, you watch it, then find out its stolen, so give it back and buy a new TV from a store. I doubt you'd be convicted, however the guy that sold you the TV and had knowlege of it being stolen (IBM, allegedly), could be."
Yes, but what if your business depends on this code and you're unwilling to give it back. That's what SCO is banking on. They want to license the doce to businesses in this predicament. So, by not telling you what code is infringing, there is no way to create a replacement that is devoid of SCO IP, and therefore it is not in SCO's interest to tell anyone which code is theirs.
1. Windows is not a monopoly. The existance of Linux refutes this claim. If you try to to refute this, good luck. The law is so vague (in the US anyway) that the definition is left to the whim of a judge.
2. Do you really want the govt. to dictate what defines a software product? What happens if Linux becomes the dominant OS? Do you really want to deal with lawsuits by the govt telling Red Hat they can't bundle xanim or mozilla because it's anticompetitve. The SCO case is bad enough. You're just setting yourselves up to get screwed in the future if you give the govt this power.
"And you are a troll. IE used to be sold as a separate product until Microsoft decided it would be better to offer it for free (mainly to get rid of Netscape). It didn't become integrated into Windows until the 98 version and even then integration wasn't thorough."
Actually, IE was bundled with NT4 and sold as part of the 95Plus package. It was never sold as a stand-alone product. Netscape, on the other hand gave their product away until it was popular, then started chanrging for it, and later gave up on charging when people decided they'd rather use IE for free.
Rambus probably makes a lot of their money from DDR patents that they got into the standard without telling anyone they patented the tech. They went out and sued all the major RAm vendors after DDR ramped up.
"With that and the fact that they almost certainly have a rock solid case, the fact is they should sue the shit out of SCO."
Actually, they probably have no idea whether or not SCO has a case. This move is good, however, because it forces SCO to show their cards, like calling someone in poker to see if he's bluffing.
"I'm not sure that I agree that piracy is the reason for all of the music industry woes - I think creativity also has something to do with it,"
This statement is woefully ignorant. Rock, for the last 4 decdes has had it's share of good music and crap. If you complain about Britney Spears and Eminem today, consider KC and the Sunshine Band and the Bee Gee in the '70s, Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, and New Kids on the block in the '80s, etc. To blame lost sales on lack of creativity that started abruptly in 2000 is laughable. I've seen this lame arguement from the/. crowd before, but didn't expect it from an editor.
You got the cause and effect backwards. Less cds are being produced because less cds are being purchased. The fact that concert ticket sales are way up shows that the money is being spent elsewhere. The most likely reason is that more people are pirating music and spending the money they used to spend on cds on concert tickets. Note that more released cds between 2001 and 2002 did NOT increase cd sales in that period. So your insinuation that less cds being produced is resulting in less cds sold appears false. If people continue pirating music, they should expect less cds to be release proportional to the rate of piracy. It's simple supply and demand economics. If the demand is lower, the supply will be lowered to mitigate risk.
"Well, lets see, RIAA sets up a cartel, overcharges for CDs (and still does), gets convicted for it"
It's a sad world when you can be prosecuted for setting a price for something that someone thinks is too high. The basic problem is that people have a lack of respect for other people's property. Your explanantion is like when people used complex geometry to explain how the stars revolved around the earth, completely missing the obvious explanantion.
Slashdot Mirror
"It seems unfair that Davis needs a majority of votes to remain in office, but a replacement candidate could be selected by a plurality. It is possible, and quite likely, that Davis will be voted out with 60% or fewer votes. That would mean 40% or more voters essentially voted for Davis, but he would not be the winner, one of the 400+ other candidates on the ballot would and in all liklihood that candidate will have received far fewer than 40% of the votes. "
That 40%, if it exists, has the option to vote for an alternative candidate, even though they voted no on the recall effort.
"The truth is, even with the billions in painful cuts already made, California is unable to make the cuts necessary to truly balance the budget. This situation is not new; Republican Governor Pete Wilson faced similarly staggering budget problems when he took office over a decade ago. His solution was to not only cut spending, but to increase revenues by raising rates on the top tax bracket by about one percent. Like Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr., Wilson raised rates on top brackets and the economy soared. He recognized what an impediment to economic recovery the budget crisis was, and stayed honest with Californians about the decisions that had to be made."
Currently, the wealthies people pay the highest percentage of their income in taxes. Yet your solution to the budget crisis seems to be to tax these people even more? Why do you feel it is ethical to unfairly tax the most productive members of Califoria society, to solve California's budget problems, but are unwilling to make the average person take some responsibility for providing tax revenue for service rendered by California govt. for all Californians? As a practical matter, do you think this solution will drive these people away from California, and create an even greater budget problem, rather than solving it?
"We deserve better than rich businessmen and career politicians trading money for power and power for money. Successful leadership is founded on trust. The time has come to restore that trust, and work together to repair this government! "
Your quote implies leigislation is largely bought by businessmen. However, Davis has been accused of being a puppet of labor unions, enacting anti-business legislation that is driving business away from California. Do you intend to continue this trend, and if so, how will this affect the budget as more businesses leave California, reducing tax revenue?
What your cited article fails to mention is that the money microsft deducts to bring their tax liability to 0 is paid for by Microsoft's employees when they exercise their stock options. So the govt. still gets their money, but from MS employees taking a gamble on MS stcok options, instead of MS. BTW, MS stopped giving out stock options recently, so this is a non-issue currently.e maker000217.htm
http://www.fool.com/portfolios/rulemaker/2000/rul
"I think governments funding OSS projects that benefits the governments are no worse (or better, for that sake) than you contributing to the OSS projects that you benefit from..."
OSS software isn't all good software. Linux is great, but there's a lot of horrible stuff out there. By putting the govt. in charge of sw development, you are destroying sw competiton in your country, since the risk of competing against sw that is free (as in beer) is too high. Therefore, the lack of competiton causes innovation to stagnate. Linux is good because the people who work on it care about it. People developing Sw on a govt. salary won't likely care. My response for the US was a quick answer, but even without the tax issues, it's a big mistake to destroy competiton in the sw industry by nationalizing software.
"The government shouldn't support museums or fund artist either? Not! "
Many would argue they shouldn't, especially when ou see what kind of art your tax dollar is supporting. Those that support govts. donating to museums can at least argue it's important to preserve history. Software is a tool, however, and claiming donating to sw is somehow a necessity for human culture is a stretch at best. Maybe sw is your passion, but everyone has a passion and it's not the govt's job to support people's interests.
"What you are arguing is that the govt should put the rights of corporations above the rights of individuals. A small group of people have choosen to create Free Software. Why should that group not be encouraged and supported. Why must government only encourage greed? "
A corporation is simply a group of individuals asking for the right to free trade, which is a basic right of people, they're not asking for govt handouts (or at least shouldn't be). A govt. should encourage greed because channeled into productive work by people who respect the right of others, it has done more good for the human race than altruism ever has.
"I do think that the original example it too biased toward Free Software. [I have a post below] I do think that free projects should be given some support, with equal access to the code for free and corporate interests. Although, I would encourage sponsorship of projects too eccentric or narrow to be of commercial interest. I would like to see and analog to PBS or NEA where already successful projects can get "help" for improvement, or where independant minds can develop ideas and give them to the public outright."
A person does not have the right to demand the result of someone elses labor. You seem to think this is a basic right. An independent mind understands that he can't demand that someone gives him what he needs to be independent using the force of govt. And if you think govt handouts will make someone more independent, you are mistaken. He will turn into a beggar, grovelling before the whims of some elected offcial placed in charge of our tax dollars earmarked for this campaign.
"The govenment has already stuck it's nose into the "free" market by allowing monopolies of copyright and patent. What about the huge tax credits for developing "accessable" software and "healthcare" software..the benificaries are huge corps, not hte little people. What about defence contractors paid to develop stuff. Then paid again to build it...and again with patents? Why can't little people be paid to just create stuff he wants to give away to everyone? Why only mega-corps that take our tax money and then outsource the production overseas?"
Free market cannot exist without govt. Anarchy allows the violation of basic human rights through theft. Calling copyright of a book a monopoly is silly. An author is competing against every other author. Especially with today's technology, the cost of reproduction is low compared to the cost of creation. Therefore, allowing anyone to copy someones work is no better than letting someone steal your merchadise. Either way, your net assets have been reduced, and the incentive to find a new profession becomes greater. As for tax credits, I agree with you. There should be a simple flat tax, with no credits for investing, buying a house, having kids, etc. BTW, mega corporations that make a profit pay taxes, they don't receive taxes. Only companies losing money get away without paying taxes if their lawyers are good, and even then they pay payroll tax. As for paying a contractor for defense, that the govts job, to protect it's citizens rights from foreign invaders. I have no problem with the govt spending money on software for it's own needs, but it has no right propping up free software just because citizens think they have a right to free software at the expense of the tax payer.
The govt. gets more tax revenue from MS alone than they spend on all the software they use.
"What you want is a "product" and not a "service". What you're asking for is for the government to provide free every product which does "good for the public". This would include, soap, laundry detergent, deoderant (heh), cars, bikes, clothes, scissors, pens, pencils, paper, toilet paper, paper clips, computers, books, magazines (aka toilet paper), etc etc (you get my point). No, the question is asking whether the government should fund the development of software that's freely available for the public good. There's a big difference between providing copy-able bits and providing physical products. You're drawing an unwarranted parallel between a single government program and full-scale socialism."
The parent's example are much more basic necessities than software. Why do you think taxpayers should pay programmers for software put have to shell out their own money for soap? If you want to make the US a socialist country, I'd think you'd put soap before software?
" Should "everyone" have access to the derived works? Apparently you don't think so, but many disagree."
Of everyone should not have access to derived works. The govt. work is public domain. Derived works are not public domain.
Most libertarians would argue that roads and libraries should not be forced on taxpayers, but privitized. This idea is just 1 more step away from captialism, towards communism.
The reason we have public roads is that someone in government decided government was more capable of managing roads than private owners. This point is debatable as any true libertarian will tell you. In the end, if there are potholes in the road, your only recourse is to beg the city to fix it. By having govt. fund software, you are removing the incentive for companies to compete in producing software since it's hard to compete with no cost software. Therefore, if you want new software in this new system, or need modifications, you'll need to go beg the govt. to fund it, because it's too risky for a company to do it when the govt will write a free version sooner or later. The result, a lot of crappy software with no real motivation for fixing it because the programmers are there because they are paid, not because they want to be there, as is now the case with OSS. There is no more competition to drive innovation, and software stagnates.
If something is funded privately, the people making the dicision are doing it with their own money. If the govt is funding a project, they are using taxpayer money, and better have a damn good reason for spending it, not just because some people don't want to pay companies for software.
A government should NOT use taxpayer money to support free software beyond fees to actually use the software. It is a direct infringement on a basic freedom to force a taxpayer to subsidize free software. Services such as a police department and court system are necessary govt functions which are required to protect an individual's freedom. A person has no basic right to free software, however, and no person should have to pay so that someone else can get free software. Once a government points a gun at me and tells me I must pay to support free software, that government is stealing the product of my labor and giving it to others who have no right to it. If people want to right software, and give away the source, they have the right to do so. They have no right to demand that tax payers support this effort, however, and to do so is a step towards communism, which places the imagined rights of the collective above the rights of an individual.
" Using your theory, the person who spent hours laboring trying to develop the universal joint wouldn't be able to apply for a patent. After all, he just took a bunch of gears and stuff (which he didn't invent) and threw in some joint parts and an axle (which he didn't invent) and called it new."
I agree. I guess your counterexample illustrates how hard it is to quantify what seem "intuitively obvious" about what constitutes the difference between a frivolous patent and a legitimate invention.
I'm not trying to say whether or not the SCO case has merit. My only point is that no one knows for sure, and this case may force SCO to show in public the evidence, which is what everyone is asking for. The case is different than the German case because SCO is simply stalling there by giving in to Suse and shutting their mouth there for now. If things go well for them in the US, they'll be back there using the same tactics.
It seems like a lot of people are filing patents that simply combine 2 or more already existing technologies. This case is basically a patent combining online auction with online purchase, two separate things that the patent owner didn't invent, but simply called the combination his invention. Then there's the RIM case where NTP patented sending email over a wireless device. NTP invented neither email or wireless devices. There's also a guy trying to sue people for compression in streaming video, who didn't invent either streaming video or compression. It seems to me a patent that talks about combining 2 technologies in a vaugue way is not fair. All you're doing is patenting an application of an existing technology. It seems unfair to be able to restrict the use of a technology for which you don't own the patent by coming up with a specific application of the technology and patenting it. For instance, if I owned the patent for a streaming video system, and someone came along and sued me because I decided to use compression technology to stream the video, they're limiting what I can do with my own invention.
"They still were. Them happening to be right about him being a criminal doesn't excuse it. If you have all kinds of secrets from the people who are supposed to ostensibly be your boss (We, the people, remember?) you have to expect them to get really cranky and upset with you. The FBI had no business being so secretive about it all."
One conspirator is still at large. There are reasons for secrecy, one being not to tip off co-conspirators that you're on to them.
"But no, its IMHO, more like someone sells you a TV, you watch it, then find out its stolen, so give it back and buy a new TV from a store. I doubt you'd be convicted, however the guy that sold you the TV and had knowlege of it being stolen (IBM, allegedly), could be."
Yes, but what if your business depends on this code and you're unwilling to give it back. That's what SCO is banking on. They want to license the doce to businesses in this predicament. So, by not telling you what code is infringing, there is no way to create a replacement that is devoid of SCO IP, and therefore it is not in SCO's interest to tell anyone which code is theirs.
1. Windows is not a monopoly. The existance of Linux refutes this claim. If you try to to refute this, good luck. The law is so vague (in the US anyway) that the definition is left to the whim of a judge.
2. Do you really want the govt. to dictate what defines a software product? What happens if Linux becomes the dominant OS? Do you really want to deal with lawsuits by the govt telling Red Hat they can't bundle xanim or mozilla because it's anticompetitve. The SCO case is bad enough. You're just setting yourselves up to get screwed in the future if you give the govt this power.
"And you are a troll. IE used to be sold as a separate product until Microsoft decided it would be better to offer it for free (mainly to get rid of Netscape). It didn't become integrated into Windows until the 98 version and even then integration wasn't thorough."
Actually, IE was bundled with NT4 and sold as part of the 95Plus package. It was never sold as a stand-alone product. Netscape, on the other hand gave their product away until it was popular, then started chanrging for it, and later gave up on charging when people decided they'd rather use IE for free.
Rambus probably makes a lot of their money from DDR patents that they got into the standard without telling anyone they patented the tech. They went out and sued all the major RAm vendors after DDR ramped up.
"With that and the fact that they almost certainly have a rock solid case, the fact is they should sue the shit out of SCO."
Actually, they probably have no idea whether or not SCO has a case. This move is good, however, because it forces SCO to show their cards, like calling someone in poker to see if he's bluffing.
"I'm not sure that I agree that piracy is the reason for all of the music industry woes - I think creativity also has something to do with it,"
/. crowd before, but didn't expect it from an editor.
This statement is woefully ignorant. Rock, for the last 4 decdes has had it's share of good music and crap. If you complain about Britney Spears and Eminem today, consider KC and the Sunshine Band and the Bee Gee in the '70s, Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, and New Kids on the block in the '80s, etc. To blame lost sales on lack of creativity that started abruptly in 2000 is laughable. I've seen this lame arguement from the
You got the cause and effect backwards. Less cds are being produced because less cds are being purchased. The fact that concert ticket sales are way up shows that the money is being spent elsewhere. The most likely reason is that more people are pirating music and spending the money they used to spend on cds on concert tickets. Note that more released cds between 2001 and 2002 did NOT increase cd sales in that period. So your insinuation that less cds being produced is resulting in less cds sold appears false. If people continue pirating music, they should expect less cds to be release proportional to the rate of piracy. It's simple supply and demand economics. If the demand is lower, the supply will be lowered to mitigate risk.
"Well, lets see, RIAA sets up a cartel, overcharges for CDs (and still does), gets convicted for it"
It's a sad world when you can be prosecuted for setting a price for something that someone thinks is too high. The basic problem is that people have a lack of respect for other people's property. Your explanantion is like when people used complex geometry to explain how the stars revolved around the earth, completely missing the obvious explanantion.