"The USA doesn't do it that way, they do it the corporate fascist way. You know, like the Nazis"
Maybe as a general matter you are right, but I was talking strictly about this case, it looked communist to me.
Nevertheless... humm... Weren't those "Nazis" guys of you Captain America's arch-enemies? I know from Marvel that Captain America is All The Good America Represents, therefore Captain America's arch-enemies must be really nasty guys so... Let USA nuke the entire USA from orbit, it's the only way to be sure, after all!
"...what do they call it when you begin to blend government and business..."
Well, it really depends on the way they blend.
In this case it is the government seeding ownership for the means of production, therefore, "communism" is the word.
Wait... wasn't "communism" a rude word in USA? Weren't communists USA arch-enemies? Too high a danger. Maybe USA should nuke the entire DoD from orbit, it's the only way to be sure, after all.
"Copyright law is well established, and quite a few people depend on it for their livings."
Yes, I won't challenge that and I admit it would be rather unjust to just, say, repeal all copyright, patent, etc. related laws overnight: there's people that, say, became writers, or composers, on the implicit assumption that if they managed to do it, they could live on royalties the rest of their lives. I do believe in the value of stability of the justice system so any change in the statu quo should be done gradually.
"I'd suggest that the person trying to change a system answer questions about the proposed changes."
This I can't agree with. While, in general, it's sensible to require the one wanting to change things to be the one providing the arguments, anything related to the implicit social contract, specially the parts that means violence to the natural order of things, must be challenged by default and every day: "is this violence still answering to the goals we set for it?" In example: is still putting people in jail accomplishing the goals we set it for? Are taxes still working as expected? Are still patents/copyrights working as the best way we could apply to promote the progress of science and useful arts? And, these kind of laws being based on violence and against the natural order of things, the very moment the answer is "well, there're doubts", they should be abolished, in extreme cases even if nobody can provide a better alternative: for these kind of things, if we can't set the best action path, no action should be preferred*1.
"Your idea of property still looks nonstandard. If I lend someone my car, everybody will say that it still belongs to me"
Yes... on the legal sense. Not in any practical sense: you lent it; can you use it to drive to the mall? No, you can't. In order to make use of it, you need for the good to be *returned* (that is, practical property returned back to you): once the car is again really yours, you can make use of it. As I already said, current state of affairs *build up* from the very basic concept (we understand that lending a property doesn't mean neither perpetual nor complete abandon of rights over it -while you can't go to the mall with the car while the borrower can, the borrower still shouldn't sell the car, while the legal owner still is legally allowed to do it) but it still means what it means: if the borrower decides not to return the car, can you make use of it? You can't, right? And in order to put your hands over the good again you need to apply violence to its current (albeit illegal) owner -by yourself or using government as your proxy, right?
I know what I say looks nonstandard, but think about it for a moment: is it because I'm wrong, or is it because we people are very good at conflate the "that's how it should be" with the "that's how it really is"?
"It also obscures the difference between physical property and "intellectual property""
No, it doesn't obscure it: it makes brilliantly clear that physical and intellectual properties are such different beasts that there's no point in using the same substantive for both (unless you plan on taking advantage of this identification: as Nietzsche stated, language mummifies reality): whereas in physical property is obvious who the real practical owner of something is (the one that needs no violence to take benefit of the thing), once talking about intellectual property it is the alleged owner the one that needs violence over others to exert his right of property. That's against any kind of common sense for a reason.
"in that in both cases I'm calling on the legal system to enforce my rights. "
Not at all: while in the case of physical property you need violence to *restore* the situation to its legally accepted equilibrium (and violence is required to take it from its legally accepted equilibrium to start with), in the case of intellectual property, it is violence the only means *from the legit owner, nothing less* to set it to start with, while no violence i
"In general, businesses cannot pass all of their cost increases on to the consumer."
That's true as long as they are operating above the minimally acceptable profit margin (i.e.: if I make a single penny less, I'm better off buying German bonds -or moving to a different market niche) which means they are always transferring them towards the customer -because in a perfect market they should already be operating at that minimal profit level, it's only that the market the agent is operating in is not a perfect one and the customer is still paying above what they should, so the new cost is only eroding on that extra-margin.
"Do you understand that corporate income tax is computed on profits not revenue?"
Of course yes. And I also understand that you are playing the "True Scotsman" game. We were talking about "taxes" but you now insist in considering only "corporate income taxes" and even failing at that and (I start to think you do it on purpose) misunderstanding any argument thrown at your direction.
"Remember, after the 12.6% that companies pay in corporate income tax on their profits, they still have 87.4% of their profits left over."
Once again, so what!? Being 12.6% or 75.8%; being paid the day after the sell or twenty years later doesn't move an inch the basic premise that, one way or another, taxes end up entering the price equation along any other direct or indirect cost and that, as any other direct or indirect cost, they *must* be passed all the way onto the customer.
You seem to be fooled by the fact that many markets are not run under a stable perfect competition scenario so light variations on costs doesn't reflect in price, neither upwards, because profits are above the minimally bearable by the seller, nor downwards, because there not strong competition forcing it, but it doesn't mean they are not computed.
"A value added tax is computed during the manufacturing process, and prior to sale."
No, it isn't, since VAT does not depend on manufacturing costs but on selling price, and it is not previous to sale since only sale induces VAT.
"A corporate income tax is computed up to a year after the sale of the item."
So what? Do you think price policies are only set on the counter table while dealing with the customer? Do you really think that, in the hypothetical case of a single company liberated of corporate taxes in an otherwise highly competitive market, it would be unable to find a way to reflect that on its prices?
"As I said, if they could sell the item for 100 per unit, they already would be doing so."
Reread what I wrote because I think you understood it the other way around. The point is not to sell at 100 but that they need to sell at least at 121 or not sell at all if the market can't bear such a high price.
"Well, there's zero demand for Pentium II processors, so they must be really, really expensive."
You can test it for yourself: go buy a new one and then come back to tell us what's the price you ended paying for.
"You're conflating private equity investing with manufacturing. They are two different businesses."
No, I don't. You just think I do.
"does that also mean that the more demand there is for a product, the lower the price?"
Contrary to first glance common sense, yes: on the long run and barring monopolies, that's usually the case. Note that usual economics 101 offer/demand/price curves are for demand-inelastic, short-term markets while real markets are more times than not elastic sensible-to-demand ones. Please go draw yourself the demand/price curves along time for basically any successful electronic gadget on the last 40 years, from wrist-watches to tablets, and see what happens.
"We have copyright law, and it serves the purpose of allowing creators to be paid for what they actually have done. You find this to be politically impure, and you're right, but what do you propose to replace it? "
It is not me the one burdened to answer that question but the ones that pretend to make a life out of it.
But, nevertheless, it's obvious that there *are* ways to pay creators for their worthy creations since that's been the state of affairs for most of history. What if, for example, creators get paid for what they *do*, as it is the case for most workers, instead of paying for the use of that creation?
"Your idea of physical property is rather primitive, also."
Not my idea but my explanation. And of course it is: I already said it was "the very and most basic notion of proprietorship [...] Everything else builds upon this notion."
"My car is outside my immediate presence, for example [...] Is it your position that I don't actually own anything that's farther from my body than arm's reach?"
In fact you don't. Out of your "virtual arm" at least. If somebody takes your car, despite of all government warranties, do you still own it? Can you take it to go to the mall? No you can't. Even law, by calling it "illegal property", makes clear that properly stands with the one that can take benefit of the thing, as the most basic notion of property insures, and once the thief gets in hands of law enforcement agencies, violence (rightful violence, but violence nevertheless) will be needed for him to surrender his property in order to be returned to its legally legit owner, right like the most naive and basic notion of property will require.
You see, civilization obscures the "pure" basic concept under heavy books of law (as it should be, at least mostly: it's only logical that thinking about the basic notions of right and legal since at least the Roman Empire a lot of knowledge should arise and accumulate), but still, the basic notions arise here and there, at least in both corner and excessive cases: the penalty is not the same if somebody takes your wallet at the point of a gun or taking it out from a table on a pub where you forgot it because of the percieved violence degree required in each case (remember: other's property==the things you can't take control of without violence). Falkland Islands are still called Falkland and belong to UK instead of being called Malvinas belonging to Argentina because UK exerts their force upon the property to higher degree than Argentina (remember: my property==the things I can retain on my own power and will).
"Patent and copyright holders still need to recoup their development costs and be rewarded for their labour."
No, they don't. They *want* to recoup their costs but they do *not* deserve it. That's market forces to decide or else -again, I could claim you to pay for my farts, after all, I still need to recoup my development costs and be rewarded for my labout, right?
"Of course, patents and copyrights should exist, that is not the problem."
You are begging the question, ain't you? Of course, neither patents nor copyrights have existed for most of human history and that didn't stop the guy that invented the wheel, the one that wrote down the story of that son of Peleus that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans, or that Bounarroti Simoni that used to take statues out of stone blocks, but you still claim that patents and copyrights "should" exist.
"So, you're saying that the less demand there is for something, the more companies charge for it?"
That's exactly the case. There are many reasons for that, and it works between price boundaries dependant on market and product, but one of them is still that there's very little demand.
"It doesn't work that way. Companies don't start from a profit margin and work backwards."
Exactly this. Companies *do* start from profit margin and then work backwards. Surprised?
Everybody would naively think that when somebody thinks of a product, he would draw it on his mind, calculate its costs, then would add the desired minimum profit and then he would set a price this high or above. Reality is, things work the other way around: with the product in mind, the company would research the max price its target audience would pay, then it would take out the profit and then it would see what they can produce at that cost -everything included. If whatever it can produce at that cost is below the minimum viable product, then they would forget the idea.
"Corporate income tax does not add to the cost of the product being manufactured."
That's the only thing you said that's right. True: corporate taxes doesn't add to the product's cost. It still adds to its price. Note that I'm, as a consumer, I'm much more interested on product prices than costs.
In the end it is as simple as this: I'm a capitalist and I have some money to invest to get a profit in return. If I invest 100$ in your company, what will you return me in exchange at the end of the day? 101$? 110? I won't give a damn if you tell me "I'll return you 101$ but bear in mind that's because goverment took out 9$ in corporate taxes! weren't that the case, I'd give you 110$!" I still invest in the one that returns me 110$, no questions asked.
"Think about that list of costs you just enumerated. "raw materials, tooling, wages"...and taxes. If you think long enough you'll figure out how taxes are different.
I'll give you a hint: it has to do with time."
Exactly, how?
-Our analysis shows that our overall cost-per-unit is 90 and our net profit margin should be 10 (or else, our shareholders would buy insured national debt of country ZZZ, which renders 9 out of 90, instead of investing in our company), so we will sell for 100 per unit. -Sorry, Mr CEO, you forgot about VAT which, in our country is 21%. We should sell for 121 per unit, taxes included. -Are you stupid!? Those are taxes, damn taxes, I say. We will sell for 100 and we'll still take our 10 of benefit out of it. Didn't you read PopeRatzo or what?
"The only place you will still hear that "consumers pay all taxes" are from people with ideological opposition to taxes."
So you mean companies run at a loss? For long?
-Hey, our aggregate costs sum up X while our gross income is X-Y. -Oh, but there's no problem: delta X-Y are magic taxes! we don't need to care about them. Now, if our costs were salaries *then* we'd had a problem, but no, those checks are not to pay for wages, nor raw material, they are to pay taxes, so we can forget about them.
"So if I look for cars in garages that haven't been driven in a month, and I steal them, you have to prove that there was some actual loss of utility, not just a loss of property?"
The day you can take my car from the garage but still I can take my car from the garage whenever I want, you can come back with that argument. If you are honest, you need to think harder; if you are a troll, you already should know this kind of equivalence between physical and intellectual property is a no-go you need to avoid since... ages.
In the meantime, it's still apples to oranges.
"People paid him about $1,000,000 for movies illegally shown. That would seem to indicate at least $1,000,000 in actual loss."
No sir. *Advertisers* payed him 280.000 pounds for showing their adds on his web, which is something he did. Nobody paid to see the movies. So the only indication here is that advertisers are happy to pay 280.000 pounds to a site with as much traffic as the one operated by this guy, nothing more and nothing less.
"The court indicated it was about $12M in actual provable loss."
No sir. That was the claim from the prosecutor, which the judge happened to accept (but then, the accused already pleaded guilty so there's no much wonder about that). These loses to be real or not, are a different matter but my bet is that if we sum up all the claimed loses due to piracy from the likes of the RIAA they not only wouldn't earn a penny but that they even would owe some money to the pirates by the end of the day.
Of course yes: both patents and copyrights work under the same asumptions.
"Once it's "public" anyone should be able to copy it?"
Non sequitur. I never said anything like that about copyright.
What I said is that once it's public anyone *can* copy and that this is the natural affair of things and that in order for the people *not* to copy, you need to restrict their natural rights by means of force of law.
"Inherent rights? Are you serious? You could just as easily argue that you have an "inherent right" to your neighbor's stuff as long as you have the power to take it and keep it."
You have set yourself the very and most basic notion of proprietorship. Which is exactly the things someone can retain on his own power and will. Everything else builds upon this notion.
And that rises a very interesting point about intellectual and physical properties and it is that they work in exactly opposite ways. How do you know I'm the owner of something (physical)? Because it's already under my reach so, in order to retain it I don't need to do anything and in order to transfer ownership against my will you will need to employ violence beyond my own capacity.
On the other hand, look at intellectual property: for an already published work (work of art, idea, patent...) I get access to it without any violence (that's the very definition of "publishing"): you sing, and I hear, once I hear, I remember, once I remember, I can also sing that song. But then, in order for you to claim ownership of that piece of work I already know so I can't sing it, it is *you*, not me, the one that needs to employ violence against me, not the other way around!
This makes clear that "intellectual property" is not property at all but a government-granted privilege. But, then, on a free society, government-granted anything needs to answer to their social contract value. It is not that I'm against government-granted anythings, but that given they are violence against the natural state of affairs, they need to be under continous scrutiny to see if they still respond to the goal they were granted for and as soon as they don't, be immediately redefined or even outright revoked.
"The only way a corporation could or would raise prices in order to cover the tax bill is if they could collude with everyone else in their industry to raise prices by exactly that amount. That's a federal crime."
Think for a moment about the consequences of what you say if that were true. Like... uh... anything would be sold for Zero... but, you see, thinks are not usually sold by nil, so something must be happening there, something like, let's see... like producers selling goods for a price that covers *all* their costs (you know, raw materials, tooling, wages *and* taxes) plus, at least, what Adam Smith called an ordinary rate of profit.
"Lots of ranting, no substance. By buying a Lexmark cartridge you are agreeing to the following [...]"
Only, no, you are not. 1) I was not informed about the contract *prior* to the exchange of money to be settled. All the conditions I'm bound to are those set before the money exchange. 2) Even without 1, this is an adhesion contract on terms I wasn't able to negotiate and the clause you cite is void and null because of the first-sale doctrine.
"Explain why anyone would take a financial risk to develop a new product ?"
Explain why anyone would take a financial risk to open a new shop in the town's mall. Well, exactly the same reason: for the profits' expectation.
"patents have not stopped innovation which is why we have new products every year"
You just reversed the burden of proof here: patents are a government-backed violence on the free flow of information, it is patents the ones that need to proof their value to society, not the other way around. And proof that profits don't require patents are all over around as shown by any business that it is not centered around patents and exemplified by the software market, which is the single one that has made more millionaires in the last 40 years being highly innovative and without the support of patents.
"our society has to answer the question: who should control all this new technology?"
Our society answered that question long ago, about the 17 or 18th century: "We, the people".
It is not "our society has to answer the question of who should control all [anything]" but "Are we, the individuals, up to the struggles it takes to own and retain society?"
Capitalism is going the way it's going, which is basically going back to feudalism, because, on one hand, there *is* a class conflict, that part Marx nailed it, and there's a privileged class that starts quite some steps ahead, *and* because, on the other hand, a majority of society that should care more don't give a damn: the price of liberty is eternal vigilance and all that stuff.
"He's shown a willingness to harm others for profit."
Who was harmed, then?
Please note that I'm not asked who *claimed* to be harmed but who was *actually* harmed.
The people who saw the films? I don't think so. The advertisers that voluntarily for showing their ads? I don't think so.
The companies that produced the films under distribution? Well, they claim to be damaged but, how? Can they show that anybody stopped paying a ticket or a licensed streamer because of that? I don't think so. And then, even if that could be demonstrated, what about the pub I went this evening? Me being at the pub certainly avoided me going to the cinema and paying them a ticket. Maybe we should also fine the pub.
Slashdot Mirror
"The USA doesn't do it that way, they do it the corporate fascist way. You know, like the Nazis"
Maybe as a general matter you are right, but I was talking strictly about this case, it looked communist to me.
Nevertheless... humm... Weren't those "Nazis" guys of you Captain America's arch-enemies? I know from Marvel that Captain America is All The Good America Represents, therefore Captain America's arch-enemies must be really nasty guys so... Let USA nuke the entire USA from orbit, it's the only way to be sure, after all!
"It turned out that the root password was "password""
DAMN! Now I know how they managed to resist my cracking attempts: I didn't think about the double quotes on "password"!
"No company in the world would want their IP revealed. "
Of course not.
Specially if you are running a daemon with root privileges on a port on that IP.
"...what do they call it when you begin to blend government and business..."
Well, it really depends on the way they blend.
In this case it is the government seeding ownership for the means of production, therefore, "communism" is the word.
Wait... wasn't "communism" a rude word in USA? Weren't communists USA arch-enemies? Too high a danger. Maybe USA should nuke the entire DoD from orbit, it's the only way to be sure, after all.
"Copyright law is well established, and quite a few people depend on it for their livings."
Yes, I won't challenge that and I admit it would be rather unjust to just, say, repeal all copyright, patent, etc. related laws overnight: there's people that, say, became writers, or composers, on the implicit assumption that if they managed to do it, they could live on royalties the rest of their lives. I do believe in the value of stability of the justice system so any change in the statu quo should be done gradually.
"I'd suggest that the person trying to change a system answer questions about the proposed changes."
This I can't agree with. While, in general, it's sensible to require the one wanting to change things to be the one providing the arguments, anything related to the implicit social contract, specially the parts that means violence to the natural order of things, must be challenged by default and every day: "is this violence still answering to the goals we set for it?" In example: is still putting people in jail accomplishing the goals we set it for? Are taxes still working as expected? Are still patents/copyrights working as the best way we could apply to promote the progress of science and useful arts? And, these kind of laws being based on violence and against the natural order of things, the very moment the answer is "well, there're doubts", they should be abolished, in extreme cases even if nobody can provide a better alternative: for these kind of things, if we can't set the best action path, no action should be preferred*1.
"Your idea of property still looks nonstandard. If I lend someone my car, everybody will say that it still belongs to me"
Yes... on the legal sense. Not in any practical sense: you lent it; can you use it to drive to the mall? No, you can't. In order to make use of it, you need for the good to be *returned* (that is, practical property returned back to you): once the car is again really yours, you can make use of it. As I already said, current state of affairs *build up* from the very basic concept (we understand that lending a property doesn't mean neither perpetual nor complete abandon of rights over it -while you can't go to the mall with the car while the borrower can, the borrower still shouldn't sell the car, while the legal owner still is legally allowed to do it) but it still means what it means: if the borrower decides not to return the car, can you make use of it? You can't, right? And in order to put your hands over the good again you need to apply violence to its current (albeit illegal) owner -by yourself or using government as your proxy, right?
I know what I say looks nonstandard, but think about it for a moment: is it because I'm wrong, or is it because we people are very good at conflate the "that's how it should be" with the "that's how it really is"?
"It also obscures the difference between physical property and "intellectual property""
No, it doesn't obscure it: it makes brilliantly clear that physical and intellectual properties are such different beasts that there's no point in using the same substantive for both (unless you plan on taking advantage of this identification: as Nietzsche stated, language mummifies reality): whereas in physical property is obvious who the real practical owner of something is (the one that needs no violence to take benefit of the thing), once talking about intellectual property it is the alleged owner the one that needs violence over others to exert his right of property. That's against any kind of common sense for a reason.
"in that in both cases I'm calling on the legal system to enforce my rights. "
Not at all: while in the case of physical property you need violence to *restore* the situation to its legally accepted equilibrium (and violence is required to take it from its legally accepted equilibrium to start with), in the case of intellectual property, it is violence the only means *from the legit owner, nothing less* to set it to start with, while no violence i
Good god! somebody making sensible assertions!
"In general, businesses cannot pass all of their cost increases on to the consumer."
That's true as long as they are operating above the minimally acceptable profit margin (i.e.: if I make a single penny less, I'm better off buying German bonds -or moving to a different market niche) which means they are always transferring them towards the customer -because in a perfect market they should already be operating at that minimal profit level, it's only that the market the agent is operating in is not a perfect one and the customer is still paying above what they should, so the new cost is only eroding on that extra-margin.
"A clever government wants corporations to be able to make (and keep) a profit"
Why would any government want that? I mean, companies are not people, they don't vote. Why they should give a damn?
"I'm just saying that corporate income taxes are not borne by the consumers."
Yes. You are doing that once and again. What you are not giving is any credible proof for such an assertion.
"My very first assertion (the one to which you first replied) was that "consumers do not pay for corporate income taxes". I stand by that."
Ok then. A clever government would rise corporate income taxes to 100%, after all it can't affect prices, right? Why that's not happening?
"Do you understand that corporate income tax is computed on profits not revenue?"
Of course yes. And I also understand that you are playing the "True Scotsman" game. We were talking about "taxes" but you now insist in considering only "corporate income taxes" and even failing at that and (I start to think you do it on purpose) misunderstanding any argument thrown at your direction.
"Remember, after the 12.6% that companies pay in corporate income tax on their profits, they still have 87.4% of their profits left over."
Once again, so what!? Being 12.6% or 75.8%; being paid the day after the sell or twenty years later doesn't move an inch the basic premise that, one way or another, taxes end up entering the price equation along any other direct or indirect cost and that, as any other direct or indirect cost, they *must* be passed all the way onto the customer.
You seem to be fooled by the fact that many markets are not run under a stable perfect competition scenario so light variations on costs doesn't reflect in price, neither upwards, because profits are above the minimally bearable by the seller, nor downwards, because there not strong competition forcing it, but it doesn't mean they are not computed.
"A value added tax is computed during the manufacturing process, and prior to sale."
No, it isn't, since VAT does not depend on manufacturing costs but on selling price, and it is not previous to sale since only sale induces VAT.
"A corporate income tax is computed up to a year after the sale of the item."
So what? Do you think price policies are only set on the counter table while dealing with the customer? Do you really think that, in the hypothetical case of a single company liberated of corporate taxes in an otherwise highly competitive market, it would be unable to find a way to reflect that on its prices?
"As I said, if they could sell the item for 100 per unit, they already would be doing so."
Reread what I wrote because I think you understood it the other way around. The point is not to sell at 100 but that they need to sell at least at 121 or not sell at all if the market can't bear such a high price.
"Well, there's zero demand for Pentium II processors, so they must be really, really expensive."
You can test it for yourself: go buy a new one and then come back to tell us what's the price you ended paying for.
"You're conflating private equity investing with manufacturing. They are two different businesses."
No, I don't. You just think I do.
"does that also mean that the more demand there is for a product, the lower the price?"
Contrary to first glance common sense, yes: on the long run and barring monopolies, that's usually the case. Note that usual economics 101 offer/demand/price curves are for demand-inelastic, short-term markets while real markets are more times than not elastic sensible-to-demand ones. Please go draw yourself the demand/price curves along time for basically any successful electronic gadget on the last 40 years, from wrist-watches to tablets, and see what happens.
"We have copyright law, and it serves the purpose of allowing creators to be paid for what they actually have done. You find this to be politically impure, and you're right, but what do you propose to replace it? "
It is not me the one burdened to answer that question but the ones that pretend to make a life out of it.
But, nevertheless, it's obvious that there *are* ways to pay creators for their worthy creations since that's been the state of affairs for most of history. What if, for example, creators get paid for what they *do*, as it is the case for most workers, instead of paying for the use of that creation?
"Your idea of physical property is rather primitive, also."
Not my idea but my explanation. And of course it is: I already said it was "the very and most basic notion of proprietorship [...] Everything else builds upon this notion."
"My car is outside my immediate presence, for example [...] Is it your position that I don't actually own anything that's farther from my body than arm's reach?"
In fact you don't. Out of your "virtual arm" at least. If somebody takes your car, despite of all government warranties, do you still own it? Can you take it to go to the mall? No you can't. Even law, by calling it "illegal property", makes clear that properly stands with the one that can take benefit of the thing, as the most basic notion of property insures, and once the thief gets in hands of law enforcement agencies, violence (rightful violence, but violence nevertheless) will be needed for him to surrender his property in order to be returned to its legally legit owner, right like the most naive and basic notion of property will require.
You see, civilization obscures the "pure" basic concept under heavy books of law (as it should be, at least mostly: it's only logical that thinking about the basic notions of right and legal since at least the Roman Empire a lot of knowledge should arise and accumulate), but still, the basic notions arise here and there, at least in both corner and excessive cases: the penalty is not the same if somebody takes your wallet at the point of a gun or taking it out from a table on a pub where you forgot it because of the percieved violence degree required in each case (remember: other's property==the things you can't take control of without violence). Falkland Islands are still called Falkland and belong to UK instead of being called Malvinas belonging to Argentina because UK exerts their force upon the property to higher degree than Argentina (remember: my property==the things I can retain on my own power and will).
"Patent and copyright holders still need to recoup their development costs and be rewarded for their labour."
No, they don't. They *want* to recoup their costs but they do *not* deserve it. That's market forces to decide or else -again, I could claim you to pay for my farts, after all, I still need to recoup my development costs and be rewarded for my labout, right?
"Of course, patents and copyrights should exist, that is not the problem."
You are begging the question, ain't you? Of course, neither patents nor copyrights have existed for most of human history and that didn't stop the guy that invented the wheel, the one that wrote down the story of that son of Peleus that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans, or that Bounarroti Simoni that used to take statues out of stone blocks, but you still claim that patents and copyrights "should" exist.
"So, you're saying that the less demand there is for something, the more companies charge for it?"
That's exactly the case. There are many reasons for that, and it works between price boundaries dependant on market and product, but one of them is still that there's very little demand.
"It doesn't work that way. Companies don't start from a profit margin and work backwards."
Exactly this. Companies *do* start from profit margin and then work backwards. Surprised?
Everybody would naively think that when somebody thinks of a product, he would draw it on his mind, calculate its costs, then would add the desired minimum profit and then he would set a price this high or above. Reality is, things work the other way around: with the product in mind, the company would research the max price its target audience would pay, then it would take out the profit and then it would see what they can produce at that cost -everything included. If whatever it can produce at that cost is below the minimum viable product, then they would forget the idea.
"Corporate income tax does not add to the cost of the product being manufactured."
That's the only thing you said that's right. True: corporate taxes doesn't add to the product's cost. It still adds to its price. Note that I'm, as a consumer, I'm much more interested on product prices than costs.
In the end it is as simple as this: I'm a capitalist and I have some money to invest to get a profit in return. If I invest 100$ in your company, what will you return me in exchange at the end of the day? 101$? 110? I won't give a damn if you tell me "I'll return you 101$ but bear in mind that's because goverment took out 9$ in corporate taxes! weren't that the case, I'd give you 110$!" I still invest in the one that returns me 110$, no questions asked.
"Think about that list of costs you just enumerated. "raw materials, tooling, wages"...and taxes. If you think long enough you'll figure out how taxes are different.
I'll give you a hint: it has to do with time."
Exactly, how?
-Our analysis shows that our overall cost-per-unit is 90 and our net profit margin should be 10 (or else, our shareholders would buy insured national debt of country ZZZ, which renders 9 out of 90, instead of investing in our company), so we will sell for 100 per unit.
-Sorry, Mr CEO, you forgot about VAT which, in our country is 21%. We should sell for 121 per unit, taxes included.
-Are you stupid!? Those are taxes, damn taxes, I say. We will sell for 100 and we'll still take our 10 of benefit out of it. Didn't you read PopeRatzo or what?
"The only place you will still hear that "consumers pay all taxes" are from people with ideological opposition to taxes."
So you mean companies run at a loss? For long?
-Hey, our aggregate costs sum up X while our gross income is X-Y.
-Oh, but there's no problem: delta X-Y are magic taxes! we don't need to care about them. Now, if our costs were salaries *then* we'd had a problem, but no, those checks are not to pay for wages, nor raw material, they are to pay taxes, so we can forget about them.
Or something like that.
Producers don't do that - they don"t sell for cost + markup, they sell for what the market will bear."
I think you didn't see the "at least" part.
"So if I look for cars in garages that haven't been driven in a month, and I steal them, you have to prove that there was some actual loss of utility, not just a loss of property?"
The day you can take my car from the garage but still I can take my car from the garage whenever I want, you can come back with that argument. If you are honest, you need to think harder; if you are a troll, you already should know this kind of equivalence between physical and intellectual property is a no-go you need to avoid since... ages.
In the meantime, it's still apples to oranges.
"People paid him about $1,000,000 for movies illegally shown. That would seem to indicate at least $1,000,000 in actual loss."
No sir. *Advertisers* payed him 280.000 pounds for showing their adds on his web, which is something he did. Nobody paid to see the movies. So the only indication here is that advertisers are happy to pay 280.000 pounds to a site with as much traffic as the one operated by this guy, nothing more and nothing less.
"The court indicated it was about $12M in actual provable loss."
No sir. That was the claim from the prosecutor, which the judge happened to accept (but then, the accused already pleaded guilty so there's no much wonder about that). These loses to be real or not, are a different matter but my bet is that if we sum up all the claimed loses due to piracy from the likes of the RIAA they not only wouldn't earn a penny but that they even would owe some money to the pirates by the end of the day.
"In a world without patents or copyright, there would be only curiosity left to drive innovation."
That's obvious bullshit.
The real thing you wanted to say is "in a world without financial incentives only other non-financial incentives would drive innovation".
"I assume you think the same thing for patents?"
Of course yes: both patents and copyrights work under the same asumptions.
"Once it's "public" anyone should be able to copy it?"
Non sequitur. I never said anything like that about copyright.
What I said is that once it's public anyone *can* copy and that this is the natural affair of things and that in order for the people *not* to copy, you need to restrict their natural rights by means of force of law.
"Inherent rights? Are you serious? You could just as easily argue that you have an "inherent right" to your neighbor's stuff as long as you have the power to take it and keep it."
You have set yourself the very and most basic notion of proprietorship. Which is exactly the things someone can retain on his own power and will. Everything else builds upon this notion.
And that rises a very interesting point about intellectual and physical properties and it is that they work in exactly opposite ways. How do you know I'm the owner of something (physical)? Because it's already under my reach so, in order to retain it I don't need to do anything and in order to transfer ownership against my will you will need to employ violence beyond my own capacity.
On the other hand, look at intellectual property: for an already published work (work of art, idea, patent...) I get access to it without any violence (that's the very definition of "publishing"): you sing, and I hear, once I hear, I remember, once I remember, I can also sing that song. But then, in order for you to claim ownership of that piece of work I already know so I can't sing it, it is *you*, not me, the one that needs to employ violence against me, not the other way around!
This makes clear that "intellectual property" is not property at all but a government-granted privilege. But, then, on a free society, government-granted anything needs to answer to their social contract value. It is not that I'm against government-granted anythings, but that given they are violence against the natural state of affairs, they need to be under continous scrutiny to see if they still respond to the goal they were granted for and as soon as they don't, be immediately redefined or even outright revoked.
"The only way a corporation could or would raise prices in order to cover the tax bill is if they could collude with everyone else in their industry to raise prices by exactly that amount. That's a federal crime."
Think for a moment about the consequences of what you say if that were true. Like... uh... anything would be sold for Zero... but, you see, thinks are not usually sold by nil, so something must be happening there, something like, let's see... like producers selling goods for a price that covers *all* their costs (you know, raw materials, tooling, wages *and* taxes) plus, at least, what Adam Smith called an ordinary rate of profit.
"Lots of ranting, no substance. By buying a Lexmark cartridge you are agreeing to the following [...]"
Only, no, you are not.
1) I was not informed about the contract *prior* to the exchange of money to be settled. All the conditions I'm bound to are those set before the money exchange.
2) Even without 1, this is an adhesion contract on terms I wasn't able to negotiate and the clause you cite is void and null because of the first-sale doctrine.
"Explain why anyone would take a financial risk to develop a new product ?"
Explain why anyone would take a financial risk to open a new shop in the town's mall. Well, exactly the same reason: for the profits' expectation.
"patents have not stopped innovation which is why we have new products every year"
You just reversed the burden of proof here: patents are a government-backed violence on the free flow of information, it is patents the ones that need to proof their value to society, not the other way around. And proof that profits don't require patents are all over around as shown by any business that it is not centered around patents and exemplified by the software market, which is the single one that has made more millionaires in the last 40 years being highly innovative and without the support of patents.
"our society has to answer the question: who should control all this new technology?"
Our society answered that question long ago, about the 17 or 18th century: "We, the people".
It is not "our society has to answer the question of who should control all [anything]" but "Are we, the individuals, up to the struggles it takes to own and retain society?"
Capitalism is going the way it's going, which is basically going back to feudalism, because, on one hand, there *is* a class conflict, that part Marx nailed it, and there's a privileged class that starts quite some steps ahead, *and* because, on the other hand, a majority of society that should care more don't give a damn: the price of liberty is eternal vigilance and all that stuff.
"He's shown a willingness to harm others for profit."
Who was harmed, then?
Please note that I'm not asked who *claimed* to be harmed but who was *actually* harmed.
The people who saw the films? I don't think so.
The advertisers that voluntarily for showing their ads? I don't think so.
The companies that produced the films under distribution? Well, they claim to be damaged but, how? Can they show that anybody stopped paying a ticket or a licensed streamer because of that? I don't think so. And then, even if that could be demonstrated, what about the pub I went this evening? Me being at the pub certainly avoided me going to the cinema and paying them a ticket. Maybe we should also fine the pub.