Markets (was Re: Hayek was right. Twice.)

jamesd at echeque.com jamesd at echeque.com
Wed Jul 3 16:23:34 PDT 2002


    --
On 4 Jul 2002 at 1:26, Sampo Syreeni wrote:
> But try constructing an Independence Day without Will Smith. Or
> the special effects. Or the soundtrack. Or the distribution
> chain. Try guaranteeing that it arrives on schedule without
> making a loss. I think you will not be able to accomplish that
> with a volunteer effort. Try doing that tens of thousands of
> times a year (that's for all of what is currently covered by IP)
> and you're bound to fail. Unlike with Linux, the individual
> parts of most larger projects involving IP are of no use without
> the surrounding whole. Unlike Linux, many IP products aren't
> modular, reusable or decomposable, and so they can only exist if
> you can find a single source of financing for the whole project.
> In the case of modular projects, you can rely on overlapping 
> interests to fill in the voids, but most projects aren't like
> that. Especially if all that the creator gets is the
> ever-diminishing value of a single copy.

Increasingly the locations of big blockbuster movies exist inside
a computer, so a substantial reduction in finance would reduce,
rather than end the genre.

Again, If you offered the average guy the deal "Would you like on
demand access to all movies and television shows ever made, even
if it meant fewer and lower budget movie releases in future?", I
think most people would go for on demand access to everything. 

    --digsig
         James A. Donald
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