4 ms·

If we ban the flow of physical goods to uphold IP laws, then would you also support banning the flow of digital goods to uphold IP laws? Imagine if we couldn't

If we ban the flow of physical goods to uphold IP laws, then would you also support banning the flow of digital goods to uphold IP laws? Imagine if we couldn't buy any electronic media that wasn't created in the US because it might break an IP law.

basch 8y ago
A pill isnt a physical good, its a formula. You are paying for the intellectual property not the manufacture. It's not like the pills are substantially cheaper to manufacture in Canada, its different licensing costs. The question is more like "if Disney sets avengers to $3 per view in American and $1 in Canada, is it legal to use a VPN to appear Canadian, and pay the Canadian licensing price." If the answer is yes, then why not just let American's pay the Canadian price vs the ruse of streaming the data from another country and pretending the transaction is hunky dory. If impersonating a Canadian to watch Avengers is intellectual property infringement, underpaying the license in your country, the same logic should apply to other intellectual property.
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > A pill isnt a physical good, its a formula. You are paying for the intellectual property not the manufacture. It's not like the pills are substantially cheaper to manufacture in Canada, its different licensing costs. This thread is talking about reimportation of brand-name pharmaceuticals. In many of these cases, it's the same manufacturer producing the same physical goods at the same factory and selling them for two different prices on different sides of the border. This is not an "intellectual property" issue; it's a trade issue.
  - basch 8y ago
    It's an intellectual property issue, they have the exclusive rights to produce the pill. It is illegal for any other company to make the same product. That exclusivity lets them set the price. Why do you have "ip" in quotes, its literally the single most important thing in this conversation. Trade is a way to circumvent the pricing set, it doesn't address the underlying exclusivity.
    - chimeracoder 8y ago
      > It's an intellectual property issue, they have the exclusive rights to produce the pill. It is illegal for any other company to make the same product. That exclusivity lets them set the price. The exclusivity isn't what lets them maintain different prices in different countries, which is the problem at hand. Those different prices are only feasible because of artificial trade barriers, as evidenced by the fact that these price differences also occur with generic medications, which are not subject to exclusivity protections. > Why do you have "ip" in quotes, its literally the single most important thing in this conversation. Because "intellectual property" is a highly controversial term which conflates three complete unrelated categories of law that each have different origins and underlying justifications.

basch 8y ago

A pill isnt a physical good, its a formula. You are paying for the intellectual property not the manufacture. It's not like the pills are substantially cheaper to manufacture in Canada, its different licensing costs. The question is more like "if Disney sets avengers to $3 per view in American and $1 in Canada, is it legal to use a VPN to appear Canadian, and pay the Canadian licensing price." If the answer is yes, then why not just let American's pay the Canadian price vs the ruse of streaming the data from another country and pretending the transaction is hunky dory. If impersonating a Canadian to watch Avengers is intellectual property infringement, underpaying the license in your country, the same logic should apply to other intellectual property.

chimeracoder 8y ago
> A pill isnt a physical good, its a formula. You are paying for the intellectual property not the manufacture. It's not like the pills are substantially cheaper to manufacture in Canada, its different licensing costs. This thread is talking about reimportation of brand-name pharmaceuticals. In many of these cases, it's the same manufacturer producing the same physical goods at the same factory and selling them for two different prices on different sides of the border. This is not an "intellectual property" issue; it's a trade issue.
- basch 8y ago
  It's an intellectual property issue, they have the exclusive rights to produce the pill. It is illegal for any other company to make the same product. That exclusivity lets them set the price. Why do you have "ip" in quotes, its literally the single most important thing in this conversation. Trade is a way to circumvent the pricing set, it doesn't address the underlying exclusivity.
  - chimeracoder 8y ago
    > It's an intellectual property issue, they have the exclusive rights to produce the pill. It is illegal for any other company to make the same product. That exclusivity lets them set the price. The exclusivity isn't what lets them maintain different prices in different countries, which is the problem at hand. Those different prices are only feasible because of artificial trade barriers, as evidenced by the fact that these price differences also occur with generic medications, which are not subject to exclusivity protections. > Why do you have "ip" in quotes, its literally the single most important thing in this conversation. Because "intellectual property" is a highly controversial term which conflates three complete unrelated categories of law that each have different origins and underlying justifications.