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Hardly surprising, the less government interference there is in the market the better the economy does. Look at the industries that are tanking such as finance,

by fleitz 14y ago

Hardly surprising, the less government interference there is in the market the better the economy does. Look at the industries that are tanking such as finance, manufacturing, education, healthcare, airlines and you'll find no end of regulation and interference.

w1ntermute 14y ago
I don't think this surprises anyone - the problem is that the people who stand to benefit the most in the short term from copyright regulation staying the way it is are those who have the most political power. The real question is how we can change that situation from the outside.
- fleitz 14y ago
  Nah that's absolutely the wrong question, and the very question those in power want you to ask. Putting different people in charge won't fix it either. The problem is fundamental to human nature, we're not accustomed to being free. Kings used to fear democracy because they were worried that we'd become free, instead as soon as we were free we started electing new kings. Even in the good ole' US they wanted to elect George Washington dictator for life. You should instead ask, how can I setup my environment so that I am not subject to the will of others... Don't ask the government for your freedom, take it from them.
  - nirvana 14y ago
    You're right and it is typical of HN that you're getting downvoted for making an argument.... but the ironic thing is, I am pro-IP and I agree with you-- government will never give you freedom. (get rid of government- I'm an anarchist- and you'll still have IP, it will just be enforced with contracts.)
    - tisme 14y ago
      > (get rid of government- I'm an anarchist- and you'll still have IP, it will just be enforced with contracts.) That's got to be one of the funniest things on HN ever. So, get gid of the government and you will use contracts at the same time? Contracts can be made between consenting parties and that's all fine and good as long as they both live by the terms. But as soon as one party thinks the other one does not then you will need some mechanism of arbitration, in other words a judicial system. And that sooner or later leads to authority vested in - you've guessed it - a government. You can't be an anarchist and be pro-IP at the same time, the cognitive dissonance is huge.
anigbrowl 14y ago
For heaven's sake, extension of copyright terms comes at the behest of the publishing industry. Governments would likely welcome the increased economic activity and lower administrative burden of lower copyright protection, but publishers are going to support whatever politicians promise them the most revenue protection. Your various comparative examples are driven by wildly different factors (not least demographic ones) and don't support your argument.
- luriel 14y ago
  > For heaven's sake, extension of copyright terms comes at the behest of the publishing industry. This is known as regulatory capture, and is what is to be expected once the government starts to grant monopolies: instead of competing and innovating, corporations dedicate themselves to much more lucrative rent-seeking. When the government is the one who decides who can do business and how, it becomes much more lucrative to put your energy in lobbying the government for rules favorable to you, than to put the energy in competing and pleasing consumers. Without patents the only thing that matters is execution: pleasing consumers, with patents all that matters is how you can milk the system and use it to crush your competitors that might have more competitive products.
  - anigbrowl 14y ago
    You're assuming the government initiates regulation. In reality, merchants and artisans tend to form into guilds and then demand new entrants to that market be licensed. Adam Smith noted this phenomenon in The Wealth of Nations in the famous passage: 'People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.' A more recent treatment of the subject appears in nplusone magazine, but the site is down just at the moment: http://nplusonemag.com/death-by-degrees http://nplusonemag.com/death-by-degrees Another recent example from NPR: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/06/21/154826233/why-its-illegal-to-braid-hair-without-a-license http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/06/21/154826233/why-its-... (you'll be happy to know that Clayton recently won her court case, and plans to reopen her business).
shreyansj 14y ago
Are you sure that the finance industry is tanking because of too much government regulations? I am not sure if the housing crisis (leading to a poor economy) came about as a result of over-the-top government regulations and interference as per your argument. Would you also say that lack of government regulations/interference (Affordable Care Act) would have improved the healthcare scenario in the long term?
- nirvana 14y ago
  The housing crisis did, in fact, come from over the top government regulation. Further, the reason health care is so expensive is government regulation. In the 1990s the democrats decided that the banks were not lending to blacks out of racism... later studies that accounted for ability to repay the loans showed this wasn't the case, but at the time the Clinton administration imposed regulations that basically said banks had to loan to people who couldn't repay, and that fannie mae and freddie mac woul buy up those bad loans.... this literally created the housing crisis that blew up 10 years later. It wasn't wall street, it was clinton (and a bush as well, for keeping interest rates artificially low). Milton Friedman found that over the past 100 years government regulations drove up health care costs 26 fold and reduced availability. So that $100,000 operation that would bankrupt you now would only cost $5,000 without government regulation-- you could put it on a credit card. The ACA is destroying the health care industry and will dramatically make the situation much worse. But most people are never told these things. They are told political lies spread via propaganda that blames Wall Street (or "Glass Steegall" - I can't tell you how many times peple have evoked that phrase, people who obviously know nothing about what that law did). Most people are ignorant and believe propaganda, and that makes them easier to control, which is what politicians like to do.
  - rprasad 14y ago
    Further, the reason health care is so expensive is government regulation. No, healthcare is expensive because there are multiple layers of middlemen, each trying to earn an increasing amount of profit, and because healthcare treatments are performed without regard to efficacy by profit-motivated private medical service providers. Healthcare costs have increased far more rapidly than the increase in healthcare legislation; indeed, the only metric that has increased alongside costs is profits earned by HMOs and other insurers. By the way, "profits" is just the net revenue the insurers earn, after deducting from income the insane, multi-million dollar yearly bonuses they pay to the C-suite officers and board members. If government were the driving force behind healthcare increases, the rest of the world would spend significantly greater sums of their GDP on healthcare than we do, yet they spend far less--and have comparatively better results for the amounts they do spend. The worst thing to happen to healthcare wasn't government; it was the corporatization of health care.

by fleitz 14y ago

w1ntermute 14y ago

I don't think this surprises anyone - the problem is that the people who stand to benefit the most in the short term from copyright regulation staying the way it is are those who have the most political power. The real question is how we can change that situation from the outside.

fleitz 14y ago
Nah that's absolutely the wrong question, and the very question those in power want you to ask. Putting different people in charge won't fix it either. The problem is fundamental to human nature, we're not accustomed to being free. Kings used to fear democracy because they were worried that we'd become free, instead as soon as we were free we started electing new kings. Even in the good ole' US they wanted to elect George Washington dictator for life. You should instead ask, how can I setup my environment so that I am not subject to the will of others... Don't ask the government for your freedom, take it from them.
- nirvana 14y ago
  You're right and it is typical of HN that you're getting downvoted for making an argument.... but the ironic thing is, I am pro-IP and I agree with you-- government will never give you freedom. (get rid of government- I'm an anarchist- and you'll still have IP, it will just be enforced with contracts.)
  - tisme 14y ago
    > (get rid of government- I'm an anarchist- and you'll still have IP, it will just be enforced with contracts.) That's got to be one of the funniest things on HN ever. So, get gid of the government and you will use contracts at the same time? Contracts can be made between consenting parties and that's all fine and good as long as they both live by the terms. But as soon as one party thinks the other one does not then you will need some mechanism of arbitration, in other words a judicial system. And that sooner or later leads to authority vested in - you've guessed it - a government. You can't be an anarchist and be pro-IP at the same time, the cognitive dissonance is huge.

anigbrowl 14y ago

For heaven's sake, extension of copyright terms comes at the behest of the publishing industry. Governments would likely welcome the increased economic activity and lower administrative burden of lower copyright protection, but publishers are going to support whatever politicians promise them the most revenue protection. Your various comparative examples are driven by wildly different factors (not least demographic ones) and don't support your argument.

luriel 14y ago
> For heaven's sake, extension of copyright terms comes at the behest of the publishing industry. This is known as regulatory capture, and is what is to be expected once the government starts to grant monopolies: instead of competing and innovating, corporations dedicate themselves to much more lucrative rent-seeking. When the government is the one who decides who can do business and how, it becomes much more lucrative to put your energy in lobbying the government for rules favorable to you, than to put the energy in competing and pleasing consumers. Without patents the only thing that matters is execution: pleasing consumers, with patents all that matters is how you can milk the system and use it to crush your competitors that might have more competitive products.
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  You're assuming the government initiates regulation. In reality, merchants and artisans tend to form into guilds and then demand new entrants to that market be licensed. Adam Smith noted this phenomenon in The Wealth of Nations in the famous passage: 'People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.' A more recent treatment of the subject appears in nplusone magazine, but the site is down just at the moment: http://nplusonemag.com/death-by-degrees http://nplusonemag.com/death-by-degrees Another recent example from NPR: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/06/21/154826233/why-its-illegal-to-braid-hair-without-a-license http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/06/21/154826233/why-its-... (you'll be happy to know that Clayton recently won her court case, and plans to reopen her business).

shreyansj 14y ago

Are you sure that the finance industry is tanking because of too much government regulations? I am not sure if the housing crisis (leading to a poor economy) came about as a result of over-the-top government regulations and interference as per your argument. Would you also say that lack of government regulations/interference (Affordable Care Act) would have improved the healthcare scenario in the long term?

nirvana 14y ago
The housing crisis did, in fact, come from over the top government regulation. Further, the reason health care is so expensive is government regulation. In the 1990s the democrats decided that the banks were not lending to blacks out of racism... later studies that accounted for ability to repay the loans showed this wasn't the case, but at the time the Clinton administration imposed regulations that basically said banks had to loan to people who couldn't repay, and that fannie mae and freddie mac woul buy up those bad loans.... this literally created the housing crisis that blew up 10 years later. It wasn't wall street, it was clinton (and a bush as well, for keeping interest rates artificially low). Milton Friedman found that over the past 100 years government regulations drove up health care costs 26 fold and reduced availability. So that $100,000 operation that would bankrupt you now would only cost $5,000 without government regulation-- you could put it on a credit card. The ACA is destroying the health care industry and will dramatically make the situation much worse. But most people are never told these things. They are told political lies spread via propaganda that blames Wall Street (or "Glass Steegall" - I can't tell you how many times peple have evoked that phrase, people who obviously know nothing about what that law did). Most people are ignorant and believe propaganda, and that makes them easier to control, which is what politicians like to do.
- rprasad 14y ago
  Further, the reason health care is so expensive is government regulation. No, healthcare is expensive because there are multiple layers of middlemen, each trying to earn an increasing amount of profit, and because healthcare treatments are performed without regard to efficacy by profit-motivated private medical service providers. Healthcare costs have increased far more rapidly than the increase in healthcare legislation; indeed, the only metric that has increased alongside costs is profits earned by HMOs and other insurers. By the way, "profits" is just the net revenue the insurers earn, after deducting from income the insane, multi-million dollar yearly bonuses they pay to the C-suite officers and board members. If government were the driving force behind healthcare increases, the rest of the world would spend significantly greater sums of their GDP on healthcare than we do, yet they spend far less--and have comparatively better results for the amounts they do spend. The worst thing to happen to healthcare wasn't government; it was the corporatization of health care.