Judge: No More Royalties for Ringtones!

[lamorpa]

Oh great. So how much will the price of ringtones go down by? (yeah right)

 

[JohnnyLucky]

The ruling made sense for a change.

 

[-unknown-]

[citation][nom]descendency[/nom]Oh god no... Regulation drives prices up, not down. Removing regulations makes them fight it out with much harsher people than the government... it's consumers. If the government stops protecting these companies, they'll have to compete with one another.Competition = Good, Government = not so much.[/citation]
[citation][nom]cappster[/nom]Deregulation is not always a good thing. Look at the deregulation of oil and what it has done to drive prices up. Ever heard of Enron? They pushed for deregulation and screwed a bunch of people when natural gas was deregulated. Regulations are imposed to protect small businesses so it can be competitive with a much larger organization which benefits the consumer.[/citation]
You're both at each end of the topic. Regulation isn't necessary where perfect competition exists but we all know there is no such think as 'perfect competition' so regulations are needed where a lack of competition is prevalent. Too much regulation (or regulating something that doesn't need it) is also undesirable as it can hamper economic growth and distort efficiency.

PS. Cappster, you're dead-on in regards to the US Banks/FI comment.
[citation][nom]enterpol[/nom]while I tend to agree w/you Maxor, this isn't always the case. Part of the bank failures that led to our current financial crisis occurred because of not enough regulations. We figured the banks would be smart enough not to over leverage their capital and we were dead wrong. In a non truly competitive mkt. a.k.a. areas extremely high barriers to entry & strong oligopolies (music, cable, power, cell phone companies) regulation actually helps. Another ex. is TX power companies -- they were deregulated and yearly % price increases have gone UP not down (even after adjusting for higher fuel prices). Regulation prevents cheating & collusion in markets which creates unfair advantages.[/citation]
+1

 

[jellico]

I've very glad to see a positive consumer ruling. It seems like consumers rights in the arena of intellectual property have been sharply declining since the passage of that piece of crap legislation known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

 

[Parsifal57]

The royalties 'if any' can only be factored into the price of the ring tone. Since many people buy multiple ring tones some of which don't even come from the carrier but from other sources.

The whole idea of enforcing a per ring royalty fee is ludicrous, how would the carrier know which ring tone is being used at any time? , without invading privacy anymore than they do already.

This was all about greed, and a pretty ill thought out case I'm not surprised it got thrown out.

Whats next? being charged per play for playing music you bought in your own house.

 

[mikepaul]

[citation][nom]hannibal[/nom]Hmmm... Actually radio stations do pay royalties allready...[/citation]
If a radio station plays a song, it goes into the log and the royalty money eventually goes to the right place. They don't need to know if anybody actually heard the song. Public performance fees would (in theory) require that the number of listeners be known, and the reason for them listening would involve a for-profit event. Normal use of a radio would not invoke these extra fees.

Playing a radio in a show store, for example, would require fees. Getting away with it for a while doesn't mean the fees don't apply...

 

[asjflask]

You're right. We need less, not more, government interference in businesses. Competition and capitalism are the way to go -- China's doing it and look how well that's paying off. All the more reason to not vote Democrat now. And I'm not saying the Republicans are really any better either, but the Democrats are definitely the "evil" between the two.

 

[ravewulf]

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