DeCSS, crypto, law, and economics

Phil Karn karn at ka9q.net
Thu Jan 9 03:59:59 EST 2003


John Gilmore wrote:

> The kind of segmentation your graphs rely on can easily be created
> by *time* segmentation.  Producers start off charging high prices for
> their goods, and then gradually reduce the prices as they ramp up
> volumes, pay off their startup costs, learn the desires of their market
> better, etc.  This gets the social benefit you desire, without propping
> up any artificial forms of segmentation.

Exactly. Time segmentation already practiced by the movie studios and 
book publishers, and it's pretty hard to arbitrage -- until somebody 
invents time travel.

Much movie piracy is driven by the strange practice of releasing new 
movies in different countries at different times. This is a major form 
of geographic market segmentation. If "Two Towers" had been released 
world-wide on the same day instead of only in the US and a few other 
countries, then there would have been little motivation for anxious fans 
around the world to get US collaborators to make a crappy videotape of 
the film in a US theater and export it. They'd just go to their local 
theaters and see it in its full glory.

Phil



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