Re: Kazaa and hybrid soybeans

["Eli Stephens" <elishastephens@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Corporate control of intellectual property may, however, increase ordering
> books over the Internet from bookstores abroad -- the current price
> differences between books sold in the USA and overseas has much to do with
> intellectual property

No, it has to do with price differentials between countries and "charging
what the market will bear" and the Internet's ability to do away with that.
In BOTH cases the seller is the same publisher. If the books abroad were
being published by someone who was ignoring the U.S. copyright, in violation
of international law, they could be sold for MUCH less, since that publisher
wouldn't be paying royalties to the author, but that's not what's happening
here.

A better example of what you are talking about might be the case of Cuban
medicines being imported into the U.S., as described here:

http://lefti.blogspot.com/2003_09_01_lefti_archive.html#106493734131408032

or, even within the U.S., the lower price of generics compared to name-brand
medicines.

The REAL crime being committed in the intellectual property area, which
makes the whole issue of downloaded music a trivial one indeed, is the
ability of drug companies to produce trivial modifications to drug formulas
and to thereby extend their patents (of course, I'm framing this statement
of a "crime" in the context of capitalism; clearly, it would benefit mankind
if all drug companies were publicly owned, did their research using public
money, and the resulting drugs became the universal property of mankind with
no royalties owed, but I'm afraid that's a discussion without immediate
bearing). Yet another crime, which is related, is how drug companies are
able to expropriate research which WAS done at public expense and privatize
that research and obtain the financial benefits without incurring the
initial risks).

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