http://profitlabinc.com/business/blog/2006/10/04/zero-coupon-bond/ Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:05:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.3 http://profitlabinc.com/business/blog/2006/10/04/zero-coupon-bond/#comment-7 Wed, 04 Oct 2006 09:04:58 +0000 http://profitlabinc.com/business/blog/2006/10/04/zero-coupon-bond/#comment-7 [...] The RIAA’s rhetoric would have law-makers believe that consumers are getting for free exactly what they would otherwise have to pay for. And for some consumers, this is true. In many cases, the downloaded MP3’s do become burned CDs, which do displace (in our changers and Walkmen) commercially produced records. But, reckoned as a percentage of all “consumed” music, this is a tiny percentage. The threat is not yet real, but the industry has been panicked by the prospect that these numbers will grow. That is a philosophical subtlety (well beyond the resolution of law) so delicate that the recording industry has been left with no recourse but hyperbole. After all, the threat of future financial damages is not so persuasive as the claim of current damages. Yes, it’s a lie. Like many we have heard before, and like many we will hear again. But the moral analysis of the Napster issue (and likely resolution) requires not only that we place this “lie” in a historical context, but also that we assess its impact beyond the present. [...] […] The RIAA’s rhetoric would have law-makers believe that consumers are getting for free exactly what they would otherwise have to pay for. And for some consumers, this is true. In many cases, the downloaded MP3’s do become burned CDs, which do displace (in our changers and Walkmen) commercially produced records. But, reckoned as a percentage of all “consumed” music, this is a tiny percentage. The threat is not yet real, but the industry has been panicked by the prospect that these numbers will grow. That is a philosophical subtlety (well beyond the resolution of law) so delicate that the recording industry has been left with no recourse but hyperbole. After all, the threat of future financial damages is not so persuasive as the claim of current damages. Yes, it’s a lie. Like many we have heard before, and like many we will hear again. But the moral analysis of the Napster issue (and likely resolution) requires not only that we place this “lie” in a historical context, but also that we assess its impact beyond the present. […]

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