I have to disagree with your statement that the cost of making the physical CD/DVD is irrelevant. That cost along with other recurring costs as marketing, distribution, warehousing, etc. are relevant, as is the up front cost of producing the music, book, computer software and so on. Once that up front cost is recovered along with a reasonable profit should it not be removed from the price of a CD or DVD?
How is that up front cost any different from the up front cost of designing and producing a prototype in the electronics or computer business? Does anyone in our industry expect to make an eternal ongoing profit from a single design?
The entertainment industry is the only one that expects to make endless profit from an initial investment, and seems to have enough influence over our elected representatives to continue to do so.
BTW, do you know that every time you buy a blank CD or DVD a portion of what you pay for it goes to the entertainment industry? Be sure to thank your representative for that.
Once you got good at your job and it was no longer as hard to perform did you offer to accept a lower wage?
Simple . It may be where its at now ! or it be lower , We don't have all the numbers .
Kwinn is right .. again and again ...............>>>>. THE 5 $ BIN <<<<<.... Proof that major media companys WILL sell Low . . so If the math addds up they CAN sell at a "" "reasonable profit".
""
There is a percentage of people that will steal, does not matter what you charge, any fee is too much when you feel "entitled" to other peoples labor.
in the study I did . that was at about 10% . @ a 3-4 USD DVD..
perhaps at 6 USD its 12% ....... I never asked .....
the curve is how if it was Me I would choose a price point ........
Simple . It may be where its at now ! or it be lower , We don't have all the numbers .
Kwinn is right .. again and again ...............>>>>. THE 5 $ BIN <<<<<.... Proof that major media companys WILL sell Low . . so If the math addds up they CAN sell at a "" "reasonable profit".
""
You do realize they do that to MAXIMIZE profit. Once sales of a title drop to low at full price it ends up in the 5 dollar bin, or maybe in a combo pack, but if something happens in popular culture that puts the title back in high demand it IS NOT staying in the 5 dollar bin.
Once you got good at your job and it was no longer as hard to perform did you offer to accept a lower wage?
No. Once I got good at my job my productivity and customer satisfaction levels went up so I asked for a raise.
Who gets to decide a "reasonable profit".
C.W.
How about looking at the general profit margins for existing businesses as a guideline?
Why not try to control costs to improve profits?
Do you think 20 to 40 million per film is a reasonable paycheck for an actor?
Is anyone really worth that kind of salary?
No. Once I got good at my job my productivity and customer satisfaction levels went up so I asked for a raise.
How about looking at the general profit margins for existing businesses as a guideline?
Why not try to control costs to improve profits?
Do you think 20 to 40 million per film is a reasonable paycheck for an actor?
Is anyone really worth that kind of salary?
How about looking... So the best you can do is average?
Why not try... They already do, any business that succeeds does.
Do you think 20 to 40 million...Sure if people are willing to buy the end result, typically I wait for second runs or DVD rentals like redbox so as to feed the beast as little as I can, but I don't pirate.
Like you they helped bring there employer money so they asked for a raise.
Is anyone really worth... Again the purpose of business is to make a profit, if the current "A-List" actors help fill theater seats and sell DVD's the studio will pay what they ask as long as it maximizes profit.
The public at large encourages all of this by sucking up all the licensed merchandise and making idols out of actors and music artists.
So if you (in the general sense, not specifically kwinn) don't like it, don't buy licensed merchandise (like why buy major brand softdrinks with movie character bottles), listen to local artists, support local theatre, watch independent films, etc.
How about looking... So the best you can do is average?
How does someone judge anything without comparing it to something they already know or have experienced?
Like you they helped bring there employer money so they asked for a raise.
Ouch, shot with ammo I supplied. Good point, however there is also a bit of the "old boys" or "insider" club at work here. It is much easier to justify your own inflated income if you can point to someone else and say "Look at what he/she makes, of course I deserve every penny I get paid and then some".
Is anyone really worth... Again the purpose of business is to make a profit, if the current "A-List" actors help fill theater seats and sell DVD's the studio will pay what they ask as long as it maximizes profit.
The public at large encourages all of this by sucking up all the licensed merchandise and making idols out of actors and music artists.
So if you (in the general sense, not specifically kwinn) don't like it, don't buy licensed merchandise (like why buy major brand softdrinks with movie character bottles), listen to local artists, support local theatre, watch independent films, etc.
C.W.
In general I don't like it and don't buy it. I am in fact surprised that so many people do buy it. Like you I am willing to wait until the price drops to what I consider fair.
Just to set the record straight, I do not advocate, support or practice piracy. I am certain we are being gouged and legally railroaded by vested interests and would like to see that stopped, but theft is not the way to do it. Refusing to buy their products is.
An odd thought occurred to me whilst pondering my leanings toward the Pirate Bay,
As I a kid I used to watch the BBC's "Blue Peter" show for children. They were often explaining how things worked and how to make stuff. This is the logo of the Blue Peter show:
As an adult I am watching the grown ups trying to make and use stuff and being hammered down by the intellectual property rights laws. I watch growth the Pirate Bay is a backlash against those onerous restrictions. This is the logo of the Pirate Bay:
I'll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.....
I have to disagree with your statement that the cost of making the physical CD/DVD is irrelevant....
The rest of that paragraph then goes on to agree with me:)
If you set the cost of stamping CD's or proving net downloads to zero, which it almost is compared to the cost of producing a block buster movie, then it is obviously irrelevant. I agree with you about the other up front costs, they are the major expense and investment that creators need to recoupe just to stay in busniness. Clearly those production costs are in no way related to the cost of the final delivery medium.
The entertainment industry is the only one that expects to make endless profit from an initial investment, and seems to have enough influence over our elected representatives to continue to do so.
What about the software industry?
Starting with that famous letter to hobbyists by Bill Gates the notion has been that you make a program and then scoop back as much money as possible for as long as possible has been the norm. It has worked for some, not so much for others. After all these years Bill still won't let you share 4K BASIC binaries let alone the source code.
...do you know that every time you buy a blank CD or DVD a portion of what you pay for it goes to the entertainment industry?
Even worse than that, every time I ride in a taxi around here (Finland) part of my fare goes to the copyright mafia as a royalty payment for hearing the music on the cabs radio. Which of course I did not ask for and did not want to hear anyway.
There is another implication to that, apart from money.
Opportunity costs. When the term of copyright is short, say 14 years in the US as it was originally, works move to the public domain quickly. The creator sees income from the creations, however that is short lived and they must either continue to create, or see income drop off rapidly as their own works are used as materials for new works that compete for income and relevancy.
This is highly biased toward both new creators wanting to see relevance and the public who sees a lot of works.
When it was extended to 28 years, that dynamic shifts some toward established creators, the public still sees a lot of new works, and new creators have a higher burden for relevancy as they must compete with well established works.
In both scenarios, back catalog sales are not too significant as there are few works that really endure beyond the 28 year term. Society changes, culture changes, etc...
Some creators though, like Thomas Paine as just one example because I like him, has written works that have never been out of print. Where as movies and other less academic works tend to lose their appeal and value over time. Think on that for a moment.
Disney corporation tapped the works of the Brothers Grimm as the basis for their animated color movie business. Arguably, Disney added a lot of value to works that were still fairly relevant. This was the 28 year time period, mind you.
Now, here is where the opportunity costs come into play, and it's a reverse cost from how that term is normally used. The shorter term was still fairly biased toward new creators and it allowed derivatives to compete fairly well because we basically allowed that for works that were still very relevant. Authors felt that a significant infringement because others clearly were able to benefit from the work while they were still seeing benefit.
Disney has never given back to the pool of works they drew from to create their empire. The copyright extensions all are aligned with Mickey Mouse about to enter the public domain. The Brothers Grimm earned their living, then saw their works used for others to earn a living just as everybody had done, until Disney decided that it didn't want to give back.
Since then, the public domain has been very seriously diluted. It's no longer possible to build on fairly relevant works as Disney did, the bias now away from the consumer and away from new creators as their barrier to entry is now very, very high, and firmly in favor of existing creators. This event is also well aligned with the idea of intellectual property, where credit and license for works of all kinds is increasingly the norm requiring significant legal and capital to produce works that have any relevance at all! Not only is the bias toward established creators, but incorporated ones and large ones at that!
Regarding software, the US patent system is well aligned to create the same empire with the same implications. Right now there is huge EU lobby efforts by American companies to install the same system there so that the established players do not have to compete anywhere. Right now, they do as the EU has a more balanced approach overall, but that's under constant threat.
Today, nearly everything of relevance is owned, and where it's not owned, many claim infringement on even the smallest of pretexts, which is why you see ADS on You Tube dropped over somebody performing an original composition, money they do not get any of, the justification being that they must have copied somebody somewhere and that somebody somewhere needs to get paid and never mind, we the AD money collectors will see to that, just pay us...
Most of the rational calls for reform aren't about free stuff. They are all about the theft from the public commons and the impact that has on culture. Today, culture is largely owned by major corporations who manage it for profit not for it's value added to the society it exists in. That is an inherent conflict where culture and dollars are not always linked, the value propositions in them not always the same, nor are the goals.
That theft raises the barrier to entry on new works and that's the opportunity cost. We quite literally are not seeing the robust set of works we would see with shorter terms and live under a more managed, and less diverse, arguably diluted culture, present due to the overly long copyright terms in place now. RAMBO 1, 2, 5, 14, 16 Notice how things become franchises always? How they almost never, ever die? This is why. For each one of those that endures say 30 years, tons of work cannot enter the market, we experience fewer choices, and so it goes. Many will argue creators get lazy because their works pay for so long, but frankly, I think the cost of derivatives outside an established franchise are the root cause of this. Easier to build on what one owns because nothing really new goes into the public domain. And we get TERMINATOR 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, mini-series, video game, toy, wnatever else we can associate with TERMINATOR, while the imagined SPUDMAN, "defender of all good and worthy in this world" remains unseen, a doodle on a notebook in school or work, the costs to realize so high as to render our potential hero SPUDMAN irrelevant and easily forgotten. But wait!! TERMINATOR 23 is next week! Buy your tickets today!
I would love to see shorter terms, but I also know that Disney will keep extending them, so...
I jump ship. I watch very little TV, buy a movie on physical media from time to time, so I can swap with friends, resell it, hack it, move it to a device I want, etc... and spend more time programming things, retro gaming, and anything else I find entertaining that doesn't feed that beast any more than I find value doing. One artifact of this is the rise of the many sub-cultures which now see significant gains due to ease of communication and the hunger people have for things to identify with that aren't the same old same old.
Just so you know, they are trying to close the public domain hole entirely for complete ownership. Betty Boop and Felix the Cat are Public Domain. We can make fun things with them and sell them and our copyright on them will live longer than we do, if successful. However, should those things get rebroadcast at any time, the broadcaster would then own them, able to claim infringement same as anything else. That's in the new global treaty many nations are debating right now and that debate is secret, hidden from us, and influenced by the Disney corporations of the world... Happy days!
The rest of that paragraph then goes on to agree with me
Except for that one point I do agree with you.
What about the software industry?
Good point. The software , computer/video game, and entertainment industry all share that same business dynamic. They all have a large one time up front cost and a smaller ongoing cost. I agree they need to get a reasonable return on their investment, but what is reasonable, 100%, 200%, 1000%?
Even worse than that, every time I ride in a taxi around here (Finland)...
Bad enough that you have to pay the royalties on a whole CD to get one or two tracks you want, even worse when you are forced to pay for Smile you don't want to listen to. The only options I can see are to pressure the taxi industry for reduced fare "no radio" cabs or your elected representatives to remove the fee. No point re-electing someone who has not accomplished something useful for you. Kick the bums out.
Once you got good at your job and it was no longer as hard to perform did you offer to accept a lower wage?
Each time I do my job, it gets easier, and folks pay more. As I move from job to job, more places decide to try this new advantage, and I get more jobs. Also, my peers call me in to help on their gigs. Since I have limited time in a week, the folks that pay the most get the help, the rest have to wait.
If I stayed in my job from high school flipping burgers, I would probably be pretty darn good at it by now, but I don't think anybody would be paying any more than minimum wage like they did back then.
If I stayed in my job from high school flipping burgers, I would probably be pretty darn good at it by now, but I don't think anybody would be paying any more than minimum wage like they did back then.
Just think. You could've worked your way up the ladder.
The only options I can see are to pressure the taxi industry for reduced fare "no radio" cabs...
Let's think about that for a minute:
For decades workers in factories and offices and wherever have been listening to the radio as they work. It helps them get through the monotony of the average day.
Now we are to say that taxi drivers are basically not allowed to listen to the radio as they work. because their customers might accidentally hear it as well. I for one think that idea is crazy and inhuman.
Mind you it is already worse than that. Over in the UK the copyright mafia wanted the QuikFit auto repair company to pay a royalty because workers there listen to the radio whilst they fix your tires and exhaust pipes.
...or your elected representatives to remove the fee
BINGO! That is why we now have Pirate Bay Parties all around Europe and elsewhere in the world.
1) The PBP offers candidates who actually take a stand on all this and that you can vote for.
2) Even if the PBP stand little chance of being elected it forces the other parties to state their position on these things and perhaps adapt their positions as well.
For decades workers in factories and offices and wherever have been listening to the radio as they work. It helps them get through the monotony of the average day.
Now we are to say that taxi drivers are basically not allowed to listen to the radio as they work. because their customers might accidentally hear it as well. I for one think that idea is crazy and inhuman.
Mind you it is already worse than that. Over in the UK the copyright mafia wanted the QuikFit auto repair company to pay a royalty because workers there listen to the radio whilst they fix your tires and exhaust pipes.
...or your elected representatives to remove the fee
BINGO! That is why we now have Pirate Bay Parties all around Europe and elsewhere in the world.
1) The PBP offers candidates who actually take a stand on all this and that you can vote for.
2) Even if the PBP stand little chance of being elected it forces the other parties to state their position on these things and perhaps adapt their positions as well.
I was thinking more along the lines of the taxi driver having a portable radio or music player and earbuds so he can listen to his music while the customer gets a lower fare and does not have to listen to music he/she may not care for. To me it seems ridiculous to penalize one group for something when others are doing the same thing and not being penalized.
Could be done, but why should we? I'd be rather unhappy to find my taxi driver wearing ear buds, I'd rather he was available to listen to me. And how
would the copyright mafia keep track of who had radio, used earbuds etc etc? Not very workable.
Anyway the issues with copyright, patents, IP law in general are much bigger than that and need a bigger fix than just getting my representitive to
fix the taxi problem. Hence the Pirate Bay Party, to raise awareness among politicians and the public of these issues.
To me it seems ridiculous to penalize one group for something when others are doing the same thing and not being penalized.
Too true, Be sure the copyright mafia agrees with you and that is why they are trying to spread there levies to all groups everywhere. As in the QuikFit example above.
Some may object to my use of the term "copyright mafia". I use it to include such organizations as the MPAA, RIAA and equivalent organizations in pretty much everyother country in the world. It includes those who were storming Kim Dotcoms home with helicopters and guns in New Zeeland. It includes those lawyers in the USA intimidating people with copyright violation charges. It include the Business Software Alliance (BSA) in the states and probably elsewhere.
"copyright mafia" is a bit of an off hand term but I think we need a term for this orchestrated, world wide "family" of extortionists.
Comments
Once you got good at your job and it was no longer as hard to perform did you offer to accept a lower wage?
Who gets to decide a "reasonable profit".
C.W.
Simple . It may be where its at now ! or it be lower , We don't have all the numbers .
Kwinn is right .. again and again ...............>>>>. THE 5 $ BIN <<<<<.... Proof that major media companys WILL sell Low . . so If the math addds up they CAN sell at a "" "reasonable profit".
""
in the study I did . that was at about 10% . @ a 3-4 USD DVD..
perhaps at 6 USD its 12% ....... I never asked .....
the curve is how if it was Me I would choose a price point ........
You do realize they do that to MAXIMIZE profit. Once sales of a title drop to low at full price it ends up in the 5 dollar bin, or maybe in a combo pack, but if something happens in popular culture that puts the title back in high demand it IS NOT staying in the 5 dollar bin.
C.W.
No. Once I got good at my job my productivity and customer satisfaction levels went up so I asked for a raise.
How about looking at the general profit margins for existing businesses as a guideline?
Why not try to control costs to improve profits?
Do you think 20 to 40 million per film is a reasonable paycheck for an actor?
Is anyone really worth that kind of salary?
How about looking... So the best you can do is average?
Why not try... They already do, any business that succeeds does.
Do you think 20 to 40 million...Sure if people are willing to buy the end result, typically I wait for second runs or DVD rentals like redbox so as to feed the beast as little as I can, but I don't pirate.
Like you they helped bring there employer money so they asked for a raise.
Is anyone really worth... Again the purpose of business is to make a profit, if the current "A-List" actors help fill theater seats and sell DVD's the studio will pay what they ask as long as it maximizes profit.
The public at large encourages all of this by sucking up all the licensed merchandise and making idols out of actors and music artists.
So if you (in the general sense, not specifically kwinn) don't like it, don't buy licensed merchandise (like why buy major brand softdrinks with movie character bottles), listen to local artists, support local theatre, watch independent films, etc.
C.W.
How does someone judge anything without comparing it to something they already know or have experienced?
Ouch, shot with ammo I supplied. Good point, however there is also a bit of the "old boys" or "insider" club at work here. It is much easier to justify your own inflated income if you can point to someone else and say "Look at what he/she makes, of course I deserve every penny I get paid and then some".
In general I don't like it and don't buy it. I am in fact surprised that so many people do buy it. Like you I am willing to wait until the price drops to what I consider fair.
Just to set the record straight, I do not advocate, support or practice piracy. I am certain we are being gouged and legally railroaded by vested interests and would like to see that stopped, but theft is not the way to do it. Refusing to buy their products is.
As I a kid I used to watch the BBC's "Blue Peter" show for children. They were often explaining how things worked and how to make stuff. This is the logo of the Blue Peter show:
As an adult I am watching the grown ups trying to make and use stuff and being hammered down by the intellectual property rights laws. I watch growth the Pirate Bay is a backlash against those onerous restrictions. This is the logo of the Pirate Bay:
I'll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.....
Yep, looks like there might be some copyright infringements there!!
If you set the cost of stamping CD's or proving net downloads to zero, which it almost is compared to the cost of producing a block buster movie, then it is obviously irrelevant. I agree with you about the other up front costs, they are the major expense and investment that creators need to recoupe just to stay in busniness. Clearly those production costs are in no way related to the cost of the final delivery medium. What about the software industry?
Starting with that famous letter to hobbyists by Bill Gates the notion has been that you make a program and then scoop back as much money as possible for as long as possible has been the norm. It has worked for some, not so much for others. After all these years Bill still won't let you share 4K BASIC binaries let alone the source code. Even worse than that, every time I ride in a taxi around here (Finland) part of my fare goes to the copyright mafia as a royalty payment for hearing the music on the cabs radio. Which of course I did not ask for and did not want to hear anyway.
Opportunity costs. When the term of copyright is short, say 14 years in the US as it was originally, works move to the public domain quickly. The creator sees income from the creations, however that is short lived and they must either continue to create, or see income drop off rapidly as their own works are used as materials for new works that compete for income and relevancy.
This is highly biased toward both new creators wanting to see relevance and the public who sees a lot of works.
When it was extended to 28 years, that dynamic shifts some toward established creators, the public still sees a lot of new works, and new creators have a higher burden for relevancy as they must compete with well established works.
In both scenarios, back catalog sales are not too significant as there are few works that really endure beyond the 28 year term. Society changes, culture changes, etc...
Some creators though, like Thomas Paine as just one example because I like him, has written works that have never been out of print. Where as movies and other less academic works tend to lose their appeal and value over time. Think on that for a moment.
Disney corporation tapped the works of the Brothers Grimm as the basis for their animated color movie business. Arguably, Disney added a lot of value to works that were still fairly relevant. This was the 28 year time period, mind you.
Now, here is where the opportunity costs come into play, and it's a reverse cost from how that term is normally used. The shorter term was still fairly biased toward new creators and it allowed derivatives to compete fairly well because we basically allowed that for works that were still very relevant. Authors felt that a significant infringement because others clearly were able to benefit from the work while they were still seeing benefit.
Disney has never given back to the pool of works they drew from to create their empire. The copyright extensions all are aligned with Mickey Mouse about to enter the public domain. The Brothers Grimm earned their living, then saw their works used for others to earn a living just as everybody had done, until Disney decided that it didn't want to give back.
Since then, the public domain has been very seriously diluted. It's no longer possible to build on fairly relevant works as Disney did, the bias now away from the consumer and away from new creators as their barrier to entry is now very, very high, and firmly in favor of existing creators. This event is also well aligned with the idea of intellectual property, where credit and license for works of all kinds is increasingly the norm requiring significant legal and capital to produce works that have any relevance at all! Not only is the bias toward established creators, but incorporated ones and large ones at that!
Regarding software, the US patent system is well aligned to create the same empire with the same implications. Right now there is huge EU lobby efforts by American companies to install the same system there so that the established players do not have to compete anywhere. Right now, they do as the EU has a more balanced approach overall, but that's under constant threat.
Today, nearly everything of relevance is owned, and where it's not owned, many claim infringement on even the smallest of pretexts, which is why you see ADS on You Tube dropped over somebody performing an original composition, money they do not get any of, the justification being that they must have copied somebody somewhere and that somebody somewhere needs to get paid and never mind, we the AD money collectors will see to that, just pay us...
Most of the rational calls for reform aren't about free stuff. They are all about the theft from the public commons and the impact that has on culture. Today, culture is largely owned by major corporations who manage it for profit not for it's value added to the society it exists in. That is an inherent conflict where culture and dollars are not always linked, the value propositions in them not always the same, nor are the goals.
That theft raises the barrier to entry on new works and that's the opportunity cost. We quite literally are not seeing the robust set of works we would see with shorter terms and live under a more managed, and less diverse, arguably diluted culture, present due to the overly long copyright terms in place now. RAMBO 1, 2, 5, 14, 16 Notice how things become franchises always? How they almost never, ever die? This is why. For each one of those that endures say 30 years, tons of work cannot enter the market, we experience fewer choices, and so it goes. Many will argue creators get lazy because their works pay for so long, but frankly, I think the cost of derivatives outside an established franchise are the root cause of this. Easier to build on what one owns because nothing really new goes into the public domain. And we get TERMINATOR 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, mini-series, video game, toy, wnatever else we can associate with TERMINATOR, while the imagined SPUDMAN, "defender of all good and worthy in this world" remains unseen, a doodle on a notebook in school or work, the costs to realize so high as to render our potential hero SPUDMAN irrelevant and easily forgotten. But wait!! TERMINATOR 23 is next week! Buy your tickets today!
I would love to see shorter terms, but I also know that Disney will keep extending them, so...
I jump ship. I watch very little TV, buy a movie on physical media from time to time, so I can swap with friends, resell it, hack it, move it to a device I want, etc... and spend more time programming things, retro gaming, and anything else I find entertaining that doesn't feed that beast any more than I find value doing. One artifact of this is the rise of the many sub-cultures which now see significant gains due to ease of communication and the hunger people have for things to identify with that aren't the same old same old.
Just so you know, they are trying to close the public domain hole entirely for complete ownership. Betty Boop and Felix the Cat are Public Domain. We can make fun things with them and sell them and our copyright on them will live longer than we do, if successful. However, should those things get rebroadcast at any time, the broadcaster would then own them, able to claim infringement same as anything else. That's in the new global treaty many nations are debating right now and that debate is secret, hidden from us, and influenced by the Disney corporations of the world... Happy days!
Good point. The software , computer/video game, and entertainment industry all share that same business dynamic. They all have a large one time up front cost and a smaller ongoing cost. I agree they need to get a reasonable return on their investment, but what is reasonable, 100%, 200%, 1000%?
Bad enough that you have to pay the royalties on a whole CD to get one or two tracks you want, even worse when you are forced to pay for Smile you don't want to listen to. The only options I can see are to pressure the taxi industry for reduced fare "no radio" cabs or your elected representatives to remove the fee. No point re-electing someone who has not accomplished something useful for you. Kick the bums out.
Each time I do my job, it gets easier, and folks pay more. As I move from job to job, more places decide to try this new advantage, and I get more jobs. Also, my peers call me in to help on their gigs. Since I have limited time in a week, the folks that pay the most get the help, the rest have to wait.
If I stayed in my job from high school flipping burgers, I would probably be pretty darn good at it by now, but I don't think anybody would be paying any more than minimum wage like they did back then.
Just think. You could've worked your way up the ladder.
For decades workers in factories and offices and wherever have been listening to the radio as they work. It helps them get through the monotony of the average day.
Now we are to say that taxi drivers are basically not allowed to listen to the radio as they work. because their customers might accidentally hear it as well. I for one think that idea is crazy and inhuman.
Mind you it is already worse than that. Over in the UK the copyright mafia wanted the QuikFit auto repair company to pay a royalty because workers there listen to the radio whilst they fix your tires and exhaust pipes.
Burger King: "The Secret Ingredient is our People."
Oh, God, puke, I'm a cannibal.
Could be done, but why should we? I'd be rather unhappy to find my taxi driver wearing ear buds, I'd rather he was available to listen to me. And how
would the copyright mafia keep track of who had radio, used earbuds etc etc? Not very workable.
Anyway the issues with copyright, patents, IP law in general are much bigger than that and need a bigger fix than just getting my representitive to
fix the taxi problem. Hence the Pirate Bay Party, to raise awareness among politicians and the public of these issues. Too true, Be sure the copyright mafia agrees with you and that is why they are trying to spread there levies to all groups everywhere. As in the QuikFit example above.
Some may object to my use of the term "copyright mafia". I use it to include such organizations as the MPAA, RIAA and equivalent organizations in pretty much everyother country in the world. It includes those who were storming Kim Dotcoms home with helicopters and guns in New Zeeland. It includes those lawyers in the USA intimidating people with copyright violation charges. It include the Business Software Alliance (BSA) in the states and probably elsewhere.
"copyright mafia" is a bit of an off hand term but I think we need a term for this orchestrated, world wide "family" of extortionists.