On Sun, 21 Jan 2001, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
> I think Gilmore's right.
>
> On the other hand, and, quite frankly, it is the *market* that
> ultimately determines the salability of something, and not government
> regulation, or even the litigiousness of the recording industry.
>
> I think the reason we don't have digital out jacks on minidisc
> players is because people don't want to *pay* for them. The fact that
> the recording industry's lawyers have a massive incentive to increase
> that cost as much as they possibly can, is, oddly, orthogonal to the
> basic value proposition that people *play* music on the things, and
> not record it on them.
I have a hard time believing this.
How much would digital out jacks cost? $1? $2? $5?
If the manufacturers thought they could do it, they would. We live in a
land where every marketing department is trying to outdo every other.
I think the only reason that they don't is that they know what would
happen if they did.
That price they are not willing to pay. Why sink a bunch of money into a
product line just to see all that time and inventory destroyed by
overactive lawyers declaring it a "tool for copyright violation".
The market has nothing to do with the situation. This is a case where no
one wants to be the first to stand up and get their corporate heads blown
off.
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