Apple, Psystar ask court to set trial date for next November - Page 8

Why?

Sony has a "lock out" code that prevents a region 2 PlayStation game from playing in a region 1 PlayStation console. This "lock out" code also exist for movies and DVD players (including the DVD drive on a computer). The game or movie verifies that it's in the proper machine before it will play. This region code "lock out" has been around since the first PlayStation and since the beginning of movies on DVD's. Sony has successfully won cases against makers of mod chips that attempted to by pass this "lock out" on their PlayStations.

Sony also has a "lock out" code on their PlayStation consoles that detect a copied game. Only an original game disk will work on a PlayStation. Gamers have cited that "fair use" allows them to make back up copies of their games. But these back up copies will not work on their PlayStations. Makers began selling "mod chip" to bypass this "lock out" so that burned back up copies of PlayStation games will work on a PlatStation. Sony sued these "mod chip" makers and won.

Quit citing the Lexmark DMCA case as though it's some kind of landmark case that proves that copyright holders can't use the DMCA as a means to "lock out" unauthorize use of their copyrighted material. Lexmark didn't have a case because they didn't have a legal copyright on the chip, that they were using to verify an original toner, to begin with. And even if they did, reverse engineering is legal in some instances. Sony and Apple have legal copyrights on their IP. They can use the DMCA to enforce this copyright. They can "lock out" their copyrighted material anyway they see fit.

It doesn't matter that OSX will work on a generic PC (with a little tweaking). A Sony region 2 PlayStation game will play perfectly on a region 1 console if it weren't for the region "lock out" code. A burned copy of a PlayStation game will play like the original if it weren't for the built in software that detects a burned copy of a game. A region 2 DVD movie will play just fine on a region 1 DVD player if weren't for the region "lock out" code.

Buy a Dell, HP or Sony PC and you get a disk with an OEM license of Windows. That disk with Windows in it will not install Windows on to any other PC of a different brand. And most likely won't install on to a different PC model of the same brand. You are essentially "locked out" from using your OEM Windows license on any other PC, except the one it came with. (Apple does the samething with the OEM OSX license that comes with a Mac.) You can't legally do anything about it because that's the terms you agreed to when you first started up the computer. That OEM license is non transferable to another computer. Even if you destroy the original computer that came with it. You can not legally sell this license. (Even though you see the disk on eBay.) It's usually stated right on the disk or the case it came in, "Not to be sold separately", "Only to be included with a PC".

A OSX upgrade license that you buy off the shelf is like that OEM license. It's only meant to be used in a certain restricted way. That OSX upgrade license requires you to have a previous OSX license before you can use it. And just like how that OEM license can "lock" you out when you try to load it on a different brand PC. The OSX upgrade license can "lock" you out if it doesn't detect a previous OSX license. (A Windows upgrade disk will also not install until there's proof of a previous license.) That is why it's stated on the box that you must have a Mac to use this upgrade license. Every Mac that it will work on came with a previous OSX license. Apple is not doing anything illegal or anti-competitive because OSX "locks" you out when you try to load it on a generic PC. Did that generic PC have a previous OSX license? I don't think so.

Epson goes after third-party ink cartridges and wins

Free markets are ones where competition thrives within a regulatory framework that keeps the playing field fair.

But companies who don't like the push and shove of real competition come up with legal tricks to give them a tactical edge.

"Sorry, we have designed this printer so that it only uses OUR ink. Using 3rd party ink is in violation of your user agreement."

Why innovate?? Why bother, why employ research and development staff? All you really need is a team of lawyers? There's millions of pages of copyright law, and patent law and contract law. Somewhere in there, there must be a trick that we can use to our advantage.

And remember, if we pay substantial contributions to political parties, we will be assured of their support. (Wink).

Just looking at printers again, look at the insanity of the present situation, there are literally hundreds of ink cartridge formats, all doing the same function. (Holding a few drops of liquid). The printer manufacturers put more effort into preventing ink piracy than they do into making better printers. Hey, don't worry if the paper jams, there are 23 patents on the cartridge. Hey did you know it registers as empty when it's sill 23% full?

Now imagine a common cartridge format agreed by manufacturers. A standard. Consumers would win out, and manufacturers would compete in making the best printer instead of the best ink marketing tool.

BREAKING NEWS. Epson wins case to stamp-out 3rd party paper. Their new paper range starts at less than a dollar a sheet.

C.
I just had the "C." patented so no one else can do that without paying me ok?

Some customers win. Others lose.

Taking a bit of liquid ink and spraying it on a piece of paper at a precise location is a solved problem. Similarly for the toner in laser printers. Most of the innovation in recent years is not in paper feed, but in the ink. The ink today far outperforms the ink of a decade ago, while paper feed is pretty much the same paper feed, and the electronics that were added (allowing direct camera-to-printer, for example) may be convenient for some, but are in no way breakthrough.

A mandatory standard for ink cartridges will give you cheap off-brand ink. OTOH it will mean a far more expensive printer. For people with a home printer that only sees casual use (up to 10 pages a week) the total costs would rise.

The standard ink would mean that innovation in ink will slow to a halt. Cheap ink will displace from the market the expensive ink and manufacturers will concentrate their efforts on the printers (which are already good enough) rather than the ink (where there's room for improvement)

Compliance to common standards *improves* competition and innovation. It does not stifle it.

SATA hard drives continue to develop. They are not held back by SATA. And the common interface means there is fair and vigorous competition between the vendors for the same customers.

Proprietary manufacturer-tie-ins thwart that competition. They undermine the benefits of a free market.

Not all products are stand-alone.

Cameras/film/lenses.
Printers/ink/paper.
Cars/tyres/fuel/radios/gps.
Computers/software.
VHS Players/tape.
Razors/Blades

The market is best served when consumers are free to chose multi-vendor solutions.

C.

Not necessarily. First you need to be able to tell what makes one competition "better" than another. A common standard tends to drive the competition towards the easiest metric - price. Home routers all comply with the same standards: Ethernet, 802.11, PPTP/L2TP on the WAN side, UPnP. They're all the same, so people buy according to price. They do differ on ease of configuration, but you really almost always only do it once, so that doesn't matter much.


If every drive came with its own interface, we might have had better/faster drives rather than just cheaper ones. We would have to pay more, though.


Apple ties in the iPhone software to the iPhone hardware. Sure you can't get an Android iPhone, but I think this gives you a better phone, though somewhat more expensive.


I don't care about "the market". The consumer are best served with the best package. The best package is sometimes the "best of breed" from the several manufacturers, or it may be the integrated package made by one manufacturer.

Besides, would you say that the market is better served by modular cameras/lenses such as SLRs, where you can get a camera from, say, Nikon and match it with a lens from Nikon, Sigma, Tamron or several others? Or is the market better served with the P&S cameras that come with a built-in lens?

Are we better served by a film camera where you need to buy the film from a third party, or a digital camera, where the "film" in included in the camera?

No.
we.
would.
not.

SATA drives compete on price, capacity, size and performance. Different manufacturers can target different USPs. That's the benefit of standards.

As an example, look at the PC component market. It is all about standards. Memory, drives, displays, videoboards are all standards-based. Multiple vendors aggressively compete to be the fastest/cheapest/most feature-rich. This has driven-down prices and driven-up quality and performance.

Apple acknowledged this when they switched to Intel. Commodity PC hardware was dramatically outpacing the single-vendor solution that Apple had tried with it's PowerPC technology.

C.

"Better served", in the case of camera types is entirely an misleading approach to photography. Film and digital each have their place, and the choice is entirely up to the consumer. There is NO doubt that P&S models do not offer the same control that SLR models offer, not to mention that there can also be a quality difference in the image produced by each.

Inks are another point that most do not understand. If you're just printing text, and or graphics for business presentations, then the ink used is not of major importance. But, if you're printing photos, then there's a helluva difference from one ink to another, and of course one printer to another. Some people bitch about Epson ink prices, those are the people that either don't know, or don't care about the quality of the finished image. Those who do care, including pros, use Epson ink for it's vastly superior image quality and print longevity. Not only that, but to folks who care about photos, the paper also matters, and it's of the utmost importance to have an ICC profile for each particular paper/ink combination than one uses. If you use a paper /ink combo that you don't have a profile for then you need to have a custom profile made, or live with the crap shoot results that come from not using the correct profile. Custom profiles can run from $30 and up to a much higher price, for each particular profile.

The "suckers" print directly from a camera, and print each and every image that was captured. These people bypass one of the main advantages of digital, the ability NOT to print every image. It goes without saying, that even for pros, every image is not worth the ink it takes to print it. That is a mentality leftover from shooing film, where if you shoot roll film, the entire roll must be processed. Digital offers the ability to pick and choose which images are printed.

People that don't care, or know better, look for low priced inks and think that they're getting a bargain. There is no free lunch, you get what you pay for. If people want to run OS X, let them buy a Mac, and quit whining!

Free markets have to be free from both directions. Consumers need to be provided with fair competition. But business also needs the freedom to operate under what business model they choose. As long as it does not stifle other companies from being able to compete.


You are attempting to limit the definition of competition to fit your point. Competition does not mean companies are required to share their IP. If one company comes up with a better idea than another company, that is competition. Forcing a company with a good idea to share that idea with its competitors is not necessarily fair competition.


I don't understand this point at all. The point that you can patent your innovations that come from research and development is what spurs companies to spend money on research and development.




There are many printer companies to choose from. No one overwhelmingly dominates that market. With all of them attempting to lock you into their system, makes it even more important that they improve their product. Because of this printers and inks have improved. I'm not sure making a standard printer cartridge would necessarily improved the situation much from how it has turned out.

I don't understand these examples you have given. Their are various different types of all of these things you have listed. Their is little to no standardization between any of them.

Their was a time when computer manufacturers attempted to use differing interfaces. The industry decided collectively that standard interfaces worked towards the greater benefit. No one forced them to do it.


PPC was not single vendor when Apple first switched to it. IBM and Motorola developed PPC for Apple. The thought at the time that PPC would widely replace the aging x86 architecture. That did not happen. But the original idea was not for Apple to be the only PPC user.

True. But it is still a powerful example of how standards drive the market forwards.


True again. But PPC *became* that. And once you are down to one vendor, progress is only as good as that vendor, innovation slows. Competition ceases.

The legal frameworks of most countries recognize that innovation is stifled by monopolies. But the legal tricks employed by some companies to protect themselves can prevent competition and can be equally damaging to the market.

C.

Sorry, it was badly expressed. I was alluding to a horror world full of Canon film. Ford Fuel. And Epson Paper. It sounds ludicrous, but remember Sony Memory sticks?

C.

Canon doesn't make film, and Ford doesn't make fuel, that is silly, but there is Epson branded paper. You're pushing this too far. If you buy a Boos brand cutting board you can use any knife on it, but if you want a knife blade for say an Oxo mandoline you have to buy the Oxo brand blade.

Say you bought a Nikon DSLR, there are third party lenses to fit the Nikon models, but not all of those third party lenses give the same fully functional control that Nikon branded lenses give. Nikon does NOT share their raw processing algorithms with third party (Adobe Photoshop, etc.) editors. Neither does Canon, or any others that I'm aware of, because that is proprietary info. If you want those Nikon algorithms, you must buy a Nikon editor, such as Nikon Capture NX/NX 2, and they won't open Canon raw images. Photoshop approximates, but does not match Nikon's algorithms, or anyone else's. You cannot force Nikon to give Adobe those algorithms, period.

This argument is pointless.

The market should be free to decide this for itself, not through laws and government regulations.

Its unlikely that the printer/cartridge situation will remain the same forever. AT some point someone will come up with a better idea than anything we are thinking of now. Government intervention does not leave room for those new ideas.

The operating system itself will inevitably hold less influence than it does now. As broadband speeds improve and web services become more sophisticated the role of OS will change.

I believe Apple is likely to turn OS X into something more like the iPhone OS. Where the entire OS can be a gateway onto the internet, not limited through the browser. Icons for AppleInsider, New York Times, and Wikipedia will sit in the dock next to native apps. These web apps will be user interface shells that download web data.

Access to web services would require a less sophisticated OS. This opens opportunities for others to create an OS that serves this need. Someone could make a $200 netbook that uses a simple OS to access web services.

If the law forces Apple to freely license OS X, which comes to dominate a section of the market second to Windows. There is no telling how that could potentially effect the market and stifle other new ideas. The law needs to leave it alone and let it naturally develop.



It can also be argued that PPC actually provided more competition as a viable alternative to x86 which essentially means Intel. When Apple switched from PPC to Intel. That effectively was the last fight of a viable processor architecture to compete with against x86 and the last fight of a major computer manufacturer against Intel.


That depends on the nature of the monopoly. If a company owns a monopoly because the market selected it as having the best solution. That company will be forced to innovate to protect its position, because others will certainly attempt to compete.

But I'm not sure the purpose of arguing this point, as nothing Apple is doing with OS X damages the computer market.

I utterly agree. I am arguing for *less* reliance on laws and regulations. Copyright and patent law are weaponized by large companies to crush the competition.

Here's a great example of how Patent and copyright law are being abused as a means to attack competitors.

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/index.htm

C.

Sorry, as I said, I wasn't quite sure exactly what point you were trying to make. Apparently I guessed incorrectly.


I disagree. In my opinion, the only thing that would happen even in the remote possibility that Psystar were to win, would be confirmation that Psystar was authorized to perform whatever re-engineering steps were necessary to make the Mac OS install on non-Apple hardware then sell the combined product.

The onus would be, and by all rights should be, on Psystar, not Apple, to do any work required to modify the OS in whatever ways would be necessary to make the "marriage" between Apple software and non-Apple hardware work, and then to provide the technical support for the final modified product. (As best as they can figure out, at least.)

Apple would not be obliged to change their software design at all. (However, they probably would in fact change their software design. But in the opposite direction... If Psystar was going to be authorized to sell these machines, then Apple would make them work for it. They'd modify the OS in such a way to make it even more difficult to install on non-Apple hadrware, thus maximizing the amount of re-engineering effort that Psystar would need to invest in to make their products work.)

I look at it as similar to the DMCA temporary exemption which makes it legal to remove SIM locks from cell phones without the manufacturer's or carrier's consent: Sure, it's not prohibited and you won't be guilty of a crime when you do it. But still, the manufacturers are permitted to create the locks in the first place and come up with new and better ways to secure the locks when their previous methods are broken. And they are not obliged to provide any assistance in the lock removal process.

To extend the car analogy, the fact that it would be legal to put a BMW engine inside a Honda car in no way would put any obligation on BMW to plan for compatibility with non-BMW cars as it designs its engines.

True, but "voluntary" industry standards can stifle innovation just as well as a monopoly or government standards. Note the demise of Firewire.

Apple does not sell a full priced copy of OSX. It sells an upgrade, which is evident by it's licensing terms. Apple intends for people buying OSX to already have an earlier version of the OSX installed. If that weren't the case, the price would be tiered as it is with Microsoft.

Moreover, I don't see how it would be hard to show a jury illegal copying has occurred, the license pretty clearly states it is illegal to install the purchased copy on any machine other then a Mac. A jury is much more likely to understand that notion then the convoluted argument that Apple isn't allowed to choose who it sells it's OS to.

Moreover, a jury can ultimately decide whatever it wants. On Appeal, a highly educated panel of judges very familiar with copyright will decide the manner. That is in the very unlikely case that it goes that far.

That probably is true. Yet, people act as if the legal system ultimately ruled against Napster. Napster had some interesting defenses to raise if it were given the opportunity. The arguments probably may have failed, but it wasn't certain.

Yes, of course that would be true. I was speaking just to US Copyright law, which was why I provided the relevant Section of law.

Well, Bertelsmann was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Since Bertelsmann was one of the big four of the music industry they really didn't want to win. By winning they would be losing. It would mean the they could no longer protect the copyrights that they own from sites that uses the Napster business model.

What abuse? If you own a valid patent and you think some one is infringing upon your patent. Then you have the right to inform the allege infringer that you think your patent is being infringed upon. If you want to keep that patent,you must show that you are ready to enforce it. If the allege infringer don't think they're infringing upon your patent, then they can let a court decide. It's the way the legal system works here in the States.

Most, not all, abuse of the patent and copyright laws are actually brought on by small insignificant entities trying to "extort" money from large companies in the form of a out of court settlement. Most large companies don't want to enter any form of law suits. Specially against smaller rivals. It never looks good no matter how good of a case they got. And even if the big comapny have a valid case, it may not persue it because the it would cost them way more to fight the case than they will ever get back. In this type of case who's the one abusing the patent and copyright laws? The big company who maybe right in enforcing a valid patent and copyright? Or the company (that may be infringing upon a patent) that knows that a big company would not waste more than an envelope and letter from a legal team on them because the legal cost way exceeds what can be recovered in damages?

Patent and copyright laws level the playing field among competitors. If you got a patent or copyright, it's only fair that you can license it out to others to use. But would it be fair if one company ignore the law by using your patent or copyright without paying you for a license? That company would be competing unfairly because it's not paying for a license that all his competitors are paying for. It doesn't matter if consumers can buy his products for less because of this. A consumer can also buy products for less from a "fence" of stolen goods. That doesn't mean that this practice must be some how be sanctioned, just because the consumer may benefit from it.

The patent system was devised to prevent inventor's work being stolen. This encourages innovation because the investment in invention can be monetized by the inventor.

BUT

The system can be abused. Many large (and small) corporations have taken to patent squatting. Creating patents for all sorts of inventions they have no intention of developing. And then farming the benefits if any of these ideas are developed.

The problem gets worse when patents are being issued for frivolous ideas. (Using a stylus, clicking a button, a piece of wire and so on)

I don't think the system is a level playing field because it is tilted in favor of large (wealthy) companies.
Small companies merely accused of patent violation will often shut up shop instead of paying the legal costs of defending their IP.

We need to recognize that most innovation is based on derivative work.
A nanny-state patent system can stifle innovation just as too little patent protection can. There is a balance to be struck here.


Are you suggesting that Apple should license OS X to other parties?

C.

My "What abuse?" reply was referring to the link you provided.

I am not implying that our (US) patent system is anywhere near perfect. And for sure abuse takes place. But in reality our patent system favors the little guy. The very fact that you can get a patent and never actually make a product using the patent favors the little guy that has a great idea but no financing to actually make or market his idea. Once he has the patent he can try to license or market his patent without the fear of losing it. If our patent system requires a working prototype before they issue a patent, big corporations with the capital to build the product would end up with most of the patents for next to nothing. Even if the patent office gave you a certain amount of time, say 5 years, for you to build or market your patent or it'll expire, won't work. As big corporation would just wait out the short time period, if they know you can't build on your patent.

One of the biggest abuse, in my opinion, is the issuing of patents that requires technology that isn't possible yet. It's one thing to be not able to afford to build on a patent. But it's another for it to be not even possible to build on a patent with the technology that is available.

You can't will something to some one that hasn't been born yet. But you can get a patent for something that requires something that hasn't been invented yet. Boy, I didn't think you had to be an Einstein to work in a patent office. But I guess it wouldn't hurt.




No. I'm just stating that's in only fair for a valid patent or copyright holder to be able to profit from his patent or copyright by licensing it out. By no means does that mean that he has to license it out.

That's an interesting point.
I don't really think Apple should be compelled to license its technology either. (Although I believe Apple might be able to profit from doing so.)

But on the point of compulsory licencing...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_license

Some technology patents are so important that refusal to license does damage the market.

Patents in the pharmaceutical industry expire after 20 years, I think, proving a window of opportunity for exploitation, but not an advantage that exists for perpetuity.

C.

The CD is a standard set by the music industry. This standard limits the time and quality of sound that's on a CD. Every CD player maker make their CD players so to conform with this standard. Cd players have gone from over $500 to less than $50 (with more features) in the thirty years since the CD's first came out. But the music on a CD don't sound any better today than it did 30 years ago. And many people with good audio systems claim that most of the CD players today don't reproduce the sound on a CD as accurately as the CD players made 15 years ago. That's because the only way to compete is to make the CD players cheaper. There is a limit as to how good the music on a CD will ever sound. This limit was set 30 years ago, when it became a standard.

There's now a SACD (Super Audio CD) standard. But in the 8 years that it's been avaiable it hasn't really taken hold. Even though a player that can play SACD and CD don't cost much more than a regular CD player. Consumers have been forced to adhere to the CD standards for so long that they are reluctant to change. Even though cost is not a real barrier to do so.

Blu-Ray is suffering the same growing pain. And it's only been about 15 years since the DVD standard was set. But Blu-Ray has a better chance since our governemt is forcing everyone to the new standard digital TV signal in 2009. Many people are opting to buy HDTV's and thus can benefit from Blu-Ray when the prices come down.

If printer makers were forced to use standard cartridges and ink from third party ink makers. Then the amount of innovation they can put into their printers are limited by the maker of the ink cartridges. If they can't redesign their cartridges or change the formula on the ink so that their printers can produce better prints because their redesighed cartridge and ink won't work with other printers. Then the only thing they can do to compete is to make their printers cheaper than their competitors. There's only so much a printer maker can do when it's forced to adhere to standard cartridges and standard ink. And prints from every printer maker will eventually look the same because they all must use the same ink with the same cartridge.

You also have to realize that the reason why most third party ink is cheaper to begin with is because they invest very little back into making a better ink. Or better printers. It's the printer makers that spend money on R&D to develop better ink. And unlike CD players and CD's where the CD player makers has no control over the way CD's are encoded, printer makers can make ink and cartridges. And thus the printer maker has design control of the printer, cartridge and ink to produce a better print.

But hey, you say this is fair because the competitive playing field is level when all printer makers must use the same standard ink and cartridge. The consumer wins, right? Having a CD standard may have worked out for consumers because most consumers didn't need any more music quality that what a standard CD can supply. But photo quality ink jet print technology wouldn't progress nearly as fast is it did if it weren't for the printer maker having the freedom to design all aspect of their printers. And if a third party ink and cartridge industry had to spend money in research to come up with better ink. Their ink cartridges probablly wouldn't sell for much less than what a printer maker sell their ink cartridges for now.

In almost every case, multi-vendor standards have been a win for consumers. And driven quality and innovation upwards. Please read the other posts on this subject. But yes after a time all standards need to be upgraded.

CDs were a massive win for manufacturers and consumers. (Philips/Sony)
The successor to the CD was not SACD but the MP3 player. Haven't you noticed?

Sony's BluRay will probably fail. (hurrah!)

No one should force manufacturers to create standards. That would be nuts.

But the legal system should not be abused by the nonsense of issuing patents and copyrights on microscopic variations between one ink container and another. By tolerating the frivolous abuse of copyright, the law is encouraging this anti-competitive nonsense.

C.

Not necessarily in all cases. There are an infinite number of examples where competing companies built their own incompatible systems. The competition between these systems foster innovation because of the rule of competition.

Using petroleum gas as an example. Petroleum was originally primarily used as kerosene for lighting and heating fuel. As lighting primarily gave way to electricity and heating gave way to steam, natural gas, and electricity. The powerful petroleum industry needed a new industry for its product to dominate.

During the time the combustion engine was a fledgling technology. Many people experimented with various fuel sources such as vegetable oil, plant sugar, compressed air, water, and electricity. The petroleum industry bought up and forced out these competing fuel technologies to make petroleum oil the leading fuel source. Petroleum gas is a multi-vendor standard but did not win through fair competition and has not proven to be a viable long term energy source. Ironically now we are back to experimenting with those very same fuel sources from 100 years ago.



We can all agree with patent and copywrite abuse in general. But I think you come up with these ideas and don't realize the ripple effect they have across everything. If the government attempted to argue that patents cannot be issued between printer and ink cartridges you create a precedent for all other products that perform a similar function but perform that function in a slightly different way. This would actually kill innovation and the ability to compete.

I agree with DavidW. That cheap 3rd party ink cartridges have invested nothing to making printers or improving ink. They are living off of the innovation from those who do spend lots of money on research and development of improving printers and inks.

And you have previously stated that Apple and Mac OS X is not a monopoly.

I really can't understand why you think Psystar has a case.

Imagine if the most expensive part of owning a car, was buying gas.

As consumers, we would want the auto manufacturers to develop more fuel efficient cars. Right?

But if the auto manufacturers *also* owned the gas stations, they'd be motivated to produce *less efficient* cars. Sell more fuel, make more money.

This is what has happened with printers. The most expensive part of owning a printer is the ink. And because the law permits manufacturers to lock-out competing ink vendors, they have been free to drive up the cost of printing.

At around $1000 per pint. We have to ask. WTF?
And if that wasn't bad enough.

http://cwsandiego.com/?p=41

C.

Buying gas is the most expensive part of owning a car. Gas will cost most owners more than insurance, oil and regular maintenance combined. And if the owner keeps the car long enough, gas will cost more than the car itself.


Gas can be considered a "standard". Every standard car uses the same standard gas. Car makers have already reach the limit as to now many miles they can get out of a gallon of gas with internal combustion engine design. The only way they can get more MPG now is to make cars lighter, more aerodynamic or reduce the friction in moving parts. And they are reaching those limits. The next step is hybrids. MPG in cars haven't really gone up significantly in over 30 years.


No, in a free market car makers would make cars with as many MPG as possible to compete. They would invest in a combination of engine design and gas formula to achieve the highest MPG. So the consumers will buy their cars and their gas over their competitors.

Cars may become cheaper to buy because car companies can recover some of the cost over the life of the car with the gas it must buy from them. They will build their car to last as long as possible because the longer the car last, the more profit it will make for the maker over the car's lifetime.

What incentive do gas producers have now in coming up with a gas formula that gets more mpg in a standard internal combustion engine? All this will do is reduce the amount of gas they sell to consumers. They will have to raise the price of gas. There's a limit as to how much gas a consumer can use. The more MPG, the less the consumers uses.


The cost of printing hasn't gone up significantly in 20 years. Not when you include the cost of the printer. The ink cartridges sold by printer makers still cost about $25 to $45. But the printers now cost about 5x less. For a better printer. That prints higher quality prints.

Example- if 12 years ago you had paid $250 for a printer that uses $35 color ink cartridges and you use one ink cartridge per month. Then in three years it would have cost you $1510 (plus paper). Figuring 3 years is about the life span of an ink jet printer.

Now a printer that produces higher quality prints cost $60 with color ink cartridges that may now cost $40. If you use the same one ink cartridge per month then the total cost over three years would come to $1500 (plus paper). And most likely you would get more prints.

If anything the price of ink cartridges have remain nearly the same. Even the third party ink cartridges haven't really come down in price.

And printer makers do compete with other printer makers. There are dozens of printer makers and they compete with the cost of the printer, the speed in which it can print, the quality of the prints produced and the cost of the refill ink cartridges. All this keeps the cost of printing down.


A hard drive is manufactured like that Brothers ink cartridge. A 300 G hard drive probably has about 310 G on it. But the buyer can't use the extra 10 G. You see every hard drive platter has bad sector when it's made. So in order to ensure that the consumers get the 300 G they advertise, the hard drive platter is made with a certain amount of reserve space. This reserve space is used to make up for bad sectors. It can only be access with low level formating software. Even then, you can only use the extra space to replace bad sectors that may occur on your hard drive over time. It's standard business practice. You always get a faction more than they advertise. Otherwise companies can get a class action suit against them for short changing their customers. Even a small faction under what's advertise can amount to thousands on dollars extra for the company. The Brother's ink cartridge issue is no issue as long as the consumers got to use the amount of ink that was advertised and that they paid for.