Digital BW, The Print

At 01:10 PM 7/29/03 -0400, you wrote:


>Peter Nelson wrote:
>
> >--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Alan Zinn
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >>Seems to me that the government will see this as a
> >>restraint of trade issue.  I don't think a company
> >>would be so short-sighted, but then look at the
> >>antics of the DVD interests.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >A product manufacturer is under no obligation to make it easy for
> >other companies to interface to his product.   Microsoft does not
> >have to supply an API to its software products, or if they DO supply
> >an API they are under no obligation to expose all possible behaviors
> >or interfaces.
> >
> >
>That's a VERY different kettle of fish from undertaking blatant efforts
>designed to effect no other goal than: making the ability to use
>alternative consumables either nearly literally impossible (handshaking
>encrypted chips) or so high, as to create an unfair restraint of trade
>.  Imagine INtel designing a chip, that didn't just optimize Windows
>related instructions sets, but if it saw non-windows OS code, it would
>shut itself down, thereby preventing the use of any other OS.. That
>would clearly be a restraint of trade and even Intel knows it (and M$
>has learned at least that much, the HARD way)..
>
>In such cases, in a marketplace where the product is no longer a niche
>product, look at the legal cases involving Xerox et. al. and consumables
>or some automobile replacement parts manufacture,  you have what is
>called more exactly "illegal vertical tying."
>
>Didn't you lose this argument already, back at:
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint/message/26305
>
>
>
>I'm a Republican myself, but under the current RIDICULOUSLY, "anything
>goes in business as long as US companies are printing cash for owners
>and shareholders marketplace," where things like the  FCC proposing to
>allow more consolidation of media ownership, and the White House
>threatening to veto appropriations legislation from both (Republican
>controlled I might add) houses of Congress that would prevent the FCC
>from implementing such ludicrously anti-democratic policies - in such an
>environment HP and Lexmark et al believe they can do "as they will" to
>restrain trade..
>
>Implementing a scheme like this, or Lexmark's patented cartridge that
>destroys itself when ink runs low,  may just tip the balance though..
>The manufacturers need to remember it isn't only the Feds that can cost
>you lots of $$ in anti-trust litigation.  Ask M$ about the State
>Attorneys General..  ;-)
>
>In some sense I hope HP does go ahead with this lunacy.  Given the
>number of HP printers in gov't offices, and the ubiquity of inkjets in
>the marketplace, a showdown would definitely be brewing.. When tying is
>allowed in a market segment, historically, there have been one or two
>parties who "take the game too far" and end up generating litigation
>that overturns the entire set of practices in that market segment.. In
>this case HP and Lexmark seem hell bent on doing so.. All I can say is
>they must REALLY NEED short term profit to risk such a bold-faced cash
>grab.     Once this all ends up in a US court, I'd bet dollars to donuts
>that the whole "chipped-cartridges to enable cost-shifting" game will be
>effectively over...  HP and Lexmark are showing unrestrained greed here,
>along with utilizing every practical avenue to tie the original product
>and its consumable feed pipeline. Whatever the White House may think
>will make little difference if this ends up in the courts..
>
>Not to mention that the EU legislation specifically prohibiting such
>practices in printers comes into effect in about 18 months.. ;-)  (If I
>remember correctly) Thereby preventing HP from even selling any of these
>encrypted printers in the EU..
>
>Peter, I believe wholeheartedly in free-trade and an open-market.
>However, it is plain and simple blindness to think that allowing OEMs to
>utilize their $ and market position to BY DESIGN add product features
>that have NO OTHER rational goal than to prevent the entry of 3rd party
>suppliers into the consumable feed stream is about as blatant an example
>of restraint of trade as one can technologically concoct.  We aren't
>talking about not making it easy for others to interface with a product,
>we are talking about designs effectuated in attempts to make it
>impossible.. It's the same philosophical difference (moral questions
>aside) we see in say, criminal law, between accidentally shooting a
>third part when defending yourself or a removing the uterus of a
>pregnant woman with aggressive uterine cancer thereby terminating a
>fetus (both would be unintended consequences, with the second, perhaps,
>more unavoidable) when compare to randomly purposely shooting a third
>party to demonstrate your pique during an argument with another party or
>purposely aborting the same fetus to effectuate effective "birth
>control."   For those who see no ethical or real difference, or unable
>to parse the difference, between the first set of instances and the
>second: I feel sorry for you and hope you NEVER end up on the judicial
>bench anywhere (except perhaps somewhere like Saudi Arabia or Iran,
>where Justice is eminently simplistic)..
>
>
>
>
>
>
>"Just some guy," and caretaker of the Multiverse's largest EPSON printer
>User Community (highly recommended by Vogon Poets and MegaDodo
>Publications), at:
>
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EPSON_Printers/
>
>"For the rest of you out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together
>guys"
>
>
>Ohooooooo! Those Republicans are a testy bunch, aren't they?

AZ