Sony, Fuji, and Maxell fined $110M for videotape cartel
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Nov 20th 2007 8:22AM
posted Nov 20th 2007 8:22AM
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Where does the fine money go? The EU Treasury?
iphones
This is exactly why I hope Blu Ray (Sony) will not win the HD format "war." Sony = high prices = cartel = bad for consumers...
and MS doesn't do any of this?
I'm not a Sony fan, but this stuff just happens in a lot of companies.
Besides if HD-DVD had been designed as something more than just a medium to hold HD movies I'd be more willing to support them, but I need something that can store data too and 30GB isn't enough. Especially when you can only find 15GB disks right now and I've still never seen a HD-DVD burner in the wild.
MS has a player in their video game console. They don't make or sell movies. Currently they don't even put games on HD-DVD discs. So they have NOTHING to do with this topic. You can't form a cartel and alter the prices of media that you're not involved with at all.
The synonym for cartel is a monopoly and MS just got fined for monopolistic practices by the EU. I didn't say MS was trying to cartel HD-Disks, you're just assuming that.
I'm just pointing out that none of these companies are perfect. So I don't see why these HD-DVD fanboys are jumping over here to complain about Sony's monopolistic practices when they've got a culprit on their side too. I mean the second post was about Blu-ray and the article is about video tapes. So I don't see the relevance of your argument. If you can ignore MS practices when it doesn't apply to the format was how can you do the opposite for Sony.
It's the price of economic freedom that your going to have stuff like this happen. You can't stop it, you can only hope to keep it in check.
@Gavin, You do know that Blu-ray isn't totally owned by Sony, but founded by 9 companies: Matsushita, Pioneer, Philips, Thomson, LG Electronics, Hitachi, Sharp, Samsung and Sony. All together, there are 18 members in the board.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc_Association
Besides, this fine was for a cartel for controlling 85% of the professional videotape market. It has nothing to do with consumer electronics. If it were not for Sony's PS2, we would not have DVDs at such low prices. Think about that instead.
Thank god for the EU, this would never happen in America
thank god.
The day America does this is the day I move to Jamaica or something.
Can we drop a nuke on the EU? I mean seriously, they're getting really cocky now.
you want to drop 1 nuke on all of the European union? It's a fairly big place you know.. plus its doing things like stopping price fixing. I bet you couldn't even point it out on a map could you? Cretin.
What's a videotape?
;)
If you use video professionally, you either shoot digital (too much money for sub-par picture), film (big-budget movies and whatnot), or videotape like this, because it's lossless.
You may not deal with them much anymore...but everything you watch on disc sure does.
It's not lossless, it has a slight compression ~2.5:1 true lossless videotape is analog (ie: beta sp)
cheap tactics ..........serves them right ....$110M was cheap .....I say double it
Exactly, and this is the company that all the Blu-Ray fanboys want controlling their high def movies for the next 10 years. I know "But, it has uncompressed sound"....and a 30% markup.
You know that Blu-Ray movies are cheaper than HDDVD, right?
That's because people are buying Blu-Ray in greater numbers. Supply and demand, genius.
@ Telanis:
Supply and demand? Oh no, someone's buying Blu-Ray and as a result they have dropped the price! Boo hoo! Winge winge!
They're still cheaper, genius.
Your just being ridiculous. I live in the EU, and I want them to stop giving companies fines for being companies. First MS now Sony and Fuji. The EU is keeping prices high with all these fines.
Read the article again, its Sony, Fuji, and Maxell who a re keeping prices high.
You forgot Microsoft Alan.
Monopolies, cartels, and trusts do not help the economy function efficiently. That's the problem.
I don't care about Maxell. But as I am against the EU fines, I would prefer it if they weren't fined.
Don't kid yourself mattclarkie... be thankful your representatives are still looking out for you to any degree at all.
Here in the good 'ol USA it has been the corporate bully boys running the show for a while now.
It's like nobody in office here ever got better than a C in a history class.
Companies can own unlimited media, creating information cartels.
'Cause we all know that won't lead to trouble or misuse of power...
They also seem free to run amok fixing or gouging prices with nothing said or done.
I'm still waiting for the promised decrease in prices of music CDs once production ramped up and they became the mainstay format over cassettes. I heard that circa 1986.
You are dreaming if you think such wild west free market economics leads to lower prices.
It does in all the text books because all the textbooks are talking about a free market system with ease of entry and competition.
But most large companies aren't actually cookie stores, so that's quite often not what we actually have today.
If it wasn't for the "sell 'em cheap as chips" attitude of many no name companies coming in out of the far east we'd still be paying $300 for DVD players in the US.
The big boys are smart enough to all too often not really compete... but just happily split a very nice pie composed of artificially price inflated/fixed pieces.
And don't even get me started on oil companies....
I've gone from being a laisse-fare thinker to not thinking Hugo Chavez is so completely off is rocker down there in Venezuela.
No.. I have to agree above. The only problem is the fine was way too low.
- Mike
now if only CDs and DVDs got that same special treatment.
____
we should all be reading books anyways; all this entertainment just turns us into sheep.
It's just entertainment, no in sheep changin' going on.
And books don't turn you in to sheep?
ugh, ugh, bible, koran, torah, ugh, cough, ugh
:)
Jazz, Avant-Guard, Classical, and movies like Pan's Labrythn are turning us into sheep?
I think you mean bad music and movies, like everything coming out of Hollywood since the 70's and rap and pop.
i'm sure you mean pop rap. of course you do.
yes, yes, and yes
anything thought provoking is great
stuff that tells you to think a specific way is crap; to conform to the status quo {conforming to the stereo type or the idea that money=intelligence}
repeating does not create truth
What happened to the days of T.R.
people are so naive...sony still wins if HD-DVD "wins" the format wars. toshiba and sony have a technology alliance.
The thing is Europe, and in particular the UK, have some of the highest prices in the world, things in the US are a fraction of the price, despite the currency being weaker. So if the EU is keeping down the prices, God Help Us All.
I don't think most of the users here really get it. They are talking about professional tape stock, used in commercial endeavors. Yes it is good to have a competitive market, But this really isn't such an outrage. Tape and film stock are among the least expensive elements of a production, they are bought by the case load, and considered quite a consumable. Also earlier I mentioned commercial, indicating that the money spent on a production will be made back, and hopefully then some. One final thought before people go flying off the handle about Blu ray and other matters in the disc format war, there is a large difference between consumer and professional markets. One of the largest differences being that professional items are purchased almost solely on need.
thats IT, im creating my own media. so there.
http://www.indepmusic.com