James5

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It seems that Roche has stopped their research into HIV drugs. Though not directly linking it to the compulsory licensing/IP issues, one can’t help but wonder if it’s related. Elizabeth Pisani is right about the need for public funding/ownership of these drugs. Governments already subsidise a lot of pharmaceutical research, we need to rethink the incentives for making drugs for things like HIV and diseases that disproportionally effect the poor.

Popularity: 3% [?]

So Australian musicians are crying poor. The Veronicas, Grinspoon and Powderfinger want us to believe they are living the hard life due to music piracy. While I’m in no way endorsing wholesale piracy this has got to be the worst idea ever. No-one is going to believe, even when it’s true, that these guys are having a hard time.

Quote from article:

“Her twin sister, Jessica [from the Veronicas], says being a musician is a “100 per cent 24/7 full-time job” and while there are lots of parties, most of the time spent at them is consumed by media interviews.

I’m sorry, but if the worst situation she can come up with is that “most of the time is consumed by interviews” then I doubt people are going to stop pirating their music. Yes there are lots of poor musicians out there who need people to buy their music to survive, but (a) the Veronicas certainly aren’t one of them and (b) I seriously doubt whether the pirating demographic is the demographic who like those indy bands who need support.

The internet is a godsend for small acts with no exposure. They can literally build their fanbase themselves with minimal need for the big ARIA companies. They can develop true relationships with their fans that’ll mean the fans won’t want to rip them off and will want to pay for their music.

Unfortunately, that’s not how the big companies see it.

Figures released by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) show that physical CD sales dropped 12 per cent last year to $420 million. Legal music downloads were up 43 per cent to $40 million, but the strong growth has not been enough to make up for the rapidly declining CD sales.

Until iTunes came along it was incredibly hard to get online access to music that you could easily listen to on all your devices - it was easier to just pirate it. CD sales are dropping because people no longer want to buy filler, pay for shipping and can’t be bothered going to the stores when it’s all online.

I’m not worried about the death of the Australian music industry. Even if ARIA refuses to adapt and dies out, I’m 100% sure that musicians will keep making music. Online, on the streets, in pubs, or on stage - music will happen. This militant approach to consumers is a ridiculous segue in the emergence of the music industry 2.0.

Popularity: 15% [?]

This video of Jane Arunga at DLD talking about emerging markets in Rwanda made an interesting observation. Many people in Rwanda don’t have physical addresses such as 123 Any Street. Rather they give directions to their residence. This makes it hard to establish things like credit ratings, to bill people, etc. One of the ways this is being addressed is by using the abundance of pre-paid mobile phones amongst the poor to enable cashless transactions via their mobile phones.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Sorry to steal a literary device from Marginal Revolution, this

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