What constitutes legitimate competition in a free market?

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Specifically the pay-to-view television market in the UK. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17494723 http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/communication-breakdown-10000030/nds-faces-fresh-claims-over-cracked-pay-tv-codes-10025741/ http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2012/s3464362.htm http://afr.com/p/national/murdoch_cops_blast_over_pay_tv_pirates_DwLdiPl1Q6bSwW5NaSnEkK And for the Panorama programme itself: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01dlvbm (The latter will need a UK proxy server to view.) Whether or not NewsCorp did bankroll THOIC, through its subsidiary NDS, and distribute the cracked codes of OnDigital/ITV Digital security cards is still a matter of debate, but will no doubt be sub-judice fairly soon in countries other than Italy. Nevertheless it does call into question letting Ol' Roops and his minions have anything to do with pay-to-view telly, or indeed any telly, in the UK. And I wonder do such business practises constitute criminality of the prosecutable kind? I would imagine Granada and Carlton shareholders might just be a trifle miffed at these revelations. I quote from the Financial Review: "NDS has been sued for piracy by some of the world’s largest pay TV broadcasters, including Canal Plus in France, EchoStar and DirecTV (an NDS client) in the US, Sogecable in Spain and MEASAT’s Astro platform in Malaysia." Now we all have skeletons in our closet, obviously: it's just that NewsCorp's skeletons don't appear to be of a personal nature ("I did not have 'sex' with that woman") but much more of something akin to fraudulent business practises, removing business opponents by any means, and dominating the market in a way unseen since the old Standard Oil model. However, with a giant like NewsCorp, it is always possible to minimise exposure to being caught out. I quote the Financial Review again: "Canal Plus dropped its 2002 lawsuit as part of a deal to sell its Telepiu pay TV arm to News; DirecTV dropped its claim against NDS in 2004 after News took control of the group; Sogecable and MEASAT dropped their lawsuits after several years; while EchoStar won nominal damages on three counts in a 2008 trial and had to pay $18 million legal costs to NDS... ...NDS was a highly successful company, and it would be more appropriate to focus on the successful sale of NDS last week by its joint owners News Corp and private equity group Permira to US giant Cisco, for $5 billion." I always think of that as the Union Carbide solution. Union Carbide (UCC) is now owned by Dow Chemicals, who had absolutely nothing to do with the Bhopal disaster, and therefore can't reasonably be held accountable for it. Mind you, the Indian Government were trying to extradite Warren Anderson, the former UCC CEO, from the US to India to stand trial. Somehow or other the US court system did not see fit to allow that to happen even though folk died and were mutilated by this accident, and even though a prima facie case of manslaughter by negligence appeared to have been brought against Anderson. What a surprise that the US's extradition requirements are so different from, for example, the UK's. So, if these accusations are substantive, does (do? one wonders about singular and plural forms in these cases) NewsCorps' actions appear legitimate in the eyes of any T_P's membership?

Comments

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Well, damaged companies with stockmarket share prices depressed semi-artificially are always ripe for a takeover, even if it's just from an asset stripper.

UCC did it to themselves. It may be that NewsCorp's model of doing it unto others first and by any means is the proper one in a truly free market. I await the news of the necessary collateral damage from my semi-socialist safe-haven in the hope that Roops and his creation each have their wings clipped just a trifle. Good luck to you guys. We not in the trenches with you salute you. Play up, play up, and play the game. We'll cheer from the sidelines. Shame about the humans in the crosshairs though, but that's comic book melodrama competitive company economics for you.

When competition between companies becomes this sort of war I predict any possible advantages of unfettered capitalism will soon be cancelled out. And I think Roops may just have had one skeleton too many fall out of his closet. We'll see: he's a wily old bird, and to the best of my knowledge, he's never actually murdered anyone.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

If by no other reason that it "operates outside the law".

That comparison seems predicated upon all instances of lawlessness being equal: whereas I was always of the opinion that there was some sliding scale of offence in law - first-degree murder, auto-theft, and shoplifting, for example, very much not being equal, and all that.

Artificially depressing the share price of a company by subverting its security and therefore its business model/revenue stream I would have thought defrauds the shareholders in that same company: and probably breaks stock market rules too. NewsCorp did not buy OnDigital/ITV Digital: if these accusations are correct then NewsCorp sent it to the wall. The others it bought, sure: but not necessarily at the market rate prior to NewsCorp doing the dirty on them.

But if this hyper-competitiveness-to-the-point-of-undeclared-war is a business model that's a keeper, as the vernacular has it, I would imagine a few bigger sharks than NewsCorp might just find Roops monster a tasty supper - or maybe even a school of smaller but more numerous barracuda, to continue with the salt-water fish metaphor.

Disgust? Well, I don't know if The Pirate Bay has behaved in the same way as Roops' papers and media outlets have over the years: if it has, then I'm pretty certain I'd find them as offensive. And from a personal point of view, like Harold Evans, I find that Roops' takeover of The Times and its subsequent transformation from organ of record to something akin to the picture of Nipper the dog listening to his master's voice, makes Roops a fitting target for any ordure that can be flung on him. And this is not to take into account what can be said of The Sun, The News of the World, Fox News, and the recent shenanigans at the WSJ, to name but a few.

I find it difficult to believe that Ol' Roops has been a force of good in the world, but I'm always open to argument.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Being a dickhead is not a crime, but to continue my previous metaphor his level of observable dickheadedness may leave him and his dead in the water and I sense the sharks circling.

And I'm not advocating trying to regulate "good" behaviour, merely define the standards by which civilised people can do business. I mean to say, a club has a right to its rules, doesn't it? And the stock market is essentially a club. And if the stock market decides behaviour is unacceptable, that's not down to me or you excepting that they may take into account our opinions if they ever should read them.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Well as it stands now, I'm of the opinion that the folk who were heading NDS at the time themselves reckon there was something illegal about what they were allegedly doing: which is why the denials have come thick and fast; why these folk have retired (along with their ages, of course); and why NDS was sold off from NewsCorp's stables - probably to protect those higher up the foodchain. But whether or not what they did fell into dickheadedness, breaking club rules, or outright illegality will be for the stock exchange and the courts to decide.

On this side of the pond it may be that these actions won't be considered illegal, but Roops and his cohorts may be considered to be "not fit and proper persons" to run the extensive media empire thus far accumulated. Which means he would be forced to sell some or all of his British media empire, or at least prevented from taking over BSkyB.

If Carlton and Granada can prove in a court of law that their business was damaged by these above-mentioned actions, there may be a weregild due.

As for the right and wrong of it all, and with my seal of Solomon burning on m'forehead, I'd opt for him losing control of BSkyB, and then test the weregild theory in court.