Michael Cooper ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>Richard:
>
>>How much does it cost to remaster a recording and reissue it as a CD,
>>a SACD or whatever?
>
>Similar question and answer about the cost of pharmaceutical drugs.
>Relatively cheap to manufacture, but costing millions to research and
>develop. And, likewise, sometimes new technologies (like new drugs) are
>short-lived, being supplanted by new and better technologies (or drugs),
>as you have noticed, and this gives the companies limited time to recoup
>their investment.

Well, the drug companies cheat: for example my doctor told me when I
saw him late last year that the pill he prescribed me for GERD symptoms,
the "latest and greatest" was actually very little different from the
one prescribed 20 year ago - in fact the company was simply isolating
the l-isomer which was more effective.

BUT they claimed it was a new drug and so they got the same length of
patent protection from generics....

As to SACD, perhaps we should consider who was actually asking for this
technology?  And who developed it.

Deryk Barker
[log in to unmask]