The thing is that it’s always easy to simply put liability on developers and sellers of goods and services and restrict their behavior. This hides from consumers how much they are being harmed by retarded governmental laws. Putting restrictions directly on the consumer is hardly ever a good idea, it gets them to force the government to fix things by making them aware of the retarded laws in place that harm them. Nevertheless, restricting what sellers can and can’t sell still harms the consumers very much, it just hides how much they’re being harmed and why.

The united states corporations have pretty much mastered how to scam the consumer without letting them directly know how they are being scammed and making them think there is true competition. Our mainstream media never covers any of these issues and when you buy things at the store you are given the appearance of competition.

But in reality everything is monopolized. There maybe two different devices that play MP3’s, one perhaps is an IPod and another is a Zune, so you are given the appearance of competition. But both cover some of the same patents and when these corporations cross license their patents they are essentially acting like a cartel, keeping out any new competitors, and the consumer is essentially stuck with monopoly prices. Or some company will charge another company a monopoly licensing fees to sell a product (ie: a patent lawsuit settlement or victory) and the consumer, thinking there is competition when they go to the store, indirectly pays monopoly prices at the mercy of the patent holder.

We are only given the appearance of competition, but in reality the system of patent cross licensing at the exclusion of newcomers works like a cartel. Companies either only cross license to the extent that it maximizes their collective monopoly rents of those involved in the licensing deals or they charge huge licensing fees to competitors who want to license a patent, fees that ultimately maximizes the monopoly rents of the patent holder.