Why do drugs go generic after 7 years while songs are protected for 75 years?

Question

We want people to spend lots of money, time, and research finding cures to disease, illness, etc.

So if a company spends hundreds of millions of dollars to research a drug, nearly $1 Billion to get it FDA approved, they have only 7 years to make back their investment and make a profit (not to mention marketing and other costs).

However, if someone spends a few days writing a song and $1000 to record it, they get those rights for 75 years.

If you're trying to make a buck, doesn't it make a lot more sense to go into the record business than pharmaceutical business?

I realize that your first reaction is probably "they make tons of money and drugs should be available for everyone", right?

However, we're not aligning our motivations. We want companies to create life-saving drugs, but at the same time we're making it so there's a lot of risk with little relative reward.

at this rate there will be fewer and fewer people making life-saving drugs.

Anyone else see this?

Answer 1

The basic answer to your question is very simple. It's the law. Law is not always logical. Law is not always reasonable. Law is not always practical. Law is not always enforceable. There is good law, and there is bad law. Bad law that is not enforced can languish on the record for ever, because it doesn't affect anyone. In the example you reference, there are MAJOR differences between a piece of art and a commercial product.
1. A song, once copyrighted, requires no further production for it to make money for the inventor. A drug, once invented, has to go through all sorts of regulatory hurdles before it can go into production and marketing.
2. Once approved, the drug company actually has to make the drug in sufficient quantities under very controlled conditions before it can be sold and the first money earned (not profit) on the drug. However, I've never seen anyone swallow a song to feel less sick. In contrast, a song can be electronically transmitted, for free, to get wider play.
3. Drugs are regulated, music is not. Someone can more easily use the music without paying the composer than illegally manufacture a drug.
4. Drugs rarely have alternative choices that are as efficacious, especially while they are in their first 9 years of protection. There are always alternatives for music.
5. The unit cost of a drug and a song may be similar, but the frequency of use is much different. Generally more than a single dose is required, and each dose must be paid for. Once you buy a copy of a CD for personal use, you are entitled to unlimited play of that CD for no additional cost (other than small amounts of electricity)
6. Drug pricing is up to the drug companies, by and large, until generics can also sell the drug. Music is regarded as a highly competitive environment and even a new hit song can't sell for very much more than any other song.

Answer 2

Well, the patent time for drugs is nine years. After that time they can apply for an extension which would give them another several years if approved. The cost for bringing a drug to market is astronomical. But eventually the drug must be made available to other manufacturers so that it can be sold at an affordable price for the consumer.

As an example, take the drug Zantac. During the period it was under patent it sold for about $1.40 per pill. At two per day that works out to be $84.00 a month. After the patent ran out and other manufacturers produced it and sold it at a much lower cost. Today you can buy the generic product (Ranitidine) for pennies per pill.

Until the drug Prilosec came off patent protection it sold for well over $3.00 a pill. Now that it is off patent, the generic version (Omeprazole) sells for a fraction of that amount.

A song is a form of entertainment but if you don't have it your health will not be impaired. However, a drug is often needed to sustain health or prevent a death. Therefore if the patent period for drugs was much longer, then a lot of people would be affected; either financially or healthwise.

Answer 3

More people become ill than like a particular song. More people are going to use that drug and it would be detrimental to a lot of financially impoverished people to keep a drug so expensive that those who need it cannot affort it. While keeping a specific song from others really doesn't effect the live or die situation. Also don't fool yourself the drug makers reap so much money in that small period of time they recoup way more than a 75 year record contract could ever make.

Answer 4

I think it has to do with the fact that music purchases are entirely optional, while medical purchases are usually life saving necessities. As a consumer, you don't have a lot of leverage there. You can't comparison shop for the lowest price with prescription drugs, because only one company makes it.
The only other thing you can do to keep the price of it down is to limit the length of time that a company has the right to sell it exclusively.

Answer 5

a million. might, guy in the field, lower back, and fowl. 2. i'm undecided if Anthony Keidis is sparkling now, yet i think of he's. 3. Grunge. They have been very influential alongside with the numerous different grunge bands in the ninety's. 4. No way guy, a minimum of substitute the call of the band. at an identical time as Jerry Cantrell is a GOD, no Layne, no Chains. Dave Grohl made yet another band after Kurt died and wager what? that is great! Had it stayed Nirvana it does not be the comparable.

Answer 6

Acually its 10 years, the maker of the drug develops it and can can sell it as a brand after 10 years the pateint , we'll say runns out and Generics companys can do this, They must use the exact same active ingrediants as the brand,
Copywrites on songs run out too,,

Answer 7

That is copyright/patent law.

Musicians may only record one song, most drugs are made by a company that makes many drugs.

Answer 8

I copywrited a song in USA in 1970s for 27 years with ONE re-newal optIion. think paperwork in duplicate with saved extra copy with 20-40 dollar fee. Good idea to send a copy to self-unopened as cheap insurance...if a pauper...better if somebody steals it and you win lawsuit later?

Worse than you thinjk drug-wise...foreigners can de-compose and re-compose and steal formula...or get formula from package insert...