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Comment by nrp | Hacker News Reader

Per the RIAA, the entire recorded music industry in the US recorded under $7 Billion in revenue in 2014. Apple has north of $20 Billion in cash in the US. There are likely many reasons for Apple to make the move they did, but it is unlikely cash on hand was one of them.

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"Per the RIAA, the entire recorded music industry in the US recorded under $7 Billion in revenue in 2014."

Amazing. We think of the RIAA, or "big music" as some kind of juggernaut force in society and politics - especially Internet politics.

But their entire industry top line is smaller than what fedex makes in a month.[1]

[1] http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/fdx/revenue-eps

That's astonishing. I'd be interested in seeing some more statistics on the amount of lobbying vs market size compared to other industries (e.g. Transportation, Hospitality, Pharma).

Something tells me we'd see a direct correlation between the amount of lobbying and the amount of legal backing your "product" needs in order to have value (copyright protection, patents, brand trademarks, etc).

The months there are dates marking fiscal quarters, so each number is for 3 months. Fedex monthly revenue is a bit less than $4 billion.

Sadly that's still more than enough money to bully individuals :(

This happens all the time in "Uber vs. big taxi medallion cartel" debates.

You can't compare top-line revenue across industries. Fedex is capital intensive.

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