The notion that you continue to propound, "exorbitant mark-up" is just sales rhetoric for those seeking to undercut the innovator's price as well as non-capitalist critics mimicking Lenin's notion of intrinsic worth.
I see your point more clearly, Tbg, but you misunderstand my point as well with this statement. I do not believe Mr. Louis was the innovator of a new burner. I believe he purchased burners identical to the IO Shop burners and re-sold them without doing a thing to them. Believe me, CD duplicators existed long before Mr. Louis' product. He himself says in one of his Positive Feedback replies that the burners he uses are sourced from Alesis, among other manufacturers. The next clue to indicate that he doesn't do anything to the burners is his firmware mea culpa on AA. Therefore, I do not believe this is a case of an innovator's product being copied and sold at a lower price. His appears to be a case of someone taking an off-the-shelf item and re-selling it at a 150% mark-up. That's exorbitant.
The same exorbitant mark-up applies to the black CDRs that are available for $30/100 that he re-sells fo $100.
His innovation would seem to be the packaging of a good quality burner, excellent quality black CDRs, and some mystery fluid. I'll give him credit for discovering the recipe for the package, but until he offers some proof of his technical innovation, or the patent for which he claims to have applied, he remains no more than a re-packager, and is deserving of the attention he is getting.
I'm all for innovation. I love innovation. True innovation that's verifiable. Not pseudo-innovation that's cloaked in mystery, ambiguity and double speak.