Re: Expanded Oracle DBA Site

drak0nian_at_yahoo.com (Paul Drake) wrote in message news:<1ac7c7b3.0304222256.312972be_at_posting.google.com>...
> joel-garry_at_home.com (Joel Garry) wrote in message news:<91884734.0304221547.39f053ec_at_posting.google.com>...
> > Links are notoriously unstable (just look at my link page :-O ).
> > There is value to redundant electronic copies in a distributed system,
> > and in fact, that is a major feature of the web.
> >
> > And of course, as we've all seen by now, it isn't Mr. Rogers'
> > copyright. Any copyright holder must vigorously defend their rights
> > or lose them, so we all lose out in the name of potential excess
> > profit. The legal system is simply too far behind current technology,
> > and is going the wrong way.
> >
> > jg
>
> wtf is "potential excess profit".
> please explain.
> you've got to be kidding. excess profit.
> yeah - and a certain part of my anatomy is *excessively* long.
> at least "that's what she said". right.
>
> you may be entirely on with every other sentance in the entire post -
> but - you lose me there.
> there is no such thing as excess profit.
> if some poor sod was willing to pay an amount in a transaction - that
> is what it was worth to that individual. subjectively, there may seem
> to be something excessive - but objectively, the transaction occurred.
>
> this will quickly descend further into drivel, but profit is a
> short-term phenomena, which after a sufficient number of participants
> have entered a market - competition will have driven the margins (and
> profit) towards zero - to where investors will have received better
> returns by having a passbook stampted at a savings and loan - and
> invested elsewhere.

This is quite correct, to avoid semantics arguments I would explicitly state there is a difference between what economists, businesspeople, and the tax man define as profit.

>
> and that kind of economic theory depends upon the supposition that
> people are well informed and are making rational decisions - and
> usenet is no place for that.
>
> in the long run - barring a monopoly that something like the DMCA can
> enfore - profit tends toward zero.

Well, you hit it right there. The whole idea of intellectual property law is to create a monopoly for a period of time. This separates out profit from the cost of production, and ironically makes pirating profitable. So you wind up with fairly silly arguments like "posting a document on the web is morally worse than stealing jewelry."

>
> $18 (USD) per CD (plus tax) does not result in excess profit. it
> results in profit - but it also results in people saying "fsck the
> recording industry - I won't buy any more CDs". As fewer purchases are
> made as a rational response to a usurpary rate, the monopolist loses
> both revenue and profit - but no "excess" profit is made or lost.

Well, you blew it right there. The cd costs, what, 50 cents to produce? Judgeing from some of the junk mail I get, it can profitably be distributed for not much more than that. All the rest is based on IP (and sometimes some price fixing and other abuses of competition, of course).

I'm not saying IP is bad or wrong, just ripe for abuse. Or "gaming," as I'm sure Bill Gates thinks of it. And I'm also saying some of the unintended effects of IP _are_ bad. There is an argument to be made that the value of hjr's documents isn't in whether they are going to be sold, but rather is in the witholding of information so that it can be sold elsewhere - have you seen the price of Oracle education lately? _That_ is "excess profit" based on IP. Whether it is bad depends on the usefulness, timeliness and accuracy of the information.

jg

--
@home.com is bogus.
Here's someone who is saying it _is_ bad:
http://danny.oz.au/free-software/advocacy/against_IP.html