[Foundation-l] [announcement] new staff member in business development

[Ray Saintonge]

Anthony wrote:

>On 5/20/07, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>Anthony wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>On 5/19/07, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
>>>      
>>>
>>>>Hello,
>>>>
>>>>Anthony a écrit :
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>But I think the main issue has nothing to do with the IRS.  It's a
>>>>>matter of focus.  Developing a profitable business competes with the
>>>>>maximum production and distribution of content.  Charging maximum
>>>>>prices for data feeds reduces the dissemination of the data.  Charging
>>>>>licensing fees to DVD distributors raises the prices of the DVDs and
>>>>>thus reduces the number of DVDs which are distributed.  Etc, etc (*).
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>I think this is false, because we deal with digital and free content.
>>>>
>>>>It is not because you sell a datafeed to one organisation at one prize
>>>>that you sell it to everybody at the same price. Same logic for DVDs.
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>Interesting.  I don't think that would be feasible for datafeeds
>>>though, and I'm pretty sure it isn't feasible for DVDs.  In the case
>>>of DVDs, if you tried to sell them to different groups for different
>>>prices, you'd simply see people resell the DVDs (engage in arbitrage).
>>>      
>>>
>>Reselling one or two DVD would not be a big deal.
>>However, engaging into a real reselling activity of a DVD using
>>trademarks which you are not authorized to use for a commercial
>>activity, is illegal.
>>    
>>
>Umm, how so?  Check out eBay sometime, or half.com (have they gotten
>rid of that yet?).  People resell DVDs using trademarks which they
>aren't authorized to use for a commercial activity *all the time*.
>Besides that, it's most certainly not illegal.
>
Oh?  How can eBay possibly check out whether something offered for sale 
is pirated?  What would it need to do just to check whether DRM has been 
disabled on a particularly?  As long as they ask no questions nobody 
will tell them any lies.  How many potential buyers are going to 
complain about pirate material when they could be getting a bargain?  
Not illegal sounds more like not real.

>>>I think this would happen for datafeeds as well, if they were ever
>>>accessible to the regular public.  If I as an individual could buy an
>>>en.wikipedia datafeed for $100/month (which would probably be more
>>>than enough to cover WMF's actual costs), the WMF wouldn't be able to
>>>charge companies $5000/month, because if they did I'd just step in and
>>>resell my $100/month datafeed for much less than $5000.
>>>      
>>>
>>Yeah, and since your contract agreement at $100 explicitely does not
>>allow you to resell the feed to a third party, you would engage into
>>illegal activity as well.
>>    
>>
>Then you could sue me, and I'd countersue you for violating the GFDL.
>What part of "add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this
>License" don't you understand?
>
It's not a matter of who could sue, but of who would.

>If you're currently forcing datafeed recipients to agree not to
>redistribute the data they receive, then you're in major breach of the
>GFDL.  Not just the relatively minor breaches that have been going on
>for so long, but you've subverting the very essence of copyleft.
>
>I seriously hope your current contracts don't do that.
>
That's too speculative for me.

>>>And I think the WMF *should* be willing to sell unrestricted datafeeds
>>>to *anyone* for little more than its actual costs.  This is in line
>>>with maximizing the useful distribution of free content, which is
>>>after all the purpose of the WMF.
>>>      
>>>
>>Datafeed is one of the way we can make money. Which will allow us to pay
>>the accountant.
>>Which will allow us to provide all the financial information you are
>>noisily requesting.
>>    
>>
>The millions of dollars in donations you've collected is another way
>to pay an accountant.
>
We're not reallt talking about the specific allocation of funds.  The 
accountant's fees here are only symbolic of a greater basket of 
expenses.  Donations are a fickle way of funding an organization.  Some 
operations require more stable funding.

>>If you count in "actual cost" uniquely the bandwidth cost, $100 could
>>make it. But running an organization uniquely counting as cost, the
>>bandwidth, is seriously being out of it.
>>    
>>
>The organization is going to be run regardless of whether or not the
>datafeed is given.  Counting all the costs of running the organization
>when calculating the marginal cost of providing a datafeed, is
>seriously being out of it.
>
On the basis of that model I would recommend that WMF invest in large 
quantities of Duck Tape.

Ec