RE: The good fight

Digging a ditch along waterfront and in certain places requires much more skill than one might think. (whether it be brain surgery or foot surgery to those who have been allowed to learn it, it surgery a routine, a job, just like lawyering or bookwriting or ditch digging or insurance sales).

Further the responsibility of the ditch digger is much greater than that of the brain surgeon at times, because the mistakes a ditch digger makes could affect millions in property and many more lives than just one patient.

on the issue of economic value differential between the workd of a ditch digger and a book writer, i would suggest that the greater effort goes into digging ditches especially if the ditches are canals or long channels and if the time of the digging is in the summer and it is hot and the ditch digger is in knee deep water.

Skill required for a professsional ditch digger is much more than one might think and most certainly not so limited in value as to justify paying a surgeon 1000x as much as a ditch digger, especially when the number of peopple allowed to study medicine and to learn surgery is very limited by bureacracy and yet another monopoly called license (but that is not the question).

We live in a society gated to favor formally educated workers over on the job educated workers, but there is no justification for that favoritism. This is a hold over the Emperors, Kings and Queens, and the Aristocracy of Europe.

So how do you measure economic value? Always for me it has been the cost of a loaf of bread measured in hours of work in one economy as measured against all other economies. Secondly, are you talking about a monetary measure or a tangible measure?

Pricing for hours of work should be based on ungated supply and open and free demand, not monopoly, rule of law, license, gated access, and other artifical barriers.

sterling

On Thu, 12 Sep 2002 RCumbow[_at_]GrahamDunn.com wrote:

> Saying that a ditch and a book should have the same economic value simply
> because each one took one person three months takes an awful lot out of the
> economic equation. It's like saying there's no difference between cleaning
> out the garage and performing life-saving brain surgery, simply because each
> one takes one person six hours to do.
>
> Robert C. Cumbow
> Graham & Dunn PC
> 1420 Fifth Avenue, 33rd Floor
> Seattle, WA 98101-2390
> direct 206.340.9619
> fax 206.340.9599
> rcumbow[_at_]grahamdunn.com
> http://www.grahamdunn.com
>
> Big law firm experience
> without the big law firm experienceŽ
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: sstouden[_at_]thelinks.com [mailto:sstouden[_at_]thelinks.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2002 7:25 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: Re: The good fight
>
>
>
> While I am estatic that the entire very elite intellectual property
> community will provide support, the point in the ditch digger example, is
> that if it takes 3 man months to create one ditch and it takes 3 man
> months to create one book, the effort of the ditch digger is the same as
> the effort of the book writer and therefore each should be paid but one
> time from one buyer for the effort. The very idea that the 1 man 1
> effort gets paid a million or more times via the vehicle of a monopoly is
> patently wrong.
> Next, the is argument of CO-kit entitlement. CO_KIT is a product
> of human endeavor and as such cannot be gated from the eyes and ears of
> the rest of humanity because that gate violates the inherent right of man
> to the benefits of the CO-KIT of the society in which they live during
> their life time.
>
> If you or the intellectual property community were to
> decide otherwise, then It would be difficult to see, why humans should
> subject themselves to the top down rule of law. Mercantislists cannot
> have it both ways: either citizens agree to the rule of law and society
> makes available all of its CO-KIT in completely ungated form; or humans
> each standand alone, one against the other, the one with the most power
> uses the forces of government to gate, harrass and economically exploit
> the other.
>
> The history of copyright and monopolies has been that a few empowered
> people exploit the masses of the people and they use the rule of law
> backed up by the power of a government with military and police forces to
> make sure the exploitation is effective.
>
> There is no room in a free society for monopoly!
>
> sterling.
>
> On Mon, 9 Sep 2002, Dodi Schultz wrote:
>
> >
> > Sterling writes,
> >
> > >> A ditch digger's ditch is not different than a author's book... It is
> > >> economically unfair to pay the ditch digger(compensation) once and
> > >> the author(royalty) many times.
> >
> > You know, on further thought, I've been persuaded that you're absolutely
> > right. A digger's ditch is every bit as creative, and deserving of
> suitable
> > compensation--and protection--as my book, poem, or article. Royalties
> > should be paid, and unauthorized copying prohibited. Any attempt by some
> > wannabe digger to pass off an imitative ditch as an original earthwork
> > should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, with the support of
> the
> > entire intellectual property community.
> >
> > --Dodi Schultz
> >
>
>
>
>
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Received on Wed Sep 18 2002 - 04:17:42 GMT