Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 20 2013 @ 05:55 AM EDT |
More to the point has he paid proper tax on that income? [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: stegu on Wednesday, March 20 2013 @ 05:59 AM EDT |
These were not second hand books, they were brand new parallel imports from
Thailand. It is not unreasonable to assume that he could have made $50 or more
from each sale, depending on which titles he selected, and from which field.
Setting up a small business with a friend or relative back home to ship a couple
of thousand books abroad over the course of several years is not a big deal. I
doubt it required more than an hour per day of his time, much less than any
other job he could have chosen to work himself through school.
$100,000 is not exactly a fortune. He probably spent it all on his education and
on living expenses, and it seems he used this side income to get by, not to make
piles of money. Besides, even if he had made a ton of cash, I would have
supported it. We are finally seeing a shift to a global world market, and we
need cases like this to make it clear that a big change is coming.
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Authored by: MadTom1999 on Wednesday, March 20 2013 @ 06:56 AM EDT |
Nothing fishy at all - he spotted an imbalance in the market and exploited it.
I've been investigating solar panels - I can get exactly the same solar panels
in India at less than 1/4 the cost I can get them in the UK. I would import them
but cleverly over here they need to be 'certified' for use in grid connected
systems.
Now if the publishers had the power to get books certified for use in
courses...
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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 20 2013 @ 07:51 AM EDT |
I have a daughter who took several courses last semester
and is slowly working toward a degree. She had to spend
almost $500 dollars on text books. She plans on selling
them when she can. College text book prices are what should
be investigated, not the students.
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Authored by: MDT on Wednesday, March 20 2013 @ 10:46 AM EDT |
So, a college text can cost anywhere from $50 to $150.
Let's assume an average cost of $100.
Let's assume he was doing this over 3 years (3/4 of a 4 year
degree).
Let's assume his family was picking up the text books at 1/4
the US cost, and bulk shipping them.
Let's assume he was selling them for 40% cheaper than the
college book store.
That's : $60 (retail price) - $25 (cost of book) - $5
(shipping) = $30 profit.
$100,000 / 3 (years) = $33,000 per year.
$33,000 / $30 (profit per book) = 1,100 books / year
1,100 / 12 (months) = 92 books / month
92 / 4 (weeks) = 23 books / week
Or, about 3 books a day he had to sell over 3 years to earn
$100,000.
That doesn't seem like a huge investment of time, especially
on E-Bay or even just selling to students on campus. Bundle
up all the books once a week and drop them off at the post
office.
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MDT[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 20 2013 @ 11:29 AM EDT |
I beleive this has been mentioned elsewhere, but look up "arbitrage"
sometime. It's a way to make money without actually doing anything much.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 20 2013 @ 01:01 PM EDT |
Some are just jealous that a student is making more money then they
are.
Just to be clear: I'm not saying you like fear or are jealous. I
don't know you, your position, or anything else about you. I simply used those
two as two of what is easily many, many reasons someone might want to think
something is wrong where no wrong-doing has occurred.
There's nothing
wrong with the business concept of buying something and then selling it at a
higher cost to generate a profit. So you certainly can't lay claim there's
something wrong with that.
And there is the concept of "innocent until
proven guilty" and you must admit someone did a heck-of-a-job in trying to prove
him guilty - Copyright infringement of course. They succeeded in the two lower
Courts before they failed in the highest Court - so he's ultimately been proven
innocent of wrong-doing with regards Copyright infringement.
And the
$100,000 comes with almost no other facts. So you don't know if that's
"sales", "pre tax dollars", "post tax dollars" or anything else. Would you find
it just as fishy if it was clearly outlined:
He made $100,000 in sales
for a profit of $17,000 after $83,000 in costs is factored
in!
???
My bottom line point: I think that since there's no other
factual information then your claim "something is fishy" - there is nothing to
be concerned with. I'll grant the individual "innocent until proven guilty" and
accept that the Highest Court in the US has granted him innocent against the
only claim raised against him so far: Copyright infringement.
RAS[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 20 2013 @ 01:25 PM EDT |
Up-to-date books intended by universities and publishers to form the cores of
students' professional libraries can have eye watering prices.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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