Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: software dumping
From: Daniel J. Weitzner <djw () eff org>
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 16:09:55 -0500
At 2:16 PM 12/15/93 -0500, David Farber wrote:
requested it be non-attributed... " Heard an NPR newsbyte on the GATT talks and possible changes to the dumping rules. Has anyone considered the moral equivalent of dumping in the software industry? Some software developers are now moving to do devlopment offshore to low-labor-cost high-education areas -- India, Taiwan, and the former eastern block. Quatro, done in Hungary, is one example. Paragraph, the handwriting recognizer for the Newton, was done in Russia, is another. The primary manufacturing cost of software is the front-end intellectual effort to create it; if it is manufactured offshore and then sold in the US at under the amortized cost to develop it here, does this not constitute dumping?"
In general, dumping is defined as exporting products for sale at "below market price" though some kind of subsidy. The subsidy either comes from the exporting country's government (ie. undue tax breaks or direct subsidy), or from the exorting company in order to gain market share and drive out competitors from the importing country. The whole trick in dumping disputes is determining what "fair market value" actual is. But that is generally done based on the cost of production in the exporting country, not by comparison to prices or production costs in the importing country. I believe that the Europeans feel that American film/TV producers are selling products at below fair market value in order to drive European producers out of business. That is to say, they aren't really recovering the costs of producing the film when they sell it to Europeans. There may be something unethical about unjustly benefiting from the cheap labor of 3rd world programmers, but I don't think it can be called dumping. To do so, you'd have to show that the software producers cited aren't recovering the cost of production for work done in Hungary or India. I don't think that such an argument is being made, however. ...................................................................... Daniel J. Weitzner, Senior Staff Counsel <djw () eff org> Electronic Frontier Foundation 202-347-5400 (v) 1001 G St, NW Suite 950 East 202-393-5509 (f) Washington, DC 20001 *** Join EFF!!! Send mail to membership () eff org for information ***
Current thread:
- software dumping David Farber (Dec 15)
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- Re: software dumping Daniel J . Weitzner (Dec 15)