A business model to break the law? (1 Viewer)

[loquasagacious]

The legislation of a $55,000 fine for the publication of school league tables would seem to present an interesting business proposition.

Afterall the information is already publically available so just needs to be presented in league tables, this would seem to be a relatively low cost exercise. Therefore the biggest cost would seem to be the $55,000 fine.

Could such a fine be paid through profit generated by the publication? It is hard to guess what the profit margin for a newspaper is, but lets say for arguments sake it is 50c per issue. So if they published them the smh would need to sell 110,000 extra issues, seems fair to say that they wouldn't. The publicity however might gain them more readers in the long run.

An internet based business model would seem ideally suited. The cost base is lower because they don't need to meet the overheads of a newspaper, the product can be more sophisticated, and hence higher value, by presenting it using a data analysis thin client which would allow searches, queries and analysis of the data. So all that would be left to do is prevent the copying of the tables (so piracy does not erode revenue/profits) and charge people for access.

Would parents pay $5 to access league tables? Probably not all of them but 11,000 probably would, after all that is a pretty low market pentration rate to break even on the fine. It would also be possible to offer tiered access where users could pay a low cost for limited querying ability and a higher price for full access.

On the face of it, it would seem to be a viable, albeit illegal, business model. Many viable and illegal business models currently operate, look no further than narcotics for examples. So why isn't somebody commercialising this?

Is it morally wrong to pursue an illegal business model?

Note for discussions of whether school league tables and performance measurement are in and of themselves a good thing see this thread:Public School Teachers - Performance Pay

 

[Ben Netanyahu]

morally no
practically yes

in this case id say certainly yes

 

[Graney]

In addition to the $55'000 fine, you'd be required to remove the league tables from your website or face further penalties. So you'd have to make $55'000 before the afp caught up with you.

Just host it from the Netherlands and you're sweet.

 

[loquasagacious]

Lol ACMA blacklisting of the site....

EDIT: Post number 3000.... pity it wasn't a better one really....

 

[volition]

Yea there's nothing morally wrong with breaking such a law. Nobody's property is damaged because of the creation of such a list.

But it's also not a good idea to flagrantly break the law in order to produce the list. I think there would also be a lot of sharing of the list once a few people have bought it.

 

[Serius]

I knew i business that had a plan like this. They are a pub, and basically they flouted a lot of licencing laws and just copped the fine because by ignoring the laws they made alot more money than the fine alone was.

An example is their happy hour. Once a week they had like a 4hr happy hour. Because everyone came for that, they ended up making like 10x what they would in a normal night, but say once a month they would be inspected, a have to pay like a $10 000 fine. They might be making $20 000 extra because of breaking that law in that one night though[because it brings in so many people]

 

[withoutaface]

The legislation of a $55,000 fine for the publication of school league tables would seem to present an interesting business proposition.

Afterall the information is already publically available so just needs to be presented in league tables, this would seem to be a relatively low cost exercise. Therefore the biggest cost would seem to be the $55,000 fine.

Could such a fine be paid through profit generated by the publication? It is hard to guess what the profit margin for a newspaper is, but lets say for arguments sake it is 50c per issue. So if they published them the smh would need to sell 110,000 extra issues, seems fair to say that they wouldn't. The publicity however might gain them more readers in the long run.

An internet based business model would seem ideally suited. The cost base is lower because they don't need to meet the overheads of a newspaper, the product can be more sophisticated, and hence higher value, by presenting it using a data analysis thin client which would allow searches, queries and analysis of the data. So all that would be left to do is prevent the copying of the tables (so piracy does not erode revenue/profits) and charge people for access.

Would parents pay $5 to access league tables? Probably not all of them but 11,000 probably would, after all that is a pretty low market pentration rate to break even on the fine. It would also be possible to offer tiered access where users could pay a low cost for limited querying ability and a higher price for full access.

On the face of it, it would seem to be a viable, albeit illegal, business model. Many viable and illegal business models currently operate, look no further than narcotics for examples. So why isn't somebody commercialising this?

Is it morally wrong to pursue an illegal business model?

Note for discussions of whether school league tables and performance measurement are in and of themselves a good thing see this thread:Public School Teachers - Performance Pay

They'd pass legislation to jack up the fine once they cottoned on to what you were doing.

 

[loquasagacious]

Using a company/website registered/hosted overseas would perhaps avoid the risk of fines entirely.