[deltree7]

If you read the article it is certainly more nuanced.

* The money is going to a Top University.

* There are strict limitations about how the images / brand can be used. I especially like the idea of not mis-quoting and fabricating quotes associated with Einstein.

[dTal]

I find myself unimpressed by this "nuance".

* Does the "Top University" need the cash? Who is it coming from, and who is to say they do not need it more?

* Evidence suggests this has not in practice been prevented.

[ashdnazg]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/hebrew-university-to-open-acad...

From 2016 - "The university is mired in debt amounting to nearly NIS 13 billion ($3.4 billion) over employees’ pensions."

[rvnx]

Stanford for example costs several billions to run.

[ClumsyPilot]

I am not clear why a person that lives in India should care about Stanford, when the cost of tutoring 1 person in Stanford can educate 10 people in India.

Especially when it is already so well-funded.

Stanford disproprotinately benefits very elite of an already wealthy nation. That's okay, but purl-clutching like they need every penny is kinda gross.

[metadat]

Actually, Stanford funds the academic portion of the enterprise from the interest off it's endowment.

It is common knowledge that Stanford is really a front for a real estate venture.

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31266464

[lupire]

What's the angle? Who is profiting from this venture? How much?

(And pro-tip re linked post: ideas carry better without cryptoracist prose.)

[newguynewphone]

I'm sorry, what makes his link racist? The "Old, elite, uber-wealthy white men" comment? As in all of stanfords presidents?

[deltree7]

Exactly, it is not just operational cost for 1 year, but Stanford and Hebrew universities have to survive the next 500 years of humanity for the benefit of humanity. No amount of Cash in the Reserve is enough for a 500 year plan

[akira2501]

So, they have to spend an inordinate amount of effort constraining the free flow of information, to make money off that information, so that they can ensure the free flow of information into the next millennium?

That doesn't seem that great.

[dangus]

These are top schools with huge endowment funds that act as investment vehicles.

Many of them could theoretically operate indefinitely without ever charging tuition, if the funds were hypothetically allowed to be used in that way.

Someone did some napkin math on this for Harvard on Quora: https://qr.ae/pvAQ7v

Now, this person didn't do a great job accounting for inflation, but I do think a professionally managed endowment can get much better than a 3% return on its investments to cover inflation.

Harvard's endowment is pretty close to the same size as Stanford.

It's really just the small, less prestigious universities that have financial issues [1]. The Stanfords and Harvards of the world don't need any help.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/27/more-colleges-face-bankruptc...

[deltree7]

"This person didn't do a great job of accounting for inflation"

Listen to yourself. This is like saying "we have a perfect earthquake prediction model, except it doesn't predict certain types of earthquakes"

This comment along with the massive down-votes that my posts have received proves that a majority of HN is absolutely clueless about running businesses and I'm glad for that

[dangus]

While the person doing the napkin math didn't account for inflation, they were also wildly conservative in terms of how much of a return endowments can get from their investments, mostly just referencing the 4% rule that's useful for retiring individuals with very low risk tolerance.

They estimated that free tuition for all students would cost 3% per year, but the S&P 500 has returned over 10% yearly over the last 100 years, 7% adjusted for inflation. [1]

This math also assumes that the school never receives another donation ever again, which is quite unlikely.

It should also be obvious that my point isn't that schools should literally run entirely on their endowment. My point is: giving money to a school like Harvard or Stanford isn't really an act of charity at this point, because they are juggernaut institutions that are too big to fail. They don't need to be raking in licensing fees from images and quotes from people who have been dead for decades.

It's also interesting that, in your last sentence, you are implying that HN viewers don't know anything about running a business, but last I checked we were talking about universities. There's a little bit of irony here: my whole argument revolves around the fact that these supposedly "non-profit" educational institutions are acting very much like businesses in ways probably shouldn't be.

In my view, images and text for deceased historical figures like Albert Einstein and Martin Luther King, Jr. should be part of the public domain much sooner than copyright law currently allows so that we can all enjoy and learn from their legacy freely without capitalist incentives.

I think Reddit is a better place to complain about fake Internet points. I highly recommend it!

[1] https://www.officialdata.org/us/stocks/s-p-500/1926

[potta_coffee]

That they benefit "humanity" is a dubious claim. They certainly benefit the small club that uses their services.

[deltree7]

Well, two flaws.

i) if Einstein had patented his ideas and had left Billions of Dollars to a top university, would it have been ok with you?. To answer your question, Universities are institutions that last centuries. To survive and attract the best in the world for 300 years, there is no limit of cash that such an institution will need (they need to survive economic crashes, world wars, climate catastrophes, pandemics etc)

ii) You don't have counterfactual evidence. There is a difference between mis-quoting in the comment section vs in Billion $$$ Marketing campaigns

[dangus]

Why should it be illegal to misquote someone who is dead? That doesn't make a lot of intuitive sense to me.

As Abraham Lincoln once said:

"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet just because there's a picture with a quote next to it."

Uh oh, time to throw me in jail, right!?

I realize that misinformation can be a powerfully bad thing in this world, but I think there must be better ways to deal with it than turning a dead person's image into a lucrative capitalist enterprise.

Apple gets to use Einstein's image to advertise their products because they could afford to pay the $600,000 fee, but I can't use Einstein's image to promote my business because, sorry, I'm not a worthy enough capitalist.

> The money is going to a Top University.

Oh, that makes it all better! Top Universities (TM) have the unique ability to avoid all issues monetary related to corruption prevalent in other institutions. (/s)

I'm going to guess that this money is going to be spent on things like academics, perhaps the next Einstein will earn $9 million per year to perform groundbreaking research!

https://stanforddaily.com/2022/02/06/congressional-probe-int...