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Cuban Says RIAA Damages Should be $5 Per Month
Thomas Hawk writes "Mark Cuban is arguing over at Blog Maverick that with the introduction of Yahoo!'s new $5 per month music service that this needs to become the new de facto 'damages' that the RIAA ought to be able to claim when suing kids. After all, when the kids could have paid for the music via Yahoo! for $5 a month it makes it hard to say the music loss is worth more than that. 'The RIAA can no longer claim that students who are downloading music are costing them thousands of dollars each. They cant claim much of anything actually. In essence, Yahoo just turned possession of a controlled music substance into a misdemeanor. Payable by a $5 per month fine.'"
The RIAA doesn't sue downloaders. They sue people who upload music. Yes I know, some programs upload what you download by default, but that change what they sue people for. You can't get the right to upload music for $5 a month. Even if you could, the RIAA can always sue for statutory damages, which are a lot higher than $5 a month even for downloading.
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
Wow.
This guy is about as bright as a 5 watt bulb.
It is like he does not even understand the reason that the RIAA is able to sue for thousands. The premise in court is (right or wrong) that the Music Industry is losing thousands per filesharer, for a specific reason. That is, each song available for download is being downloaded by thousands of people, and each of those downloads costs the RIAA membership the sale of a CD. Thousands of downloads * CD sale = mucho cash.
Again, this is the premise that would be followed in court.
Changing the price of a music from $CD_PRICE to $DOWNLOAD_YAHOO_PRICE simply means that someone making files available, would be liable for $DOWNLOAD_YAHOO_PRICE now. In other words, $num_of_users_downloading * $DOWNLOAD_YAHOO_PRICE.
How is this ruining the RIAA in court? It only reduces the amount of damages per COUNT of people downloading.. that's all....
Put another way, the RIAA is not suing because you did not buy music. It is not suing the people that downloaded music. It is suing the people that _shared_ music, and setting the price accordingly.
Again, right or wrong, that's what happening. It's almost like this guy thinks people are being sued for downloading. They aren't. If they were, the RIAA could only sue for what they had lost in revenue, and that would be the cost of the songs the sued downloaded.
No, they sue from a much bigger angle. They sue with the claim that file sharers have cost them thousands of CD sales...
That is like saying the most a person can be fined for stealing a shirt from WalMart is the price of the shirt.
After reading the title I was wondering why the RIAA would care what someone in Cuba thinks.
Who do those Cuban people think they are, telling American companies what to do!?
This makes perfect sense. Why should they be able to sue for more than the "damages" would even have been?
The main people the RIAA are going after are the SHARERS - the people who have hundreds, dare I saw thousands of songs in their shared folder, and are on a high-speed connection. 5 dollars per month per each individual person who downloaded from that one person is probably a little more what the RIAA would be after, if they had to affix something like that to the cost.
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
I remember seeing a user on slashdot with the name FidelCastro. But it wasn't him that submitted it.
1. You have to take into account everyone that could have gotten the file from someone when talking about lost revenue
2. The purpose of the fine is a) to recoup lost revenues and b) to discourage people from breaking the law
While the value of 2a might have gone down, that doesn't really affect 2b.
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
The RIAA couldn't manage a Dairy Queen.
Movie News - "Entertainment news, bitch!"
If you follow Cuban's argument through, the RIAA could easily claim that it is due $5 per month from you and everyone who got a copy of a song from you illegally . Which puts the damages back where the RIAA wants them.
Personally, I buy all of my music from a Russian company myself...
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Since Yahoo charges $5 per month per user, the RIAA would by the writer's logic, sue for the same. So if Joe Shmoe uploads a large amount of songs and 1000 people download at least one of them within a month, Mr Shmoe owes $5000 to the RIAA.
Of course the RIAA could also look to Apple and say they're worth $1 per song per user. In which case Mr Shmoe would owe $1 * 1000 * number of songs downloaded.
This assumes that the uploader tracks the number of users and downloads and can verify the information to the satisfaction of the courts. This is why the RIAA and MPAA sue for generally large piles of cash. It's a very rare pirate that tracks their user base as well as Apple and Yahoo and every other legitimate music downloading business. The pirate is then at the mercy of the courts to decide how much they owe if they don't just settle with the RIAA.
Work Safe Porn
[Insert here a long, tired speech about the differences between copyright infringement and theft.] Nevertheless, all penalties for stealing something are far in excess of the value of the goods. Otherwise, every shopper would walk out of every grocery store without paying every time. Why pay first when you can safely wait until after the seller complains?
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
I thought subscription based services like Rhapsody and Yahoo were just streaming. If you want to acutally download the song and listen to it from somewhere else than your internet-connected computer, you had to pay an additional fee ($.79/song in Yahoo's case) I mean, if I could actually DOWNLOAD an unlimited amount of music and listen to it on all my PCs, on an mp3 player, and burn it to CD to listen in a car, for $5/month or even $20/month I'd jump at the chance. But I'm not going to pay $5/month for the privelege of listening to music and the ability to pay more to buy it.
Free MacMini
There should be caps on this sort of thing anyways. Remember the kid who made a search engine for his University and when the RIAA found out that people were using it to search other people's shares for MP3s they sued the kid for $10,000 which he paid out of pocket from his college fund. Fortunately for him he has since recovered his money thanks to an internet fund raising drive, but $10,000 is an awful lot to sue for when someone has not caused you any sort of monetary damages directly. I could only imagine the world of hurt the poor kid would be in if he didn't have the funds to just simply settle.
This is chilling precedent. What's to stop the RIAA from one day hacking into my machines and finding some MP3s (actually, they will find a LOT) and deciding that I am distributing them or that I do not legally own all of them? Can I afford to pay some schmuck lawyer to help me defend myself against this tirade? I can't, as I am unemployed currently. Could I afford a $10,000 "fine"? Probably not. People put other people's lives at risk with drunk driving, but when they are caught, they face only a $3,000 fine here in good ole Pennsyltucky. Aparantly putting the lives of people in danger is only worth $3000 to the state, while saying that stealing some music from a corporation that owes a multitude of its artists money and does its best not to pay is ludicrous is worth $10,000 is totally ludicrous.
The government doesn't need to get involved in this sham either. Hasn't anyone read the news? Record sales have been up. I guess the piss poor economy has had a lot more to do with sales driving down than some college kids who wouldn't have bought the freaking album new anyways.
For the record, 90% of the albums I've ever bought were from the used bin. It would be safe to say that I never supported the artists in the first place. KRS-One has this great line about how "if you downloaded the album, come to the show." I'm sure he makes a lot more from ticket sales at shows than he does from his albums. Maybe more people need to get out and see shows and maybe more shows need to start costing less than $50 a seat!
Is Dave Matthews really worth $100 to go see with your girlfriend? (assuming one has one here)
zosxavius photography
I don't know if you realize, but that 5 dollars per month has to be paid EVERY month. Once you stop paying, the collection is worthless. On the other hand, with P2P songs you get to keep them forever.
Second, they will not play on iPods, only certain Microsoft backed "Play for Sure" devices.
Third, free is still cheaper than $3000, assuming you're 20 and live another 50 years.
Fourth, P2P files are unencumbered with any DRM. Thus, you're getting more value for NO money.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I'm not. Yahoo! music won't play (as far as I can tell) on my Archos Jukebox. It won't play in any of three existing Flash-based MP3 players. So, there's several hundred dollars worth of electronics I'd need to replace to use Yahoo! music. And, I have no guarantees whatsoever that I'll be able to play the music I purchase 5 years from now. Technological obsolescence happens; I've seen it too many times. It's in a proprietary, poorly-supported format. If the market decides to switch to a new format, this one will be left in the dust. /frank
And the worms ate into his brain.
If I sold my Mustang to you could I get sued by Ford for it? If not, why not?
The first sale doctrine applies in both patent law and copyright law. Ford can't sue used car dealers for patent infringement because the first sale of a patented article to the public exhausts the exclusive right to resell that article. Likewise, you have the right to resell a lawfully made CD on which copyrighted works are recorded.
Can I set up a new cable network that broadcasts all of the Maverick's games if I pay them the cost of a season ticket? Sounds fair to me.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Until then it's all threats and scares.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The argument doesn't hold up.
These pay-per-month services are rentals: you stop paying and you no longer have access to the music (though I suppose its only a matter of time, if it hasn't happened already, before someone cracks the DRM in these rental services). With iTMS you own the track you've paid US$0.99 for. It's yours.
People forget this, or don't think about it. Hilary Rosen's recent drivel makes the same mistake when she complains about iTMS lockin while saying how great Rhapsody or Napster or Yahoo! or whatever is. Of course, you're locked into those too. Anyway.
[after the obligatory discussion over copyright infringment and theft differences...]
I can rent a car for 50$/day.
So I guess I can steal Mark Cuban's car and if I accidentally get caught after a week I simply owe him 350$, right ?
But if you take that $5 per month, multiply it by 12 months. Then multiply that by 10 years of downloading music ($1200), then multiply that by 100 kids, and now you have $120,000 missing. I'm not defending the RIAA in anyway. I think mark Cuban is a pretty ingenious entrepreneur, however I don't think you can relate these apples to those oranges so to speak.
"When they invent bitch slaps that can go through a monitor you better f'ing duck" --deft (253558)
Can someone get caught with millions of songs, delete them, and just pay a 1 month ($5) Fine? or does a 15 year old get caught with 1 song have to pay $5 for the rest of his life ($4,200 assuming a 85 year life span)?
Introducing Microsoft Vacuum 1.0 The first Microsoft product that doesn't suck.
AFAIK, the RIAA has yet to actually obtain a judgement in any end-user lawsuit. That they can successfully sue at all is far from clear at this point. Indeed, with the exception of the Napster suit, the RIAA has yet to prevail in a single hearing, much less a trial. So far, people have settled, or the suit has yet to reach trial. To date, the RIAA is batting .000 in court on end-user lawsuits.
Cuban may well be right about the proper amount for damages, but that assumes judgement. At the start, anyone can sue anybody for any sum. For example, SCO's multi-billion dollar suit against IBM. I think we can all agree SCO won't get billions. Likewise, the RIAA would probably get less than they are asking IF they won at trial, and IF a judge agreed to impose damages. Both of those eventualities are speculative at this point.
If RIAA ran Walmart it wouldn't have shoplifters prosecuted for theft, it would launch ridiculous civil suits against them.
If you stole a shirt from RIAA's Walmart, it would sue you $14.95 in loss/damages plus $1.5 million for pain, suffering, legal costs, etc.
I agree that Cuban's logic is flawed, but I might amend the argument. RIAA has tried to sue for silly amounts, somewhere along the lines of $2500 per song. I believe that the defendant could argue that since there is a legal $5/month service from Yahoo that a more resonable assessment would be $5 * number of months known to offend * a reasonable estimate of the number of people who got songs from your PC in a given month. It is that last factor that is different from Cuban's argument--unfortunately what a reasonable estimate is debatable.
So instead of these dumb multi-million lawsuits against teenage girls and grandparents that do nothing but make bad PR and settlemsnt at a small fraction of the original amount you'd do something like this:
$5 * 6 months * 500 USERS (not songs) uploaded to in a given month is...$15000. I'd bet that in most cases it is much less than 500 unique users who get all or part of a file from your machine when logged into P2P. In any case $15K is mcuh less ridiculous than millions but still enough to remind the offenders that it is wrong.
BTW, comapring copyright infringement to shoplifting isn't really accurate either because despite what RIAA says, violating copyright is NOT THEFT. When you steal a shirt you are denying the victim the use of said shirt. When you download music the artist (or more likely the publisher) still owns the rights and paying customers can still hear the music. Just to make it clear...
DOWNLOADING MUSIC IS *NEVER* STEALING...
HOWEVER...it IS violationg copyright... AND VIOLATING COPYRIGHT IS ALSO WRONG.
The problem is that RIAA et al want to prosecute people for copyright infringement much more harshly than deserved--more than what some people get for things like theft, assault and rape. A reality check is required for people all around.
That someone argues and acts with energy and enthausiasm over music doesn't mean they're not involved in other causes.
It's pretty obvious that the music industry wants subscription services to succeed because they'd LOVE to have us buy the same music over and over again.
But I'm making a prediction that those services will fail. They all use the same DRM backed by Microsoft. (AKA, Play for Sure) One day someone will find a way to bypass the DRM and free all those songs. Suddenly, those hundreds of thousand of songs you've downloaded will be yours permanently.
Of course, they'll "fix" the problem but it'll happen again and again. Eventually the music industry will tire of being screwed and they'll make you buy the music outright. At least I hope so.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
When I first read this article, there seemed a locgically, but linear, point of view. The poster simply connected one fact to another, with no real support. It is logical, but not practical.
What is really strange, is how people are responding to this post. Many are simply ignoring the fact that services, Napster, Yahoo etc. are providing an unlimited amount of music, with small compensation.
They provide a service as cheap as a magazine subscription. Many people simply argue past the $5 a month of damages, others argue about the DRM, uploaders, but when it comes down to it, the RIAA is trying to play both sides.
They are trying to prevent piracy, and advocate cheaper "better" resources. They sue for thousands and sell their CDs for $10-$20, but yet offer for $5 a month all the music one can hold on a personal MP3 player.
What is next when the sales of box office movies to torn apart by a $5 subscription of online moves? Will there be more controversy?
$sig$
Interesting point, but that's like saying to a car thief "OK, we can throw you in jail, or you can just pay for the car and be on your merry way." Sorry, real life doesn't work that way. Posession is 9/10ths of the law, and if you posess it without legally owning it, my friend, you stole it. Making things right after the fact doesnt change the fact that it is stolen to begin with.
That doesn't mean I don't think that the money being asked by the RIAA is outlandish. But the principle he is presenting is flawed.
-everphilski-
Although Mr. Cuban's argument is interesting and does make sense (to a certain extent), he is leaving out some key things.
1. Yahoo's $5/month fee is based on a business model that we can't see
2. The actual costs to Yahoo are substantially larger than $5/month and are made up on volume
3. The licensing agreements that the $5/month fee covers are also based on a certain volume that Yahoo has to cover until the service reaches a break even point
4. To argue that $5/month should be the punishment, although justifiable on a per-user basis, would not hold a lot of water in court
I don't disagree with Mr. Cuban, but I think he is stretching it a bit beyond what the courts would uphold.
I am not defending the RIAA or their actions. I do believe people have the right to make off their ideas and thus, I respect copyright. I believe the technology grew too fast and majority of consumers haven't related to the ethical problem yet. Thus, I believe the proper response should be education first then punitive action. However, with punitive action, $5 for every month of infraction is too low. With P2P and torrent, the downloader becomes the uploader. With desktops and always-on broadband, these programs could run for days at a time. Take a one person with 600 pirated songs, he has $600 worth of music. If a hundred people download just %10 of his collection, he just distribute illegally $6000 worth of songs. I would guess this could happen in just a few days. Imagine, how many songs he distributes in the course of a year. Thus, $5/month is too low and would be ineffective if punitive action is being used.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Cuban is no idiot. He knows that the way to change things is to control the structure of the argument. The music industry has managed to paint their struggle for continued control as a fight between them and "evil music thieves," and now Cuban is reframing the argument so it revolves around the music industry's pricing policies.
Anyone who forms their opinion about music filesharing's effect on the music industry and on creativity solely on the basis of Cuban's comments is a bit dim. But that doesn't diminish the worth of what he's doing by shifting the argument. He's using the broad reach of his blog to re-think the big picture.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
This is just one row over from "controlled literary substance" and one column up from "thought crime." Though, that last CMS I tried left my ears all numb and tingly. That was some good shit! (Another CMS wasn't much good for listening, but it killed all the mice in my house.)
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
The argument is ok so far as it goes, but it doesn't go very far at all.
Regrdless whether the plaintiff suffers any damages at all, and regardless whether the defendant obtains any unjust enrichment from the infringing content, a plaintiff may still elect to obtain statutory damages. The jury gets to determine the amount of statutory damages, but that determination can be no less than $750 PER WORK INFRINGED.
This exceeds $5 per month.
While I dislike the RIAA/MPAA just like the next /.'er, I wholly disagree with this story writers pricing assessment. Part of being sued and penalized for doing something bad is paying a penalty fee. For example: If a company wronged you and you were injured. You do not just sue them for your medical bills (boy does the health insurance industry wish this was the case) - you sue them for more money above and beyond.
So while we hate the stupid prices, and the DRM's - I at least cannot say it is morally right to give the music I bought to strangers on the internet (or to download them).... As such when they sue - yes they can sue for more. I do not know how much is more valid - but $5/month is not an acceptable price.
Though the RIAA/MPAA is suing uploaders, not downloaders.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Once audio, video or print is turned into little ones and zeroes, it becomes impossible to control. You can wrap those ones and zeroes with some DRM pixie dust, but there's always some smarty-pants who can un-DRM them again. There are those still in denial about this, like the RIAA and MPAA executives, but history has proven this out in the last decade or so. Increasingly draconian laws have a short-term effect, but only postpone the inevitable shift to a different model.
Personally, when I get music or video, there are people I want to see paid for my privilege of enjoying the work. The writers, composers, musical artists and actors are at the top of the list, and also the professionals who capture and refine the work. Without them, there wouldn't be content to enjoy, so I want them to be paid. They need to be able to make a living.
Currently, though, a HUGE percentage of the money lines the pockets of people who have little part in the creative process. I don't care to pay them. They are not doing me any good. In fact, they often do me harm, screening thoughtful or poignant content out of the mix because it will somehow make them less money.
So, two problems - (1) we can't effectively control content in exchange for license fees in the digital world, and (2) we want to pay the right people and jettison the baggage. I propose that to solve these problems, a new economics of entertainment content must emerge.
Better, more informed and creative brains than my own need to noodle on this, and we need to quit wasting time arguing about the current, doomed paradigm of entertainment commerce. Of course, thoughts like these will threaten the barons of the entertainment industry - they are slow to move, and have no vested interest in seeing things change. But the status quo can't last forever, and is already on it's last legs.
My comments are my own, and do not represent the views of my employer, my spouse, my children, or my cats.
If a kid gets sued for $10,000, this implies that Yahoo ought to pony up ($10,000 - $5)*(duration of ostensible piracy sited in lawsuit) per subscriber. Interesting.
BitTorrent is much fuzzier, because except for the first seeder, individual clients aren't uploading and downloading entire files - they're uploading and downloading small chunks, so rather than uploading 5 copies of a 1GB movie, one to each of 5 people, you might have uploaded 5GB of total stuff spread out over 25 people.
Some P2P applications do this as well. It raises a good question though -- what happens when you're only uploading small chunks? Is it still infringing because it's still part of the song?
What would happen if a P2P client broke files down into really small chunks so you download non-sequential chunks (though all at once, to save overhead) from different sources.. Each individual person would NOT be uploading actual music (if you tried to play the individual upload stream, it would either not work or be random garbage), they'd be uploading essentially random streams of data. Once you had all these random streams from different sources, you could reassemble it back into a song.
Speak before you think
After all, CD's only cost $12-15 each. It would take a lot of CD's to add up to the $100K these folks are supposedly asking for in their suits.
(IANAL)
6. Audible Alarm (not shown)
-from a Cuisinart product owner's manual.
It's like burning a copy a CD, destroying, the original, and saying, "This one isn't a copy, I don't have the original any more."
Making a backup is also making a copy. Are you meaning to say that I don't have the right to use my backup if my original gets destroyed? Next you'll be saying that I can't make a backup of that backup, even after the original is destroyed.
The symbol for copyright should be a burning candle with a cage of barbed wire around the flame, symbolizing that though you could light your candle at mine without diminishing mine's light, I'm still not going to let you copy my fire.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Haven't you heard? It doesn't matter anymore if anyone downloads it. Just having it available to be downloaded by the public is enough.
To change infringement to theft, it is like saying if your CD collection is stolen and you didn't keep it behind a locked door, you're liable for the theft.
And there is no uploading in P2P. It's all downloading and serving. They are going after the people who are serving.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Not if they ask for statutory damages - $750 minimum up to 150K for willful infringement per work. Think the RIAA will ask for actual damages instead of this? Not likely.
It's good to be the content owner.
Of course, this is only true if Yahoo has everything the RIAA has copyright for. Which is not the case, I'm sure.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Either direct infringement (it's often infringement even when you copy just a very small part of a work), or contributory infringement, since you're working with a lot of other people to, in sum, infringe.
That you'd consider this kind of indicates that you're treating the law as a machine, which can be spoofed. This is a mistake; there are human beings involved, and they're often fairly smart, too. Your scheme is so very simple that it is no work at all to see through. I'd watch it with the whole pride thing.
You may also be interested to read the essay "What Colour Are Your Bits?".
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
No, asking for a file does not necessarily equate to asking for a copy.
Directing a machine to copy the file does.
Unless I have the original, I can't make a copy.
Why not? If I take a photo of a painting, I've made a copy, but I don't need to "have" the painting to make the copy.
Your logic is equivalent to claiming that browsing the web is a constant copying of copyrighted content.
Well, it is.
I said nothing about public broadcasting.
Broadcasting is by definition public.
The FCC allows FM transmissions up to a certain level (50 mw?), and it's perfectly legal to use that technology to privately broadcast, say from a CD player so you can listen on a radio in another room, (wireless headphones are another example).
That's not broadcasting. A broadcast is a transmission to the public. It's also not distribution, because you're not sending it to someone else, and it's probably not copying. But even if it is any of those things, it's certainly fair use.
Are those illegal?
The devices certainly aren't illegal, and using them in the manner you describe isn't illegal, because it's fair use.
Are you claiming that IP based music streaming, such as the capability offered by Apple iTunes and hardware devices such as an Airport Express or Roku Soundbridge or a Squeezebox constitutes copyright infringement?
If you do it without permission of the copyright holder, and not for some fair use purpose, it's definitely copyright infringement. I can't remember the name of the company right now, but someone was successfully sued for doing exactly that. Apple had to get a license to offer their iTunes service.
How about if it's sent over 802.11?
If it's a broadcast, I believe there are some statutory licenses for digital audio transmission. If not, then you've got to either rely on fair use or get a license.
Is it copyright infringement to play music loudly enough that others can hear it (broadcasting via audio vs. RF)?
If it's not fair use, and you don't have a license, then yes.
What clearly defined distinction is there between loud music and RF transmission and Internet transmission?
There is essentially no distinction between loud music and RF transmission. If you play music in a bar or at a concert, you've got to pay for a public performance license. If you're just playing musically loudly for personal non-profit purposes, you're probably protected under fair use. Same thing with small scale RF transmission. On the other hand, if you're broadcasting to a wide area, then fair use probably doesn't apply, even if you are doing it for non-profit purposes. With internet transmission, the distinction is that it's necessarily a digital audio transmission (RF transmission might be digital, in which case it falls under the digital audio transmission rules).
>If I steal a $5 object from a store and I get caught, it
>doesn't cost me $5. There is a penalty above what it
>would have cost me to purchase it
If you steal a $5 object from a store, you are in fact stealing. Copyright infringement is not automatically stealing. Copyright infringement needs to reach a fairly high threshold to be criminal.
Unless you download $1,000 worth of music, downloading music without purchasing it isn't stealing. Not legally, anyway, at least in the United States (this is 17 U.S.C. 506).
At $5/month, you would have to keep downloading infringing material for 200 months, or about 17 years, to reach the point of it legally being "stealing".
But since the $1,000 threshold has to be reached within a 180-day period, that's impossible. So if downloading unlimited music files is worth $5/month, then downloading infringing copies can never be worth $1,000. At best, it will only be worth $30 (over any 6-month period), and thus is not legally stealing.
Incidentally, your argument about the penalty for stealing being more than the cost of the object stolen "because there is a chance that you won't get caught" (a) follows from a faulty premise (the penalty is not always going to be more than the cost of the object stolen), and (b) is not in any way the basis for U.S. criminal law as far as I can tell.
Jerry