Fortune recently wrote an article about the schemes of Jerome Lemelson, who, with his cohorts, extorted billions from various industries by similar patent manipulations.
This must be one of the most informative articles ever written about the U.S. patent sytem and it's possible abuses.
Pleast mod this dude up!!!
-- Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.
The fact that this is in Canada makes it very interesting, IMHO. I remember that there was some guy who used to rebroadcast NFL games on the Internet. He was allowed to do this in Canada, but not allowed to do it in the US. If I remember correctly, he was successfully shut down. But then he convinced the courts that if he put in protections for the streams so that they wouldn't reach US customers, he could continue to operate, because the NFL rules applied only in the US, not in Canada.
That's just because the dude in question was stupid enough to have incorporated his company in Pennsylvania.
I mean, if you wanna break US law but are an American with a foothold in the state, don't whine when the feds go knocking at your door...
-- Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.
And yet apparently the local phone system worked, (if people are bitching you out on the phone) despite the weather. There's a lesson in there somewhere.
The reason being that people not competent enough to work for the phone company work for the cable company.
-- Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.
I got a ticket in the mail with a nice picture showing my car, license plate prominent, going through a red light in Brooklyn.
It's damn hard to contest when you actually did it and they have you on film doing it. D'Oh!
In France, they use photo-radar, but they had to be re-engineered extensively. The reason is that they showed a picture of the front of the car, with the driver and passenger's face.
The system had to be redone so the passenger's face wouldn't show-up, because it seems a lot of husbands getting back home would be greeted with an angry wive brandishing the speeding ticket with photo, and shouting "who was that woman with you"????
Unreal and a real pain, since I spend 2 Hrs and $8 in gas commuting each day.
Move closer where you can
walk to work
bike to work
take public transit to work
In any case, any extra money you won't spend on your scrapheap on wheels could be spent on a more expensive house, which will add up to your equity.
But whatever you pour into a scrapheap on wheels will NEVER find itself into your equity.
And in the case of the first two choices, you will also be rewarded by an added cardiovascular capacity, which will definitely extend your livespan, so you'll enjoy more your extra equity at retirement.
So, your choice is to either fatten the parasitic automotive "industry", or to fatten YOUR pocketbook AND lifespan.
Music: Independent promoters' lists show the date a station airs a song and
the amount paid by the artist's record label.
By: CHUCK PHILIPS
TIMES STAFF WRITER
For 40 years, federal law has prohibited broadcasters from accepting money
or anything of value in exchange for playing songs on the radio without
disclosing the practice to listeners.
But internal documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times indicate that
several independent promoters keep detailed logs--called "banks"--listing the
date a station airs a song followed by a dollar amount collected from the
artist's label. The stations that add the most songs over the course of a year
build the biggest banks and consequently earn the largest fees.
Like a bank account, there are debits and credits, deposits and
withdrawals. The promoter makes "deposits" when the right songs are played and
"withdrawals" for the station to receive payment in the form of cash, travel
and tickets to events.
The documents show that each of the five major record companies--Vivendi
Universal, Sony, Bertelsmann, AOL Time Warner and EMI Group--paid fees to an
independent promoter associated with a Portland, Ore., radio station that
played songs produced by their labels. Officials for these record companies
declined to be interviewed.
Experts say the newly disclosed bank data could threaten the licenses of
numerous stations.
"This document destroys the notion that the new payola is any different
from the old payola," said Peter Hart, an analyst for the New York-based media
watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.
"What you have here is a smoking gun. This document confirms suspicions
that critics have long had about potential tit-for-tat arrangements between
independent promoters and radio stations. An appropriate government
investigation could blow this whole industry wide open."
Federal agents already are deep in a four-year probe of corruption in the
radio business. Five executives from Latin music labels and radio stations
have pleaded guilty to payola-related tax offenses. And last year, Clear
Channel Communications, the nation's largest radio conglomerate, was fined for
a payola violation involving a promotion that guaranteed airplay of a song by
pop singer Bryan Adams in exchange for a series of free performances at
concerts sponsored by its station.
Officials at the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice
Department declined to comment on their investigations and on the bank
arrangements. Music Promotion Process Revealed
The world of music promotion and influence peddling is a murky one that is
usually kept out of public view. Independent promoters dodge the tit-for-tat
rules of payola by paying broadcasters annual fees they say are not tied to
airplay of specific songs.
Practitioners of this $100-million-a-year trade--largely hidden under
layers of arms-length alliances and thick legal opinions--seek to determine
the songs that will reach the airwaves and climb the music industry charts.
The newly obtained documents detail exactly how the process works, who is
paid and how much, and how radio stations, promoters and the world's largest
record companies say they keep their arrangements one step inside the law.
The documents include a sales pitch to prospective clients by Michele Clark
Promotion, a Calabasas-based firm, that outlines a "sample bank." The company
denies that such pacts cross the line into illegality.
"We aren't doing anything wrong here," Michele Clark said in an interview.
"The support I get from labels has no effect whatsoever on the musical
decisions of the program directors at my stations."
Besides, Clark said, the practice is widespread throughout the industry. "I
didn't invent this thing. It's standard operating procedure in the promotion
business. Every [independent promoter] in nearly every format uses it."
She added: "Every indie keeps internal accountings of what stations are
worth. You base the value of a station on what you are able to bill on their
behalf. Obviously, the more a radio format helps sell records, the higher the
stakes will be for the labels--and the higher the budgets paid by indies to
the stations involved."
Clark's firm caters to stations in the album adult alternative, or AAA,
format--quiet rock music that accounts for only a sliver of U.S. music sales.
The money funneled into AAA station banks is a pittance compared with what
music conglomerates throw around in the industry's biggest radio formats, such
as top 40, alternative and rock.
Indeed, record labels pay independent promoters as much as $4,000 per song
to influence airplay at the nation's biggest broadcast outlets. And many
labels have exclusive deals with promoters who operate under the same bank
formula, promotion and label executives say.
Clark provides broadcasters with annual fees as high as $120,000 to defray
expenses for contest giveaways, vacation fly-aways, concerts, conventions and
other promotions, the documents show. The labels pay her about $1,000 per song
that gets added to a playlist.
According to one document, Clark earned about $50,000 last year for songs
added to the playlist at Portland, Ore.'s KINK-FM, a division of Viacom-owned
Infinity Broadcasting. The bank lists every time KINK aired a song followed by
a specific dollar amount and the name of the label Clark billed for the play
time.
For example, after KINK added a song by Fiona Apple on Jan. 17, Sony's 550
label paid Clark $1,000, the bank says. Vivendi Universal's Mercury label paid
Clark $1,000 on Feb. 14 after KINK added a song by Kim Richey. Bertelsmann's
Windham Hill label, EMI Group's Capitol label and AOL Time Warner's Giant
label each paid about the same fee for songs by Janis Ian, Shivaree and Steely
Dan, according to the bank.
Another document, titled "non-money stuff," shows a list of songs played by
KINK and a corresponding list of products or services, including concert
tickets and a promise that certain acts might appear later at a station
benefit. 'We Don't Do Anything Illegal or Unethical'
Clark and the station management deny that the paperwork is an accounting
of songs aired in exchange for payment of products or services.
"The document you have in your hand is typical of the kind of paperwork
most independents use for their private bookkeeping," KINK Program Director
Dennis Constantine said in an interview. "I don't know how it got out. But we
don't do anything illegal or unethical here. No matter what the companies pay
[Clark] or what she writes in that bank, it has absolutely no bearing on how
we program this station."
Clark's bank includes a running tally of withdrawals for Clark-financed
contest prizes given to KINK listeners. In addition, Clark deducted nearly
$3,000 for registration fees, plane tickets and hotel accommodations for two
KINK employees to attend trade conventions.
Clark said it is common practice for independent producers to "sponsor"
radio station employees at trade conventions and cover the costs of their
expenses. Constantine agreed, but said attorneys for Viacom have recently
issued a policy forbidding KINK employees from taking money for trade show
junkets. In a recent interview, Viacom Chief Operating Officer Mel Karmazin
said the corporation will not tolerate questionable promotion tactics at
Infinity stations.
Clark is not the only promoter pitching easy-listening broadcasters with
bank proposals. The Times reviewed a similar arrangement from one of Clark's
competitors in the AAA format, Los Angeles-based Harry Levy. Levy declined to
comment.
Most of the nation's top promoters keep bank tallies, including Bill
McGathy, whose New York-based promotion firm rules the rock radio format.
Internal records show that McGathy logs fees collected from labels for added
songs as well as for the value of concert appearances at station events
brokered by his firm.
McGathy declined to comment for this story.
Privately, some independent promoters brag about their ability to influence
programming, label sources say. But they sing a different tune in their
contracts, furnishing stations with language steeped in anti-payola warnings
drafted by former FCC attorneys.
Those contracts specify that independent promoters are free to pitch
specific songs to broadcasters, but the broadcasters are not obligated to add
any song to their playlists. All radio stations need to do in exchange for an
annual fee is give promoters advance notice of which songs they plan to add to
their weekly playlist. The promoters in turn bill the labels for each song
that gets added.
Record executives have long operated under the premise that independent
promoters have the power to influence the success of certain songs, either by
getting them added to a station's playlist or by keeping them off the air.
The bank disclosure comes at a time when Clear Channel, which controls
1,200 radio stations, is considering bids for an exclusive $20-million
contract from several promoters, including Cincinnati-based Tri-State
Promotions and Chicago-based Jeff McClusky Promotions.
Cumulus Media, a Chicago-based broadcast group that owns 210 radio
stations, already has negotiated a $1-million pact with McClusky, whose firm
has nearly 100 stations across the nation tied up in exclusive deals.
Clark and other independent promoters interviewed for this story contend
that every promotion pact--regardless of its size or format--is calculated on
the same bank principle.
"When an indie promises a station a $40,000 annual budget, that number
doesn't come out of thin air," Clark said. "The station has got to be worth
something to the record companies."
The accounting log, or "bank," of Michele Clark Promotion shows record
label payments to her for artists' songs played on the radio and payments she
made for station promotions and expenses.
On the other hand -- recent advances in carbon composites have resulted in some amazingly good fibers with strength/weight ratios that are hard to believe. Replacing the steel core with carbon composite fibers would allow more current carrying aluminium in the same diameter cable.
Actually, no. With AC current, cable capacity is not a function of it's cross-section area, but only of it's cross-section perimeter, since AC current only travels at the surface of the cable.
This is why on big transmission lines, each phase is carried on two or four wires separated by spacers.
Please tell me where our beloved US Constitution says that
corporations only exist for the public good. They are based off a notion
called property rights, where people may produce using their property and
conduct voluntary trade with others using their own property.
Well, when that "voluntary trade" is in effect bludgeoning competition,
monopolizing trade and distribution channels, those corporations are acting
against the public good.
Rather than engaging in another night of cat & mouse
"guess the IP" as we had the night before, I decided to remain off the
Internet, collect attack logging data, and take the opportunity to defragment
our server's hard drives while weathering the storm.
"defragment our server's hard drives" ? Seems that he's not
using Linux for his servers...
And then he complains about being DoSed? Sheesh...
Well the Japanese WERE the bad guys, I mean it was a sneak attack after all. ...
That's only because the japanese lost. If the yankees had lost, the japanese would have been the good guys who would have liberated Asia from the grip of the whites.
Somehow I doubt any Japanese person would go to the movie and NOT expect to be portrayed as a bad guy. Sort of like going to a politically correct western movie about what the U.S. did to native Americans - could you expect the "white man" not to be the bad guy? But of course things are differently now days - we ARE politically correct (too much so if you ask me) and we admit that we made mistakes. The Japanese too are quite different in some respects, being a people known for their politeness and being rather non violent.
It's interesting... Some of my friends are Italian diplomats, and they are puzzled about the proud nationalism displayed here. They were born just after the war, and the allied-controlled postware governments brainwashed them into believing that nationalism is a bad thing...
Predictive Networks Inc. sells a product that can identify users by recognizing
their input patterns. The way you use the mouse and keyboard may be used to track you.
Doesn't that ring a bell about a story published in OMNI some 12-16 years ago?
A brash young programmer kid who thought that user=l03er got nailed when he fell into a honeypot and sold industrial secrets to some japanese company.
The kid was identified by software developped by an "old geezer" who saw the human side of things; the software identified him by his typing timing pattern.
Anyway, the honeypot gave him pr0n pictures (then, a novel concept) instead of the industrial secrets. When the japanese got wind of being shafted, they grabbed the kid and left him alone with a sumo wrestler...
I always wanted to take apart an old mouse, and mount two dials
on the front end of the keyboard.
That way, you could have perfect orthogonal motion when doing CAD or
drawing work. Doing diagonals will take some skill.
Miss the old Etch-a-Sketch, eh?:)
Remember the old Tektonix
4010 graphics terminals of the 70's who had just that for the graphics
cursor: two thumbwheels on the right side of the keyboard?
But the best BM (before mouse) user-interface I've seen was on
a Hewlett-Packard
9836 series desktop computer. It had a single thumbwheel on the left
of the keyboard that sent the cursor in the direction of the last cursor
key pressed.
Drives with densities of 100 gigabits per square inch will enable desktop drives
to reach 400GB storage levels, notebooks 200GB, and one-inch Microdrives
6GB.
It's all fine and well, but how do you back-up such an animal???
Yes, the crypto's all going to be broken. And fast. But
we've never had a DMCA before, and that makes things a little bit different.
95% of the world population doesn't have the DCMCA.
CSS is not clever encryption, but it gives the MPAA the
right to do things they've never been able to do (region-coding, etc.)
Yes, it's been broken, but if the anti-circumvention provisions are upheld,
we won't be seeing commercial unrestricted DVD players anytime soon.
There are plenty of REGION-FREE
DVD players on the market, available NOW.
So, as long as the yankees will be stupid, they will have the DCMCA,
and region-locked DVD players.
Fortunately, it seems that the rest of the world is not as stupid as
the yankees are.
Slashdot Mirror
Pleast mod this dude up!!!
--
Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.
I mean, if you wanna break US law but are an American with a foothold in the state, don't whine when the feds go knocking at your door...
--
Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.
--
Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.
--
Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.
--
Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.
--
Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.
--
Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.
The system had to be redone so the passenger's face wouldn't show-up, because it seems a lot of husbands getting back home would be greeted with an angry wive brandishing the speeding ticket with photo, and shouting "who was that woman with you"????
--
- walk to work
- bike to work
- take public transit to work
In any case, any extra money you won't spend on your scrapheap on wheels could be spent on a more expensive house, which will add up to your equity.But whatever you pour into a scrapheap on wheels will NEVER find itself into your equity.
And in the case of the first two choices, you will also be rewarded by an added cardiovascular capacity, which will definitely extend your livespan, so you'll enjoy more your extra equity at retirement.
So, your choice is to either fatten the parasitic automotive "industry", or to fatten YOUR pocketbook AND lifespan.
--
--
Logs Link Payments With Radio Airplay
Music: Independent promoters' lists show the date a station airs a song and the amount paid by the artist's record label.
By: CHUCK PHILIPS
TIMES STAFF WRITER
For 40 years, federal law has prohibited broadcasters from accepting money or anything of value in exchange for playing songs on the radio without disclosing the practice to listeners.
But internal documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times indicate that several independent promoters keep detailed logs--called "banks"--listing the date a station airs a song followed by a dollar amount collected from the artist's label. The stations that add the most songs over the course of a year build the biggest banks and consequently earn the largest fees.
Like a bank account, there are debits and credits, deposits and withdrawals. The promoter makes "deposits" when the right songs are played and "withdrawals" for the station to receive payment in the form of cash, travel and tickets to events.
The documents show that each of the five major record companies--Vivendi Universal, Sony, Bertelsmann, AOL Time Warner and EMI Group--paid fees to an independent promoter associated with a Portland, Ore., radio station that played songs produced by their labels. Officials for these record companies declined to be interviewed.
Experts say the newly disclosed bank data could threaten the licenses of numerous stations.
"This document destroys the notion that the new payola is any different from the old payola," said Peter Hart, an analyst for the New York-based media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.
"What you have here is a smoking gun. This document confirms suspicions that critics have long had about potential tit-for-tat arrangements between independent promoters and radio stations. An appropriate government investigation could blow this whole industry wide open."
Federal agents already are deep in a four-year probe of corruption in the radio business. Five executives from Latin music labels and radio stations have pleaded guilty to payola-related tax offenses. And last year, Clear Channel Communications, the nation's largest radio conglomerate, was fined for a payola violation involving a promotion that guaranteed airplay of a song by pop singer Bryan Adams in exchange for a series of free performances at concerts sponsored by its station.
Officials at the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department declined to comment on their investigations and on the bank arrangements. Music Promotion Process Revealed
The world of music promotion and influence peddling is a murky one that is usually kept out of public view. Independent promoters dodge the tit-for-tat rules of payola by paying broadcasters annual fees they say are not tied to airplay of specific songs.
Practitioners of this $100-million-a-year trade--largely hidden under layers of arms-length alliances and thick legal opinions--seek to determine the songs that will reach the airwaves and climb the music industry charts.
The newly obtained documents detail exactly how the process works, who is paid and how much, and how radio stations, promoters and the world's largest record companies say they keep their arrangements one step inside the law.
The documents include a sales pitch to prospective clients by Michele Clark Promotion, a Calabasas-based firm, that outlines a "sample bank." The company denies that such pacts cross the line into illegality.
"We aren't doing anything wrong here," Michele Clark said in an interview. "The support I get from labels has no effect whatsoever on the musical decisions of the program directors at my stations."
Besides, Clark said, the practice is widespread throughout the industry. "I didn't invent this thing. It's standard operating procedure in the promotion business. Every [independent promoter] in nearly every format uses it."
She added: "Every indie keeps internal accountings of what stations are worth. You base the value of a station on what you are able to bill on their behalf. Obviously, the more a radio format helps sell records, the higher the stakes will be for the labels--and the higher the budgets paid by indies to the stations involved."
Clark's firm caters to stations in the album adult alternative, or AAA, format--quiet rock music that accounts for only a sliver of U.S. music sales. The money funneled into AAA station banks is a pittance compared with what music conglomerates throw around in the industry's biggest radio formats, such as top 40, alternative and rock.
Indeed, record labels pay independent promoters as much as $4,000 per song to influence airplay at the nation's biggest broadcast outlets. And many labels have exclusive deals with promoters who operate under the same bank formula, promotion and label executives say.
Clark provides broadcasters with annual fees as high as $120,000 to defray expenses for contest giveaways, vacation fly-aways, concerts, conventions and other promotions, the documents show. The labels pay her about $1,000 per song that gets added to a playlist.
According to one document, Clark earned about $50,000 last year for songs added to the playlist at Portland, Ore.'s KINK-FM, a division of Viacom-owned Infinity Broadcasting. The bank lists every time KINK aired a song followed by a specific dollar amount and the name of the label Clark billed for the play time.
For example, after KINK added a song by Fiona Apple on Jan. 17, Sony's 550 label paid Clark $1,000, the bank says. Vivendi Universal's Mercury label paid Clark $1,000 on Feb. 14 after KINK added a song by Kim Richey. Bertelsmann's Windham Hill label, EMI Group's Capitol label and AOL Time Warner's Giant label each paid about the same fee for songs by Janis Ian, Shivaree and Steely Dan, according to the bank.
Another document, titled "non-money stuff," shows a list of songs played by KINK and a corresponding list of products or services, including concert tickets and a promise that certain acts might appear later at a station benefit. 'We Don't Do Anything Illegal or Unethical'
Clark and the station management deny that the paperwork is an accounting of songs aired in exchange for payment of products or services.
"The document you have in your hand is typical of the kind of paperwork most independents use for their private bookkeeping," KINK Program Director Dennis Constantine said in an interview. "I don't know how it got out. But we don't do anything illegal or unethical here. No matter what the companies pay [Clark] or what she writes in that bank, it has absolutely no bearing on how we program this station."
Clark's bank includes a running tally of withdrawals for Clark-financed contest prizes given to KINK listeners. In addition, Clark deducted nearly $3,000 for registration fees, plane tickets and hotel accommodations for two KINK employees to attend trade conventions.
Clark said it is common practice for independent producers to "sponsor" radio station employees at trade conventions and cover the costs of their expenses. Constantine agreed, but said attorneys for Viacom have recently issued a policy forbidding KINK employees from taking money for trade show junkets. In a recent interview, Viacom Chief Operating Officer Mel Karmazin said the corporation will not tolerate questionable promotion tactics at Infinity stations.
Clark is not the only promoter pitching easy-listening broadcasters with bank proposals. The Times reviewed a similar arrangement from one of Clark's competitors in the AAA format, Los Angeles-based Harry Levy. Levy declined to comment.
Most of the nation's top promoters keep bank tallies, including Bill McGathy, whose New York-based promotion firm rules the rock radio format. Internal records show that McGathy logs fees collected from labels for added songs as well as for the value of concert appearances at station events brokered by his firm.
McGathy declined to comment for this story.
Privately, some independent promoters brag about their ability to influence programming, label sources say. But they sing a different tune in their contracts, furnishing stations with language steeped in anti-payola warnings drafted by former FCC attorneys.
Those contracts specify that independent promoters are free to pitch specific songs to broadcasters, but the broadcasters are not obligated to add any song to their playlists. All radio stations need to do in exchange for an annual fee is give promoters advance notice of which songs they plan to add to their weekly playlist. The promoters in turn bill the labels for each song that gets added.
Record executives have long operated under the premise that independent promoters have the power to influence the success of certain songs, either by getting them added to a station's playlist or by keeping them off the air.
The bank disclosure comes at a time when Clear Channel, which controls 1,200 radio stations, is considering bids for an exclusive $20-million contract from several promoters, including Cincinnati-based Tri-State Promotions and Chicago-based Jeff McClusky Promotions.
Cumulus Media, a Chicago-based broadcast group that owns 210 radio stations, already has negotiated a $1-million pact with McClusky, whose firm has nearly 100 stations across the nation tied up in exclusive deals.
Clark and other independent promoters interviewed for this story contend that every promotion pact--regardless of its size or format--is calculated on the same bank principle.
"When an indie promises a station a $40,000 annual budget, that number doesn't come out of thin air," Clark said. "The station has got to be worth something to the record companies."
The accounting log, or "bank," of Michele Clark Promotion shows record label payments to her for artists' songs played on the radio and payments she made for station promotions and expenses.
--
--
This is why on big transmission lines, each phase is carried on two or four wires separated by spacers.
--
For more than 8 years, Hydro-Québec has been laying new electric cable whose core is fiber optic bundles.
Since they already go to the "last mile", they're bound to make a killing once the market is opened...
--
--
--
No deuce!!!!
--
From his DOS attack history page: "defragment our server's hard drives" ? Seems that he's not using Linux for his servers...
And then he complains about being DoSed? Sheesh...
--
--
A brash young programmer kid who thought that user=l03er got nailed when he fell into a honeypot and sold industrial secrets to some japanese company.
The kid was identified by software developped by an "old geezer" who saw the human side of things; the software identified him by his typing timing pattern.
Anyway, the honeypot gave him pr0n pictures (then, a novel concept) instead of the industrial secrets. When the japanese got wind of being shafted, they grabbed the kid and left him alone with a sumo wrestler...
--
Remember the old Tektonix 4010 graphics terminals of the 70's who had just that for the graphics cursor: two thumbwheels on the right side of the keyboard?
But the best BM (before mouse) user-interface I've seen was on a Hewlett-Packard 9836 series desktop computer. It had a single thumbwheel on the left of the keyboard that sent the cursor in the direction of the last cursor key pressed.
--
--
And it could run Linux.
--
So, as long as the yankees will be stupid, they will have the DCMCA, and region-locked DVD players.
Fortunately, it seems that the rest of the world is not as stupid as the yankees are.
--
--