I'll tell you the real reason why the DMA is fighting this.
The FTC and the DoJ would be their worst enemy. If a national DNC policy became official and it is violated, then it is within the fed's jurisdiction to prosecute. The FTC has teeth that the DMA fears.
The DMA wants to keep the status quo of separate state DNC lists because they know that states aren't as likely to come after their members as the feds would and they know that state resources are limited. But if a federal-funded office like the FTC were to get involved...
Ironic that a national organization sues to keep a national law-enforcing office from becoming involved, isn't it?
The labels group as the RIAA and lobby the gov't to pass laws limiting our fair use rights.
Then the labels settle a suit from the DoJ where they admitted they were overcharging customers for CD s for years
The labels then lobby to add "works for hire" added to copyright language so they can steal song rights from the artists forever (this was later repealed under pressure from artist's organizations).
Then the RIAA lobbies their puppet gov't official to unleash the dogs of the DoJ on P2P users using a law they themselves lobbied to get on the books.
When the gov't shows up at your door and tells you that you have stolen copyrighted songs and the law says you must be stoned, then your response should be "Let he who has never sinned cast the first stone".
Gibson is run by a pointy-haired technohick CEO named Henry Juszkiewicz. If you read anything about him, read about the Oberheim debacle to get a glimpse on his poor management style and scavenger tactics of extorting IP from technology companies. Every man that has ever entered into a technology partnership with Juszkeiwicz have all been sued by him. Even law firms under retainer for Gibson have been sued by Juszkeiwicz. He openly refuses to pay engineers and programmers more than $25/hour and refuses to offer bonuses/raises yet he brags about retaining the top law firms in town. More info on Gibson here.
Almost everyone in the music industry is well aware of Henry Juszkiewicz's history and do not put any faith in his gee-whiz high tech products. He is quickly becoming the laughingstock of the music business.
Cost of a 30 second ad on Super Bowl: $2,000,000
Cost of production crew for ad: $275,000
Cost of materials: $70,000
Cost of Steve Ballmer running around like a crack monkey hollering "Commercials! Commercials! Commercials!": priceless
Fighting the RIAA using their own tactics
on
Shutting down Kazaa
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Record labels have used offshore corporations and tax havens to siphon profits from struggling artists for years, telling them that their income would be safe from US or UK tax laws. Then that money mysteriously disappears.
Creedence Clearwater Revival is the best example of this. They were foolish enough to heed the advice of a label accountant and agreed to shelter their royalties into an offshore corporation under the control of the label - and then stood helpless as they discovered to their horror that the corporation and their money vanished.
And of course the labels continue to refuse to open the accounting books for audits. These practices continue today, through contracts that severely restrict audit policies and reducing the royalty flow to artists to a trickle leaving them with no resources to hire the qualified legal counsel necessary to force the labels to open their books. If you thought Enron or WorldCom were bad...
I find it highly ironic and appropriate that the RIAA is chasing a target who is beating them by using their own tactics through offshore puppet corporations with ghost staff and through countries that do not acknowledge US law. In the end when the RIAA is pointing a finger at KaZaa in court, it should be emphasized that they have three fingers pointing back to them.
...should be to permanently repeal the DMCA, to expel derivative bills in the pipeline (CDBTPA and the xxAA right-to-hack bills), and to repeal the Sonny Bono "Mickey Mouse" copyright extension act.
I did some software development for a Department of Defense project, all classified secret. Computer security is taken very seriously on those projects. No connection to the outside world whatsoever, portable media and devices are tightly controlled, and it's a PC roach motel; if you bring your desktop PC in the secured area, it won't come out. There were even strict policies on phone use, especially to the outside world.
Whenever a PC changed hands, the IT folks did a complete 100% wipe on the hard drive before installing an image, but not before scanning the drive for security violations. I don't know what their disposition policy was, but it's a safe bet that dead media was definitely not going to be recovered.
It's also worth noting that, in some cases, you are obligated to retain documents even though no subpoena has been served: if you have reason to believe that a subpoena will be served on you, destroying related documents may be grounds for an obstruction of justice charge. See, for example, U.S. v. Gravely, 840 F.2d 1156 (4th Cir., 1988).
How about more recent examples, like Enron and Arthur Anderson from last year?
We need smart judges sitting on the benches, smart kids (read: better public education), smart laws to discourage crime, smart citizens active in community involvement, smart juries, smart police forces on the street, smart investigators (most are all thumbs at new technology), smart journalists who don't sensationalize the stories, and a short leash on overzealous manipulating lawyers bent on going to long stretches of reasoning *cough* chewbacca defense *cough* to get their scum client off the hook.
A smart gun won't even help the sympton, let alone cure the disease.
Marketing monkeys have money to throw around using MRIs for product targeting while HMO members have to fight tooth and nail to get HMOs to cough up money to use MRIs for life-and-death situations.
So Yahoo prints a news article that predicts that spam will increase 50% - right-o, by no small effort from the marketing monkeys at a company who is well known for the spam/marketing it propogates. Join a Yahoo group and your email addy is added to their spam list. If you just want to surf the groups they force you to sign up anyway. Open a Yahoo email and they reserve the right to change all your opt-outs back to opt-ins without your consent. Yahoo emails are plastered with ad banners.
I have stayed remarkably spam-free with my current email address. How?
I read the privacy policies of ISPs before joining. I will not accept sharing of personal data - period. This has to be in black and white. Any ambiguities or pattern of changes to favor marketers, then the deal's off. Any sales pressure (offer expires in 10 days), then no deal.
Don't leave your email on greeting card sites. These are perfect targets for bots. I got hit with this on my previous addy.
When any paper/web application asks for your email, leave it blank
if the app won't accept blanks, use abuse@website.com
don't reply to ANY spam - even those that have an opt-out URL. The opt-out only tells the spammer that the email addy is a live one and you'll only get more spam. Leave it alone and it will go away on its own.
if I want to join a group but question the email abuse, then I'll use a throwaway email like Hotmail. This is a tactic getting less and less use, because there are fewer groups worth joining.
only subscribe to groups that lock down the subscriber list. Lists run by Majordomo are usually safe, although you should confirm with the list admin that the list is indeed locked down.
Tell your friends to distribute your email to no one. If someone contacts your friend looking for you, either forward the message to you directly or include you in the the reply in the BCC: field.
Starting 20 years ago, whenever RS asked for my name & address, I politely remarked "You don't need that". It doesn't take long before the catalogs stop coming.
I also quit using my grocery cards when I found out that the stores use them to track your purchases for marketing purposes. Just last week I went through the checkout and the clerk asked if I had a card and I told her that I don't use the cards anymore. When she asked "Don't like saving money?" I shot back "No, but I value my privacy". End of conversation.
I am buying more things with cash now. When you buy with a credit card at Sears, they got your name & address and poof, more catalogs in the mail. Pay with cash and you're stealth, baby.
Blame the marketing monkeys at the DMA for this mess, they drove us into it.
Before Verizon acquired them, about four years ago NY Bell announced in their bill that they would be sharing customer phone listings with direct marketers. Imagine that, the entire phone book listing handed over to the telemarketers in digital readout form. There was an immediate outcry and this plan was withdrawn. Now there are new owners and they're about to repeat the same error.
If you want to get results:
Phone your Verizon rep and voice your opposition to their appeal to the federal court
Tell them you do not want your personal information given to direct marketers
Tell them you do not want your personal information used to receive products and services courtesy of Verizon.
If they do business in your state, they are obligated to state business laws.
Precisely why I never bought another ticket from Ticketbastard since the one and only time I dealt with them back in 1989. $4 handling fee per ticket, each weighing less than an ounce and constituting no more than 12 square inches of non-toxic cardboard paper, is completely asinine!
Convenience fee, my ass. I'll walk to the fricking box office.
Slashdot Mirror
The FTC and the DoJ would be their worst enemy. If a national DNC policy became official and it is violated, then it is within the fed's jurisdiction to prosecute. The FTC has teeth that the DMA fears.
The DMA wants to keep the status quo of separate state DNC lists because they know that states aren't as likely to come after their members as the feds would and they know that state resources are limited. But if a federal-funded office like the FTC were to get involved...
Ironic that a national organization sues to keep a national law-enforcing office from becoming involved, isn't it?
Those mobile spud missile launchers have been hard targets to take out.
The labels group as the RIAA and lobby the gov't to pass laws limiting our fair use rights.
Then the labels settle a suit from the DoJ where they admitted they were overcharging customers for CD s for years
The labels then lobby to add "works for hire" added to copyright language so they can steal song rights from the artists forever (this was later repealed under pressure from artist's organizations).
Then the RIAA lobbies their puppet gov't official to unleash the dogs of the DoJ on P2P users using a law they themselves lobbied to get on the books.
When the gov't shows up at your door and tells you that you have stolen copyrighted songs and the law says you must be stoned, then your response should be "Let he who has never sinned cast the first stone".
Almost everyone in the music industry is well aware of Henry Juszkiewicz's history and do not put any faith in his gee-whiz high tech products. He is quickly becoming the laughingstock of the music business.
Cost of a 30 second ad on Super Bowl: $2,000,000
Cost of production crew for ad: $275,000
Cost of materials: $70,000
Cost of Steve Ballmer running around like a crack monkey hollering "Commercials! Commercials! Commercials!": priceless
Creedence Clearwater Revival is the best example of this. They were foolish enough to heed the advice of a label accountant and agreed to shelter their royalties into an offshore corporation under the control of the label - and then stood helpless as they discovered to their horror that the corporation and their money vanished.
And of course the labels continue to refuse to open the accounting books for audits. These practices continue today, through contracts that severely restrict audit policies and reducing the royalty flow to artists to a trickle leaving them with no resources to hire the qualified legal counsel necessary to force the labels to open their books. If you thought Enron or WorldCom were bad...
I find it highly ironic and appropriate that the RIAA is chasing a target who is beating them by using their own tactics through offshore puppet corporations with ghost staff and through countries that do not acknowledge US law. In the end when the RIAA is pointing a finger at KaZaa in court, it should be emphasized that they have three fingers pointing back to them.
Yeah, and on super bowl weekend.
And no, I do not waste time on corporate sports.
According to an interview, Hilary Rosen grew up in New Jersey.
Remember the Beta/VHS wars? Sony lost the war, largely because they charged a ludricious fee for licensing the Beta format.
You'd think Sony would've learned that lesson by now.
Rip. Mix. Burn.
(big explosion of smoke and fire, munchkin geeks scatter at the sight of Valenti in witches' drag)
I thought you said the wicked witch was dead!
Ah, but we killed the wicked witch of the east; this is her sister, the wicked witch of the west. She's much worse.
Whenever a PC changed hands, the IT folks did a complete 100% wipe on the hard drive before installing an image, but not before scanning the drive for security violations. I don't know what their disposition policy was, but it's a safe bet that dead media was definitely not going to be recovered.
How about more recent examples, like Enron and Arthur Anderson from last year?
We need smart judges sitting on the benches, smart kids (read: better public education), smart laws to discourage crime, smart citizens active in community involvement, smart juries, smart police forces on the street, smart investigators (most are all thumbs at new technology), smart journalists who don't sensationalize the stories, and a short leash on overzealous manipulating lawyers bent on going to long stretches of reasoning *cough* chewbacca defense *cough* to get their scum client off the hook.
A smart gun won't even help the sympton, let alone cure the disease.
Replace your browser with Mozilla
right click over the ad banner
select "Block Images from this server"
Done. No more ad banners.
Marketing monkeys have money to throw around using MRIs for product targeting while HMO members have to fight tooth and nail to get HMOs to cough up money to use MRIs for life-and-death situations.
I have stayed remarkably spam-free with my current email address. How?
I read the privacy policies of ISPs before joining. I will not accept sharing of personal data - period. This has to be in black and white. Any ambiguities or pattern of changes to favor marketers, then the deal's off. Any sales pressure (offer expires in 10 days), then no deal.
Don't leave your email on greeting card sites. These are perfect targets for bots. I got hit with this on my previous addy.
When any paper/web application asks for your email, leave it blank
if the app won't accept blanks, use abuse@website.com
don't reply to ANY spam - even those that have an opt-out URL. The opt-out only tells the spammer that the email addy is a live one and you'll only get more spam. Leave it alone and it will go away on its own.
if I want to join a group but question the email abuse, then I'll use a throwaway email like Hotmail. This is a tactic getting less and less use, because there are fewer groups worth joining.
only subscribe to groups that lock down the subscriber list. Lists run by Majordomo are usually safe, although you should confirm with the list admin that the list is indeed locked down.
Tell your friends to distribute your email to no one. If someone contacts your friend looking for you, either forward the message to you directly or include you in the the reply in the BCC: field.
I also quit using my grocery cards when I found out that the stores use them to track your purchases for marketing purposes. Just last week I went through the checkout and the clerk asked if I had a card and I told her that I don't use the cards anymore. When she asked "Don't like saving money?" I shot back "No, but I value my privacy". End of conversation.
I am buying more things with cash now. When you buy with a credit card at Sears, they got your name & address and poof, more catalogs in the mail. Pay with cash and you're stealth, baby.
Blame the marketing monkeys at the DMA for this mess, they drove us into it.
If you want to get results:
Phone your Verizon rep and voice your opposition to their appeal to the federal court
Tell them you do not want your personal information given to direct marketers
Tell them you do not want your personal information used to receive products and services courtesy of Verizon.
If they do business in your state, they are obligated to state business laws.
Enough!
When those stupid ads are broadcast over the store PA, I impulsively turn off the hearing aid. Ah, the tranquility :)
I'll do the same with the shopping carts. And if the LCD screen distracts me, I'll head straight for the aisle where they sell duct tape.
%&#$ing marketing monkeys... I hate 'em.
Convenience fee, my ass. I'll walk to the fricking box office.