My shallow understanding is that if you use copyright enforcement to violate anti-trust law then you'd loose all rights to defend that copyright in any way forever-and-ever. If that's the case then Napster only has to show that anti-trust law was broken at some point in the past. They wouldn't have to show the current suit against Napster is anti-competative (which would be really had to do).
But maybe I'm missing something?
BTW... Kittie got a writeup recently for using mp3.com to get on the billbard charts.
In generale totally right. But if each record company gives the RIAA power of attorney in some matter then they would all be responsible for the RIAA's behavoir in that matter.
So if each record company agreed to let the RIAA negotiate advertising subsidies with record stores, then RIAA staff communication on that matter could have been used in the FTC case.
If you hire someone to negotiate for you and they threaten to break the other guy's kneecaps, it would be a good idea to get a lawer.
But Napster might have evidence from each major label.
Since the RIAA has to comunicate with each of it's members, it's possible that a search if the RIAA offices would turn up letters recieved form it's members, records of what the RIAA sent to these members and possibly minutes of meetings between the members.
They might even demonstrate that the RIAA is used for some sort of anti-trust collusion? How is it that 5 different companies all arrived at the same CD price fixing scheme? There are a lot of possibilities, but since they are all RIAA members, perhaps they all discussed it at an RIAA meeting?
Using your argument Napster could say that since the RIAA "has no product of its own that Napster is encroaching on" there is nothing to sue for, no damages and no liability - case dismissed.
The fact is: the RIAA is acting on behalf of its members, who are record companies that claim to be loosing revenue due to Napster's facilitation of copyright infringement.
They aren't saying that the RIAA is acting anti-competitively, if you read that anywhere it is a inaccurate attempt to paraphrase the legal argument.
They are saying that certain *members* of the RIAA were acting anti-cometitivly and it seems that the US Federal Trade Commission would agree with them on that since they recently settled with 5 major record companies on charges of price fixing.
If the major record labels have used their copyrights to violate anti-trust law, then they loose the right to enforce those copyrights and so Napster can't be held libel for losses due to violation of those copyrights. If the copyright holder has no enforcement right, then any organization acting on thier behalf (RIAA) looses enforcement rights as well.
So the RIAA could continue to sue, but if this argument is accepted by the court, thier damages wouldn't incude any of the 5 major labels copyrights.
This law doesn't addresss 2 major areas: 1) anyone other that the 5 major labels (i.e. indies) 2) Anything the "Big 5" copyrighted after they settled with the FTC - assuming that they are using the CD pricefixing issue as the antitrust activity (I'd guess that one could find other examples of anti-trust violations in the major labels - but IANAL).
I can't wait until some insurance company allies w/ double click to get at peoples medical site profiles.
Even if my medical records are safe on dead trees in my physician's filing cabinet, knowing that I've been looking up information on "chest-pains" or "HIV treatments" would be worth money to comanies looking to insure me.
It will be tons-of-fun explaing that the chemotherapy article wasn't for me but for a friend and no I won't name names.
Hey, maybe doubleclick can merge with TRW or Expirian so they can mege "browsing profiles" with credit reports. Then they can offer lists of say "sports car enthusiasts" and filter out the ones that can't affor a ferrari.
And when some lawer decides to supeona doubleclick during the discovery phase of some totally unrelated case, things will get really interesting. Oh wait! They already subpeona medical records for cases as minor as arguing a speeding ticket. nevrmind.
Per their terms of service, Yahoo! doesn't allow users under 18 to post personal ads. However, a lot of the non-porn ads state that the woman's age is 18 in the header, and then the first sentence of the body is "hi im actually 16/f but they wouldn't let me put 16."
Yeah, but if you contact one of those "16 year olds" she'll look/sound like a 25-45 and want your credit card number before talking to or visiting you.
If "she" dosn't want money i'd assume she's a federal agent.:)
The big difference between this situation and the Microchannel and Firewire situations is that there are literally billions of dollars invested in SDRAM and DDR (manufacturing, R&D, sales, markting, inventory, etc.). While the industry will survive, deveolping a new technology and replacing the industry standard will take time and money.
In 1993 the royalties that a memory manufacturer would be willing to pay must be far less than today, since the cost of switching technologies is much higher now.
As with the BT 'weblink patent' this is another case of waiting years until a technology is widely adopted before trying to defend any (supposed) patent violations. If these patents were known about 5+ years ago, more companies could afford to risk loosing in a court battle and/or the technologies in question may not have become as popular as they are today. After all, hidden licencing costs can't be affected by market forces.
We really do need some sort of statute of limmitations on patent violation suits. If you have to defend trademark infrigement or risk losing your trademark, why not patents? Of course, it would help if patents could be processed a bit quicker, too.
I also wonder about the chances of future open hardware standards. Since SDRAM was developed as a standard and Rambus had participated in the early standards definition (along w/ all the memory companies), companies might be a bit reluctant to work towards open standards in the future. Could Rambus have suggested use of, as an example, using both sides of the clock tick, knowing that they had a patent for it in the works?
From an IP standpoint, propriatary, closed hardware seems much safer than taking chances with the national lottery we call the US patent office:(
I think I read somthing about the possibility of suing your accountant for damages, in the ammount of the late fees and penalties, if they prepare a non-compliant tax return without advising you of the risk. You would still have to pay any owed taxes yourself.
If this company used a real accountant, then they should have been told about catalog/internet purchases having state tax liability.
A lawsuit may be a bit over the top, but I would definitely talk to any certification, licencing and professional organizations where the accountant is a member.
Ironically, their website was rather consumer-unfriendly. I tried to join last year but my logon wouldn't work but I wasn't sure if my credit card was being charged. But there was no customer service # and they would only accept emailed customer service requests from a form in the 'members-only' section (requires logon), I was supposed to send my problem via SNAIL MAIL. Eventually, I just gave up and chalked it up as a loss.
Typical, in any suffiecently clever, fortunate group there will be someone proclaiming that any one with a gripe should shut up since it's their own fault for being stupid and incompatent.
The logic is brilliant: "I'm smart and compatent, I don't have problem X, therefore if you have problem X you must be stupid and incompatent, and we all know that the stupid and incompatent deserve whatever they get - QED"
The fact of the matter is: Regardless of buisiness accumen, you are far more likely to make a decent living as an average programmer than you are as an average musician... even if we normalize for "sales per person".
Large companies take in on the order of 1-2 hundred thousand per person. And the average starting salary for a programmer is around 40-50 grand a year. So even if you don't negotiate a great deal or even if you aren't a kung foo master, you can still afford to live (well the valley is a mess but that's a different rant).
If a band only takes in a few hundred grand in record sales, they are fucked. They are in serious debt and with a typical contract, their career as a band is over - unless the record company has pity on them.
I would bet that there are fewer major label artists who are independently wealthy than there are programmers doing 80 hour weeks for 20K.
As far as major labels go, almost every mucisian is in a lousy barganing position, even if they are brilliant, even if they have a proven track record, even if they sell millions. So maybe Madonna is happy with her label, since she is a great buisiness woman and has made her label a fortune, they probably don't fuck with her. But there are literally a handful of people in that position. It is not uncommon for multi-plaitmun artists to be totally screwed and unable to do anything about it, even with really good lawers.
You really ought to read the steve albini rants, he gets into much more detail: http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.indiemu sicsite.com/ims/corner/albini.html+Steve+A lbini+Baffler&hl=en
Of course, musicians still have choices. Everyone should do thier reseach before entering into a contract. And any good reserch of major labels would reveal that they are pure evil. And if you are good, you can make a decent middle class living playing gigs and releasing on a fair indie label. Unless you would have 3+ multi-platnum albums w/ a major, indies are your best choice. (although i don't know of many programmers who wind up hundreds of thoudands in debt, just cuz they didn't do thier reseach before getting thier first job)
One more thing, it probably sucks to be super famous without being rich. If you are super famous, it's hard to lead a normal life, people harrass you, people want to touch you, pick a fight with you, block your way to talk with you. You need to spend money on security, you can't just go out and run errands without major hassles. People start expecting stuff from you, assuming that you're rich. If you go outside in cheap clothes or a cheap car or a cheap haircut you get dogged on the cover of the enquierer. Your kids get hassled at public schools. Your privacy is constantly assaulted. You end up spending money just to protect yourself from you fame. It's hard to do that with a middle class income. Granted, you get laied, get gift clothing from designers and don't have to wait for a table in restaraunts, whoo-hoo!
You don't have to shed tears for starving famous people, but realize that they need to go public with their stories so that others can make informed choices about whether to sign on the dotted line.
you can tell because she makes refence to the need to buy the soda, call a number and do a voicemail thing to access the concert. a beverage company with a red logo did this type of promotion last summer.
But the short story is: 1) they still owe the money 2) they are still in their contract until they fufill the requirements (x albums) but the record co. determines how much (if any) money it will invest in future projects. I imagine it's very hard to finish off your 3 album deal with no money. Especially since you're usually required to distribute through your label, which charges an arm and a leg. 3) the artists have little or no control over marketing and distibution. so once you're signed the record company can trump any negotioation by threatining to not release/distribute/market your album - a death sentence for a band (see #2). If you're "lucky" they'll actually like your work and spend a small fortune promoting your album - which must be recouped before you see any cash - you'll have a plaitnum album and take home less $$$ than a good sysadmin, if you get anything at all. But at least you'll have some power to re-negotiate.
It gets pretty evil when the record company tells you how you ought to deal w/ production: which producers, studios, etc. While one could make an album pretty cheaply, major labels don't feel terribly inspired to release cheap albums. And a lot of the services that you use are purchased from the record company, so the record company is on their honor to not gouge the artists on the prices.
I'd strongly recommend reading "the problem with music" (to inspire further research) before getting involved w/ a label. A lot of kids have NO CLUE what they're dealing with when they're courted by A&R.
Re:Can I state the obvious?
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It would be cool if slashdot had a lawer submit regular articles, but you really ought to chill out a bit.
The IANAL thing is *so* redundant since whenever a lawer posts an opinion they invarably preface it with "This is not to be construed as legal advice, if you need legal advice seek the council of a licenced attorney in your state..."
Even if he was a lawer, he might not be qualified, either due to a different specialization (i.e. tax law) or due to general ineptitude. Even when lawers are quoted in major news sources, their conflicts of interest are rarely discussed. So it's not like you ever have assurances that a legal discussion is knowledgeable and unbiased, unless (you know otherwise from the authors background).
And Michael did link to many of the relevent documents so you can read up on the subject yourself. And let's not forget that the referenced articles (mostly from infoworld) are neither written by lawers or quoting lawers heavily. Why does Michael earn a special serving of your contempt? Come to think of it, I recall making a similar post recently. Ah-ha, I was responding to your rants about Michaels article on Doubleclick http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/05/21/00292 28&threshold=2&commentsort=3&mode=nested &cid=58 If he pisses you off this much, you could refrain from reading his articles, you know.
Personally, I think us "common folk" ought to discuss law more often. People need to be aware of thier rights and of the laws and how those laws affect them. If people tried to read and interpret the law on thier own, they would be less suceptable to illegal scams and dishonest/incompetant lawers.
It's bad enough that you need a lawer for anything more than a parking ticket these days, now you need a lawer just to post a story on slashdot?
That's not a recovery CD - and it is a probelm
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What you you are decribing isn't a recovery CD. I've gotten recovery CD's with PC's marketed to home users and they are totally useless. The recovery CD's literally contain only a disk image and an install program for copying the disk image to your hard drive. Reasons why this sux:
- You can't reinstall without wiping your disk. With a Win install disk, you can repair or reinstall the OS on existing partitions without (hopefully) loosing your data (although you have to re-install any apps that do registry settings). With a recovery CD this is not an option.
- If you want to re-partition your disk you can't use the recovery to install the OS to a different partition. If you want to dual boot linux or even just rearrange your disk you need to buy (or aquire) an install CD.
- If you re-install your OS, you have to install all the included "software". Love getting a half gig of commercials and other assorted useless crap (magic schoolbus?, encarta?, sotware for hardware i didn't buy?). Good luck cleaning up your registry after your "clean" install.
- If you need to re-install any of the free included software, the recovery disk is often the only copy of this software you get, so it's reformat the disk or you're SOL.
- You pretty much have to waste a chunk of disk space to store the windows cab files (or copy them to CD) since windows is always asking for them.
- if you add/replace hardware your recovery cd may not work anymore
- if you use a different OS on that machine, you can't use the pre-packaged OS, that you paied for, anywhere else.
But what you're describing is still really lame. You *have* to buy Win when you buy the hardware, you pay for it as part of the hardware price, but you can only use it on that hardware. What if you install a different OS on that machine, can you then use the prepackaged OS else where? Well, then will dell let you get an OS-free machine at a reduced price? What happens if you add or replace hardware? Will your CD still work?
Actually, this happened to my folks, they had a prepackaged PC with a bad video card. The manufacturer sent out a repair guy who had to replace the video card. But the new hardware invalidated the recovery CD so then they had no OS or drivers:) I think they eventually had another repair guy (this was all on warentee) come to the house and flash the video card so it would look like an original card
M$ isn't getting split simply because they are big. They are getting split because they used their position as a monoploy in illegal ways. They could have remained a big powerful monopoly forever if they simply refrained from illegal tactics. They had plenty of chances to become compliant with the law, yet thumbed their noses at all of them. The basic princples of anti-trust law aren't all that complex. Their team of pedigreed lawyers are perfectly capable of compehending whether a given action is probably in violation. I imagine that the orders from the top were to either 1) ignore the sherman act since it can't possibly apply to a software company (what-ever!) and/or 2) figure out how to get away with as much as possible while still being able to have some sort of technicality based defence (kinda like the kids who fill in random numbers on their math homework and claim that they "did" their homework)
There are other huge monoploies that are not AFAIK not participating in illegal activity. The justice dept. may check up on them once in a awhile but doesn't go after them. Although, I think that threatened monopolies are very tempted to violate anti-trust law, rather than loose market share (*cough* intel *cough*)
I believe that we have the Regan administration to thank for all the media mergers (might be Bush though). FCC regulations were severly weakened in the 1980's allowing for the media merger madness of the last few decades. Unfotunately, these mergers allow for conlicts of interest and fiscal streamlining that seriously degrade the quality of journalism, without violating anti-trust law. The print and TV news has gone from crappy to downright embarrassing in my (short) lifetime and I shudder to think of what it will look like when I'm elderly.
btw, the court can decide to fast-track any apeals directly to the supreme court. whether this will happen hasn't been announced yet. some speculate that it will fast track since M$ will appeal for-e-ver if need be and a speedy resolution would benefit customers, competitors and the economy.
If I just want to run the line out from my soundcard into an input on my stereo, would the singnal degrade too much over ~20 feet of standard stereo cable (1/8" -> RCA connectors) ? Would I need to amplify my soundcard signal before sending it to the stero on the other side of the room?
And no, I don't want to set up a "stereo server" over there just so I can transmit mp3s to my reciever over ethernet. But if you know of a good reciever that comes with a nic....
i don't think eminem has joined the fray yet, or am i missing something? but snoop dogg has begun legal action.
although i do wonder if dre and dogg are also using metallica's story "we're sticking it to napster for the little guy" or if they actually feel that they are losing enough money to napster to justify the legal costs.
I see at least 2 conflicts of intrest: 1) percieved image of studies as objective vs. real interest of PR pseudo-science 2) percieved image of news sources as providers of quality information vs. real interest of printing press releases verbatim so they can all get back to playing minesweeper.
There is no pervasive, official, enforced licencing, certification or standards for scientists, researchers or staticians (unlike dr's and lawers), but people tend to believe that "studies" and "research" are supposed to find the "truth" using sound scientific and statistical methods. So there is a conflict between the percieved intent (truth) and the the interest (PR). For the definiton of conflict of interest, the actual intent of the actor is irrelevent (although in this case I'm sure they are quite pleased with the image of objectivity).
But what really burns me up is that this "marketing research" is being reported in the news! Why is this press release (of thousands each day) news worthy? The only fact it contains is that sales have dropped 4% near colleges. Was it the increase in overall record sales noteworthy? What about the sales of shoes? Or red herrings? The only thing that makes this story interesting is the totally speculative napster angle.
Headlines like "Is Napster taking a toll on CD sales?" gives attention to a random speculation to the benefit of a few private corporate interests. There is absolutely no evidence presented that the drop in sales has anything to do with napster, yet the question is posed as if it is currently a debateable issue*.
A more appropriate headline might be "Are College Students Buying Fewer Records?" since the "study" doesn't even prove that students are actually buying fewer records. Indepenednt stores selling small and super-tiny labels, on-line stores, bands selling direct at shows and used CD's weren't accounted for.
Even if they had gotten that far, there are so many likely suspects that singleing out napter is biased, at best. Poorer students (reduced student loan money, increase in drug prices, increase in concert ticket prices, less free booze) crappy major label offerings, poularity of underground [rap, metal, techno] and bootlegs (phish, gdead), are some of many reasons there might be decrease in college student record purchases.
It's this kind of crappy reporting that turns non-issues into something suddenly deemed worthy of congressional investigation. FUD is too good a term for it.
* this is exactly like when they talk about the "global warming debate" as if the scientific community is still trying to decide if global woarming exists! the only atmosheric scientists still questioning global warming are the ones that happen to work for petroleum companies
No one *wants* their crappy code... but there's gold in them there file formats!
I don't think it was addressed in this case but MS Office is very close to being a monopoly (if it isn't one already). The biggest barrier to entry for competitors is that MS proprietary file formats dominate both new and legacy documents. After all, no one want's to risk "loosing" all thier old docs to incompatability. And a lot of people end up using office cuz they get sick of getting mailed otherwise unreadable office files. If 3rd parties could have unlimited file format access, then they could compete on a much more even playingfield.
Must all issues be dichotomous? Are you "The One" and only see the world in binary?
Just because I refuse to ignore the decreasing middle/working class, doesn't mean that I want to subsidize them by doing everything really, really, inefficiently.
When factory jobs are eliminated the people who would have had those jobs are usually far worse off. That is fact, and has been proven time and again in company towns all over the county since the industrial revolution.
Acknowledging this reality isn't disagreeing with general progress. There are plenty of alternatives other than "tons-of-menial-jobs" and "tons-of-automation-and-a-desperate-underclass". I alluded to this in my original post when I said "Of course there are other outcomes that would be even better than factory jobs, but since those would require cluefulness and concern all around, I'm not holding my breath."
Those who would have been autoworkers (or other facory workers) in the US 20-30 years ago are generally worse off today, although "globalization" has probably had more of an impact than robots.
Yes unemployment is low, and the economy is strong. But most of the gains in employment are temporary and part-time work - which makes basic benefits (medical, pension, vacation) difficult to attain and maintain. In fact, last year a temp agency was the fastest growing employeer. And while some of us are doing extremly well, the median US income has dropped since the 70's, if you account for inflation.
So while I wouldn't wan't to work in a factory, there are pleanty of folks who would be far better off with steady, secure, well-paying, factory jobs with full benefits.
Of course there are other outcomes that would be even better than facory jobs, but since those would require cluefulness and concern all around, I'm not holding my breath.
(c)The CDT, EPIC, EFF CME or ACLU have no representatives on this board.
Only if you conveniently ignore the fact that Lori Fena is the former executive director of the EFF.
Why does no one mention this?
No one mentioned it because no one knew/realized/remembered. I doubt that anyone was delibereately supressing this info.
In fact I'm really glad that you pointed this out! It looks like Lori is still Director of EFF: http://www.eff.org/homes/ but I would think that being chair of TRUSTe would be a full time job. In checking on this I saw that the EFF founded TRUSTe (!) http://www.truste.com/about/about_faqs.html
Given TRUSTe's track record, I find this pretty distunbing and wonder if the EFF sold out or has had a lapse in judgement. Too many grassroots organizations have lost all credibility when a move to partner/comprimase with industry turns into taking it up the a**.
Slashdot Mirror
My shallow understanding is that if you use copyright enforcement to violate anti-trust law then you'd loose all rights to defend that copyright in any way forever-and-ever. If that's the case then Napster only has to show that anti-trust law was broken at some point in the past. They wouldn't have to show the current suit against Napster is anti-competative (which would be really had to do).
... Kittie got a writeup recently for using mp3.com to get on the billbard charts.
But maybe I'm missing something?
BTW
In generale totally right. But if each record company gives the RIAA power of attorney in some matter then they would all be responsible for the RIAA's behavoir in that matter.
So if each record company agreed to let the RIAA negotiate advertising subsidies with record stores, then RIAA staff communication on that matter could have been used in the FTC case.
If you hire someone to negotiate for you and they threaten to break the other guy's kneecaps, it would be a good idea to get a lawer.
But Napster might have evidence from each major label.
Since the RIAA has to comunicate with each of it's members, it's possible that a search if the RIAA offices would turn up letters recieved form it's members, records of what the RIAA sent to these members and possibly minutes of meetings between the members.
They might even demonstrate that the RIAA is used for some sort of anti-trust collusion? How is it that 5 different companies all arrived at the same CD price fixing scheme? There are a lot of possibilities, but since they are all RIAA members, perhaps they all discussed it at an RIAA meeting?
Using your argument Napster could say that since the RIAA "has no product of its own that Napster is encroaching on" there is nothing to sue for, no damages and no liability - case dismissed.
The fact is: the RIAA is acting on behalf of its members, who are record companies that claim to be loosing revenue due to Napster's facilitation of copyright infringement.
They aren't saying that the RIAA is acting anti-competitively, if you read that anywhere it is a inaccurate attempt to paraphrase the legal argument.
They are saying that certain *members* of the RIAA were acting anti-cometitivly and it seems that the US Federal Trade Commission would agree with them on that since they recently settled with 5 major record companies on charges of price fixing.
If the major record labels have used their copyrights to violate anti-trust law, then they loose the right to enforce those copyrights and so Napster can't be held libel for losses due to violation of those copyrights. If the copyright holder has no enforcement right, then any organization acting on thier behalf (RIAA) looses enforcement rights as well.
So the RIAA could continue to sue, but if this argument is accepted by the court, thier damages wouldn't incude any of the 5 major labels copyrights.
This law doesn't addresss 2 major areas:
1) anyone other that the 5 major labels (i.e. indies)
2) Anything the "Big 5" copyrighted after they settled with the FTC - assuming that they are using the CD pricefixing issue as the antitrust activity (I'd guess that one could find other examples of anti-trust violations in the major labels - but IANAL).
I can't wait until some insurance company allies w/ double click to get at peoples medical site profiles.
Even if my medical records are safe on dead trees in my physician's filing cabinet, knowing that I've been looking up information on "chest-pains" or "HIV treatments" would be worth money to comanies looking to insure me.
It will be tons-of-fun explaing that the chemotherapy article wasn't for me but for a friend and no I won't name names.
Hey, maybe doubleclick can merge with TRW or Expirian so they can mege "browsing profiles" with credit reports. Then they can offer lists of say "sports car enthusiasts" and filter out the ones that can't affor a ferrari.
And when some lawer decides to supeona doubleclick during the discovery phase of some totally unrelated case, things will get really interesting. Oh wait! They already subpeona medical records for cases as minor as arguing a speeding ticket. nevrmind.
Per their terms of service, Yahoo! doesn't allow users under 18 to post personal ads. However, a lot of the non-porn ads state that the woman's age is 18 in the header, and then the first sentence of the body is "hi im actually 16/f but they wouldn't let me put 16."
Yeah, but if you contact one of those "16 year olds" she'll look/sound like a 25-45 and want your credit card number before talking to or visiting you.
If "she" dosn't want money i'd assume she's a federal agent.
The big difference between this situation and the Microchannel and Firewire situations is that there are literally billions of dollars invested in SDRAM and DDR (manufacturing, R&D, sales, markting, inventory, etc.). While the industry will survive, deveolping a new technology and replacing the industry standard will take time and money.
:(
In 1993 the royalties that a memory manufacturer would be willing to pay must be far less than today, since the cost of switching technologies is much higher now.
As with the BT 'weblink patent' this is another case of waiting years until a technology is widely adopted before trying to defend any (supposed) patent violations. If these patents were known about 5+ years ago, more companies could afford to risk loosing in a court battle and/or the technologies in question may not have become as popular as they are today. After all, hidden licencing costs can't be affected by market forces.
We really do need some sort of statute of limmitations on patent violation suits. If you have to defend trademark infrigement or risk losing your trademark, why not patents? Of course, it would help if patents could be processed a bit quicker, too.
I also wonder about the chances of future open hardware standards. Since SDRAM was developed as a standard and Rambus had participated in the early standards definition (along w/ all the memory companies), companies might be a bit reluctant to work towards open standards in the future. Could Rambus have suggested use of, as an example, using both sides of the clock tick, knowing that they had a patent for it in the works?
From an IP standpoint, propriatary, closed hardware seems much safer than taking chances with the national lottery we call the US patent office
I think I read somthing about the possibility of suing your accountant for damages, in the ammount of the late fees and penalties, if they prepare a non-compliant tax return without advising you of the risk. You would still have to pay any owed taxes yourself.
If this company used a real accountant, then they should have been told about catalog/internet purchases having state tax liability.
A lawsuit may be a bit over the top, but I would definitely talk to any certification, licencing and professional organizations where the accountant is a member.
But IANAL (Hawk?)
Ironically, their website was rather consumer-unfriendly. I tried to join last year but my logon wouldn't work but I wasn't sure if my credit card was being charged. But there was no customer service # and they would only accept emailed customer service requests from a form in the 'members-only' section (requires logon), I was supposed to send my problem via SNAIL MAIL. Eventually, I just gave up and chalked it up as a loss.
Typical, in any suffiecently clever, fortunate group there will be someone proclaiming that any one with a gripe should shut up since it's their own fault for being stupid and incompatent.
... even if we normalize for "sales per person".
u sicsite.com/ims/corner/albini.html+Steve+A lbini+Baffler&hl=en
The logic is brilliant: "I'm smart and compatent, I don't have problem X, therefore if you have problem X you must be stupid and incompatent, and we all know that the stupid and incompatent deserve whatever they get - QED"
The fact of the matter is: Regardless of buisiness accumen, you are far more likely to make a decent living as an average programmer than you are as an average musician
Large companies take in on the order of 1-2 hundred thousand per person. And the average starting salary for a programmer is around 40-50 grand a year. So even if you don't negotiate a great deal or even if you aren't a kung foo master, you can still afford to live (well the valley is a mess but that's a different rant).
If a band only takes in a few hundred grand in record sales, they are fucked. They are in serious debt and with a typical contract, their career as a band is over - unless the record company has pity on them.
I would bet that there are fewer major label artists who are independently wealthy than there are programmers doing 80 hour weeks for 20K.
As far as major labels go, almost every mucisian is in a lousy barganing position, even if they are brilliant, even if they have a proven track record, even if they sell millions. So maybe Madonna is happy with her label, since she is a great buisiness woman and has made her label a fortune, they probably don't fuck with her. But there are literally a handful of people in that position. It is not uncommon for multi-plaitmun artists to be totally screwed and unable to do anything about it, even with really good lawers.
You really ought to read the steve albini rants, he gets into much more detail:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.indiem
Of course, musicians still have choices. Everyone should do thier reseach before entering into a contract. And any good reserch of major labels would reveal that they are pure evil. And if you are good, you can make a decent middle class living playing gigs and releasing on a fair indie label. Unless you would have 3+ multi-platnum albums w/ a major, indies are your best choice. (although i don't know of many programmers who wind up hundreds of thoudands in debt, just cuz they didn't do thier reseach before getting thier first job)
One more thing, it probably sucks to be super famous without being rich. If you are super famous, it's hard to lead a normal life, people harrass you, people want to touch you, pick a fight with you, block your way to talk with you. You need to spend money on security, you can't just go out and run errands without major hassles. People start expecting stuff from you, assuming that you're rich. If you go outside in cheap clothes or a cheap car or a cheap haircut you get dogged on the cover of the enquierer. Your kids get hassled at public schools. Your privacy is constantly assaulted. You end up spending money just to protect yourself from you fame. It's hard to do that with a middle class income. Granted, you get laied, get gift clothing from designers and don't have to wait for a table in restaraunts, whoo-hoo!
You don't have to shed tears for starving famous people, but realize that they need to go public with their stories so that others can make informed choices about whether to sign on the dotted line.
you can tell because she makes refence to the need to buy the soda, call a number and do a voicemail thing to access the concert. a beverage company with a red logo did this type of promotion last summer.
s/said/was like/g
s/thought/was all like/g
s/,/, you know,/g
in the spirit of opensource i will neglect to check whether commas need an escape character
This article details just how screwed most artists get w/ major labels:
i c.html
http://www.arancidamoeba.com/mrr/problemwithmus
But the short story is:
1) they still owe the money
2) they are still in their contract until they fufill the requirements (x albums) but the record co. determines how much (if any) money it will invest in future projects. I imagine it's very hard to finish off your 3 album deal with no money. Especially since you're usually required to distribute through your label, which charges an arm and a leg.
3) the artists have little or no control over marketing and distibution. so once you're signed the record company can trump any negotioation by threatining to not release/distribute/market your album - a death sentence for a band (see #2). If you're "lucky" they'll actually like your work and spend a small fortune promoting your album - which must be recouped before you see any cash - you'll have a plaitnum album and take home less $$$ than a good sysadmin, if you get anything at all. But at least you'll have some power to re-negotiate.
It gets pretty evil when the record company tells you how you ought to deal w/ production: which producers, studios, etc. While one could make an album pretty cheaply, major labels don't feel terribly inspired to release cheap albums. And a lot of the services that you use are purchased from the record company, so the record company is on their honor to not gouge the artists on the prices.
I'd strongly recommend reading "the problem with music" (to inspire further research) before getting involved w/ a label. A lot of kids have NO CLUE what they're dealing with when they're courted by A&R.
And no Jar-Jar Binks either!
It would be cool if slashdot had a lawer submit regular articles, but you really ought to chill out a bit.
..."
2 28&threshold=2&commentsort=3&mode=nested &cid=58 If he pisses you off this much, you could refrain from reading his articles, you know.
The IANAL thing is *so* redundant since whenever a lawer posts an opinion they invarably preface it with "This is not to be construed as legal advice, if you need legal advice seek the council of a licenced attorney in your state
Even if he was a lawer, he might not be qualified, either due to a different specialization (i.e. tax law) or due to general ineptitude. Even when lawers are quoted in major news sources, their conflicts of interest are rarely discussed. So it's not like you ever have assurances that a legal discussion is knowledgeable and unbiased, unless (you know otherwise from the authors background).
And Michael did link to many of the relevent documents so you can read up on the subject yourself. And let's not forget that the referenced articles (mostly from infoworld) are neither written by lawers or quoting lawers heavily. Why does Michael earn a special serving of your contempt? Come to think of it, I recall making a similar post recently. Ah-ha, I was responding to your rants about Michaels article on Doubleclick http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/05/21/0029
Personally, I think us "common folk" ought to discuss law more often. People need to be aware of thier rights and of the laws and how those laws affect them. If people tried to read and interpret the law on thier own, they would be less suceptable to illegal scams and dishonest/incompetant lawers.
It's bad enough that you need a lawer for anything more than a parking ticket these days, now you need a lawer just to post a story on slashdot?
What you you are decribing isn't a recovery CD. I've gotten recovery CD's with PC's marketed to home users and they are totally useless. The recovery CD's literally contain only a disk image and an install program for copying the disk image to your hard drive. Reasons why this sux:
:) I think they eventually had another repair guy (this was all on warentee) come to the house and flash the video card so it would look like an original card
- You can't reinstall without wiping your disk. With a Win install disk, you can repair or reinstall the OS on existing partitions without (hopefully) loosing your data (although you have to re-install any apps that do registry settings). With a recovery CD this is not an option.
- If you want to re-partition your disk you can't use the recovery to install the OS to a different partition. If you want to dual boot linux or even just rearrange your disk you need to buy (or aquire) an install CD.
- If you re-install your OS, you have to install all the included "software". Love getting a half gig of commercials and other assorted useless crap (magic schoolbus?, encarta?, sotware for hardware i didn't buy?). Good luck cleaning up your registry after your "clean" install.
- If you need to re-install any of the free included software, the recovery disk is often the only copy of this software you get, so it's reformat the disk or you're SOL.
- You pretty much have to waste a chunk of disk space to store the windows cab files (or copy them to CD) since windows is always asking for them.
- if you add/replace hardware your recovery cd may not work anymore
- if you use a different OS on that machine, you can't use the pre-packaged OS, that you paied for, anywhere else.
But what you're describing is still really lame. You *have* to buy Win when you buy the hardware, you pay for it as part of the hardware price, but you can only use it on that hardware. What if you install a different OS on that machine, can you then use the prepackaged OS else where? Well, then will dell let you get an OS-free machine at a reduced price? What happens if you add or replace hardware? Will your CD still work?
Actually, this happened to my folks, they had a prepackaged PC with a bad video card. The manufacturer sent out a repair guy who had to replace the video card. But the new hardware invalidated the recovery CD so then they had no OS or drivers
M$ isn't getting split simply because they are big. They are getting split because they used their position as a monoploy in illegal ways. They could have remained a big powerful monopoly forever if they simply refrained from illegal tactics. They had plenty of chances to become compliant with the law, yet thumbed their noses at all of them. The basic princples of anti-trust law aren't all that complex. Their team of pedigreed lawyers are perfectly capable of compehending whether a given action is probably in violation. I imagine that the orders from the top were to either 1) ignore the sherman act since it can't possibly apply to a software company (what-ever!) and/or 2) figure out how to get away with as much as possible while still being able to have some sort of technicality based defence (kinda like the kids who fill in random numbers on their math homework and claim that they "did" their homework)
There are other huge monoploies that are not AFAIK not participating in illegal activity. The justice dept. may check up on them once in a awhile but doesn't go after them. Although, I think that threatened monopolies are very tempted to violate anti-trust law, rather than loose market share (*cough* intel *cough*)
I believe that we have the Regan administration to thank for all the media mergers (might be Bush though). FCC regulations were severly weakened in the 1980's allowing for the media merger madness of the last few decades. Unfotunately, these mergers allow for conlicts of interest and fiscal streamlining that seriously degrade the quality of journalism, without violating anti-trust law. The print and TV news has gone from crappy to downright embarrassing in my (short) lifetime and I shudder to think of what it will look like when I'm elderly.
btw, the court can decide to fast-track any apeals directly to the supreme court. whether this will happen hasn't been announced yet. some speculate that it will fast track since M$ will appeal for-e-ver if need be and a speedy resolution would benefit customers, competitors and the economy.
for names i vote for "crap" and "more crap"
If I just want to run the line out from my soundcard into an input on my stereo, would the singnal degrade too much over ~20 feet of standard stereo cable (1/8" -> RCA connectors) ? Would I need to amplify my soundcard signal before sending it to the stero on the other side of the room?
....
And no, I don't want to set up a "stereo server" over there just so I can transmit mp3s to my reciever over ethernet. But if you know of a good reciever that comes with a nic
i don't think eminem has joined the fray yet, or am i missing something? but snoop dogg has begun legal action.
although i do wonder if dre and dogg are also using metallica's story "we're sticking it to napster for the little guy" or if they actually feel that they are losing enough money to napster to justify the legal costs.
Webmonkey has a good javascript tutorial:/ javascript/tutorials/tutorial1.html
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/programming
they also have a kids page but it's all html, no javascript yet:
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/kids/
When they start getting annoyed with the limitations of javascript they could easilay move into java.
I see at least 2 conflicts of intrest: 1) percieved image of studies as objective vs. real interest of PR pseudo-science 2) percieved image of news sources as providers of quality information vs. real interest of printing press releases verbatim so they can all get back to playing minesweeper.
There is no pervasive, official, enforced licencing, certification or standards for scientists, researchers or staticians (unlike dr's and lawers), but people tend to believe that "studies" and "research" are supposed to find the "truth" using sound scientific and statistical methods. So there is a conflict between the percieved intent (truth) and the the interest (PR). For the definiton of conflict of interest, the actual intent of the actor is irrelevent (although in this case I'm sure they are quite pleased with the image of objectivity).
But what really burns me up is that this "marketing research" is being reported in the news! Why is this press release (of thousands each day) news worthy? The only fact it contains is that sales have dropped 4% near colleges. Was it the increase in overall record sales noteworthy? What about the sales of shoes? Or red herrings? The only thing that makes this story interesting is the totally speculative napster angle.
Headlines like "Is Napster taking a toll on CD sales?" gives attention to a random speculation to the benefit of a few private corporate interests. There is absolutely no evidence presented that the drop in sales has anything to do with napster, yet the question is posed as if it is currently a debateable issue*.
A more appropriate headline might be "Are College Students Buying Fewer Records?" since the "study" doesn't even prove that students are actually buying fewer records. Indepenednt stores selling small and super-tiny labels, on-line stores, bands selling direct at shows and used CD's weren't accounted for.
Even if they had gotten that far, there are so many likely suspects that singleing out napter is biased, at best. Poorer students (reduced student loan money, increase in drug prices, increase in concert ticket prices, less free booze) crappy major label offerings, poularity of underground [rap, metal, techno] and bootlegs (phish, gdead), are some of many reasons there might be decrease in college student record purchases.
It's this kind of crappy reporting that turns non-issues into something suddenly deemed worthy of congressional investigation. FUD is too good a term for it.
* this is exactly like when they talk about the "global warming debate" as if the scientific community is still trying to decide if global woarming exists! the only atmosheric scientists still questioning global warming are the ones that happen to work for petroleum companies
No one *wants* their crappy code ... but there's gold in them there file formats!
I don't think it was addressed in this case but MS Office is very close to being a monopoly (if it isn't one already). The biggest barrier to entry for competitors is that MS proprietary file formats dominate both new and legacy documents. After all, no one want's to risk "loosing" all thier old docs to incompatability. And a lot of people end up using office cuz they get sick of getting mailed otherwise unreadable office files. If 3rd parties could have unlimited file format access, then they could compete on a much more even playingfield.
Must all issues be dichotomous? Are you "The One" and only see the world in binary?
Just because I refuse to ignore the decreasing middle/working class, doesn't mean that I want to subsidize them by doing everything really, really, inefficiently.
When factory jobs are eliminated the people who would have had those jobs are usually far worse off. That is fact, and has been proven time and again in company towns all over the county since the industrial revolution.
Acknowledging this reality isn't disagreeing with general progress. There are plenty of alternatives other than "tons-of-menial-jobs" and "tons-of-automation-and-a-desperate-underclass". I alluded to this in my original post when I said "Of course there are other outcomes that would be even better than factory jobs, but since those would require cluefulness and concern all around, I'm not holding my breath."
But perhaps trolls can't read too well?
Those who would have been autoworkers (or other facory workers) in the US 20-30 years ago are generally worse off today, although "globalization" has probably had more of an impact than robots.
Yes unemployment is low, and the economy is strong. But most of the gains in employment are temporary and part-time work - which makes basic benefits (medical, pension, vacation) difficult to attain and maintain. In fact, last year a temp agency was the fastest growing employeer. And while some of us are doing extremly well, the median US income has dropped since the 70's, if you account for inflation.
So while I wouldn't wan't to work in a factory, there are pleanty of folks who would be far better off with steady, secure, well-paying, factory jobs with full benefits.
Of course there are other outcomes that would be even better than facory jobs, but since those would require cluefulness and concern all around, I'm not holding my breath.
the leathal injection machine has already been invented:
http://www.mrdeath.net/who/credentials.html
(c)The CDT, EPIC, EFF CME or ACLU have no representatives on this board.
Only if you conveniently ignore the fact that Lori Fena is the former executive director of the EFF.
Why does no one mention this?
No one mentioned it because no one knew/realized/remembered. I doubt that anyone was delibereately supressing this info.
In fact I'm really glad that you pointed this out! It looks like Lori is still Director of EFF: http://www.eff.org/homes/ but I would think that being chair of TRUSTe would be a full time job. In checking on this I saw that the EFF founded TRUSTe (!) http://www.truste.com/about/about_faqs.html
Given TRUSTe's track record, I find this pretty distunbing and wonder if the EFF sold out or has had a lapse in judgement. Too many grassroots organizations have lost all credibility when a move to partner/comprimase with industry turns into taking it up the a**.