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As the article mentions, there is a proposed settlement in a class action price fixing lawsuit filed by 43 state attorneys general against several major record companies and music retailers.
The terms of the settlement are that people who bought music CDs, records or cassettes between 1/1/95 and 12/22/00 can apply for a refund of up to $20.
But: Like most class action settlements, the terms are not necessarily favorable to consumers. For example, the settlement fund is $67,375,000 in cash plus $75,700,000 "worth of" prerecorded CDs. If "the number of claims filed would result in refunds of less than $5.00 per claimant, there will be no cash distribution to individual consumers. Rather, the cash portion of the settlement shall be distributed to mot-for-profit, charitable, governmental or public entities[.]"
Disclaimer: The poster (me) expresses no opinion as to the merits (if any) of this class action settlement, and this post is not legal advice nor is it an advertisement or solicitation for legal services.
I am surprised that you, as a lawyer, haven't learned to revel in being screwed with. Of all people you should know best how to string up a company like this with the absolute minimum effort.
First of all, I did write the guy and offer him pro bono legal help. I didn't mean to imply that he wasn't ripped off or that his $22 dispute isn't very important to him. Most lawyers would be able to solve a beef such as this by writing a letter on lawyer stationery.
Everyone has to pick his or her battles, personally and professionally. Lawyers have to be careful in their personal lives not to sue over every little thing, it's bad PR for the legal profession. I already have to wait an hour when I go to the doctor.
I do enjoy beating my opponents who are (on the average) rich, mean, and more powerful than my client or I. I envy the young poster who evidently is fortunate to never have been fucked over worse than in his $22 dispute with the movie theater over LOTR. The innocent Russian DMCA defendant who had to spend five months in the slammer comes to mind.
First of all, why is this trivial $13 dispute "stuff that matters??" Where is the adult supervision at Slashdot?
IAAL. You could take them to small claims court, but your time is valuable. I personally have a Dispute Threshold of $100. Any disputes less than that, I absorb my loss for the sake of economy. I encourage all readers to have and abide by a Dispute Threshold for the sake of your sanity.
If you are a homeless person or a college student, you may place a lesser value on your time and energy than I do, which is OK. If your Dispute Threshold is $12.99 or less, by all means spend the $50 and a day of your time and take them to court. Maybe you will learn something.
Hey, at least post the name of company. It's not like they are going to be giving you a bad reference or something.
I like to think I've got more class than that. Also, they are sufficiently small that other readers probably won't encounter them. But I hope they read this.
I was interviewed the day after Thanksgiving and told to fly to Miami the following Monday (change in Atlanta) for a working audition. Didn't get any per diem advance, which sucked because I have been out of work long enough not to have any money. The first night, there was a mandatory dinner at a restaurant that cost $80 APIECE. After two days on the road, I was told "Welcome aboard, you did a great job" and stuck with my own hotel bill (as well as the $80 restaurant tab). And by the way, the company Christmas party is this Sunday. Flew back (thank God they fronted the airline ticket) and celebrated with my family only to be told 2 hours before the Christmas party, hey sorry dude. Still waiting for my one and only paycheck as well as reimbursement of the &^%$# hotel bill.
Getting Linux to run on a laptop-somebody-else-bought is easier said than done. I have been wrestling with a Compaq Presario 1200 for months now, the thing has a bridged Tulip network card that has reverse-IRQ priorities, the experimental kernels will run on the box but a distro e.g. Redhat 8 hangs on kudzu the 2nd time the sucker tries to boot. And I can't get the experimental kernel to compile properly under Redhat 8. Back to drawing board Natasha.
Fedex/UPS/other similar freight co's are known for being technology leaders; their drivers all have fancy wireless gizmos that purport to capture the consignee's "signature" at the time of delivery.
But they don't check ID nor do they look to see whether the proffered "signature" is even legible. You can get your packages using penmanship that would embarrass your doctor.
Surely it would be cost-effective, as well as competitively advantageous, to install digital cameras in the gizmos and take the consignees' photos. I would prefer to use a shipping company that offered such a service!
There is another column by Foster -- the #1 and only consumer IT columnist of whom I am aware -- on the practice of making QuickBooks users transmit invoices using Intuit's servers but you'll have to find it yourself.
Because most Americans have 28-screen cinemas and corporate video rental stores near their homes -- but the theater chains won't devote even 1 out of the 28 to anything that isn't Hollywood pap. The only way to see a movie that isn't written and directed by teenagers is to live near the art-house theaters of Manhattan or West Hollywood, or wait for it to (possibly) show up on cable. Whether or not a picture qualifies as True Art House is a question for purists and film school dropouts.
I run IE + ZA, and don't flame me (I would run only Linux if my devices were supported) and I am extremely frustrated at placing the cursor over the connection icon and discovering that 200K or more of outgoing data has left my box during a brief session. Surely no legit app has a need to send that much data. Surely there is an app which will tell me where the data is going, and why. Surely there should be a way to throttle the outgoing socket. Hellllp!!
Good: Halle Berry, special effects, permanent actors (Brosnan, Dench, Cleese).:
Bad: Main title, music, plot, script, direction, casting, humorlessness, invisible car, forgettable villains, action scenes that don't quite suspend your disbelief, Madonna. I counted at least 20 instances of aw-come-on unbelievable scenes that didn't work (example: car falls from airplane, doesn't break windshield). The idiot director felt he had to slo-mo every punch in every fight. Each and every plot twist was completely predictable. One of the lesser Bond pix. Get someone over the age of 16 to write the next one.
If you don't try to hold your breath, exposure to space for half a minute or so is unlikely to produce permanent injury. Holding your breath is likely to damage your lungs, something scuba divers have to watch out for when ascending, and you'll have eardrum trouble if your Eustachian tubes are badly plugged up, but theory predicts -- and animal experiments confirm -- that otherwise, exposure to vacuum causes no immediate injury.
OK, I found out what I really wanted to know, which is how do they know people's heads don't explode Outland-style on contact with vacuum?
Enough on decompression already. Let's have a whack at some of my favorite, other stumpers:
If the first drug they administer to condemned prisoners is scopolamine (truth serum), how come they don't ask the guy if he in fact committed the crime?
More to the point, the ins. co. will call the restoration company and they will be there in a jiffy with their magic stuff. Take pictures first so that you can file a claim. If for some reason you didn't have fire insurance, hard to imagine if you have a mortgage, call an insurance agent and ask for a recommendation for a good fire restoration company. Then ask him how much is a fire insurance policy.
Clerk: Here's your $97.74 change. Is that a house or an apartment?... and no RS clerk has ever, EVER asked for ID or otherwise indicated disbelief.... I often wonder what they do at the White House with all those catalogs addressed to Ben Franklin.....
When I graduated in 2000 from a college in the Austin area I had an on-campus interview with Dell. I asked the recruiter the following question:
"After this current PC sales boom is over, what leads you to believe that Dell's sales will remain steady, allowing you to keep all of the workers you are currently hiring?"
The guy nearly tossed me out of the room.
Yah, I had the same thing happen to me. I had this interview in 1981 at Microsoft. Just me, Bill, Steve & Paul. I demanded to know what happens when everybody has an operating system. "Don't worry, the applications will break the OS and vice versa." "Yeah, what have you guys been smoking," I replied. Told 'em to shove their job. Besides, the planet Earth will be devoured by a black hole within 50,000 years. Why work?
IAAL, and one of the things that they don't teach you in law school is knowing which cases to take, and which ones not to take, on contingency. Libel/slander suits derived from Internet flame wars? Three words: Cash Up Front.
Pay a lawyer to register the copyright under a pseudonym. The lawyer cannot be forced to disclose your identity as to do so would violate attorney-client privilege. Case closed, trivial problem solved.
The standard in trademark law is "likelihood of confusion." I have it on good authority that people have been starting to wonder about Wyman-the-reporter. It turns out that reporter Wyman 1) doesn't play bass; 2) doesn't play with the Rolling Stones; and 3) has been known to just stand there like a statue. The third factor is what pushed the other Wyman over the edge and prompted him to sue.
Here is my proposal for a killer app music web site: I am too lazy to go and do it, so I will place the idea in the public domain.
Two words: Bubble Sort.
You have a site, say bubblesong.com. Aspiring bands record and upload their original tracks. Websurfers are asked to listen to two songs, of 3 minutes or less (à la old top 40 radio). After hearing both tracks, the listener votes for either A or B, and the preferred song moves upward on the Bubblesong charts.
Advantages: 1) The best tracks automatically bubble-sort to the top of the charts. 2) Users know they won't have to spend more than 6 minutes at the site in order to vote. 3) Bands can gain popularity and CD sales without spending lots of $ or selling out. 4) The user can click on a link and buy a CD directly from the band if they like a track.
Tweaks: 1) Users can specify in advance which musical genres they do or don't want to hear. 2) Users can be profiled and offered choices the software thinks they might like.
Varies by airline. American lets me use my Kyocera Smartphone QCP6035, a combination PCS cell phone and PalmPilot. The phone turns off separately and a screen, "Phone is OFF," can be shown to inquiring flight attendants. But it has never come to this on AA. A JetBlue flight attendant with the intelligence of a disco rope boy demanded the entire unit be stowed and could not be bothered to look at the Phone is OFF screen.
Slashdot Mirror
As the article mentions, there is a proposed settlement in a class action price fixing lawsuit filed by 43 state attorneys general against several major record companies and music retailers.
The terms of the settlement are that people who bought music CDs, records or cassettes between 1/1/95 and 12/22/00 can apply for a refund of up to $20.
But: Like most class action settlements, the terms are not necessarily favorable to consumers. For example, the settlement fund is $67,375,000 in cash plus $75,700,000 "worth of" prerecorded CDs. If "the number of claims filed would result in refunds of less than $5.00 per claimant, there will be no cash distribution to individual consumers. Rather, the cash portion of the settlement shall be distributed to mot-for-profit, charitable, governmental or public entities[.]"
Find out more at musiccdsettlement.com
Disclaimer: The poster (me) expresses no opinion as to the merits (if any) of this class action settlement, and this post is not legal advice nor is it an advertisement or solicitation for legal services.
Yay. For some reason you never get apologies. Have you considered law school?
I am surprised that you, as a lawyer, haven't learned to revel in being screwed with. Of all people you should know best how to string up a company like this with the absolute minimum effort.
First of all, I did write the guy and offer him pro bono legal help. I didn't mean to imply that he wasn't ripped off or that his $22 dispute isn't very important to him. Most lawyers would be able to solve a beef such as this by writing a letter on lawyer stationery.
Everyone has to pick his or her battles, personally and professionally. Lawyers have to be careful in their personal lives not to sue over every little thing, it's bad PR for the legal profession. I already have to wait an hour when I go to the doctor.
I do enjoy beating my opponents who are (on the average) rich, mean, and more powerful than my client or I. I envy the young poster who evidently is fortunate to never have been fucked over worse than in his $22 dispute with the movie theater over LOTR. The innocent Russian DMCA defendant who had to spend five months in the slammer comes to mind.
First of all, why is this trivial $13 dispute "stuff that matters??" Where is the adult supervision at Slashdot?
IAAL. You could take them to small claims court, but your time is valuable. I personally have a Dispute Threshold of $100. Any disputes less than that, I absorb my loss for the sake of economy. I encourage all readers to have and abide by a Dispute Threshold for the sake of your sanity.
If you are a homeless person or a college student, you may place a lesser value on your time and energy than I do, which is OK. If your Dispute Threshold is $12.99 or less, by all means spend the $50 and a day of your time and take them to court. Maybe you will learn something.
Hey, at least post the name of company. It's not like they are going to be giving you a bad reference or something.
I like to think I've got more class than that. Also, they are sufficiently small that other readers probably won't encounter them. But I hope they read this.
I was interviewed the day after Thanksgiving and told to fly to Miami the following Monday (change in Atlanta) for a working audition. Didn't get any per diem advance, which sucked because I have been out of work long enough not to have any money. The first night, there was a mandatory dinner at a restaurant that cost $80 APIECE. After two days on the road, I was told "Welcome aboard, you did a great job" and stuck with my own hotel bill (as well as the $80 restaurant tab). And by the way, the company Christmas party is this Sunday. Flew back (thank God they fronted the airline ticket) and celebrated with my family only to be told 2 hours before the Christmas party, hey sorry dude. Still waiting for my one and only paycheck as well as reimbursement of the &^%$# hotel bill.
1. Manufacturers start to make printers and other peripherals that actually have Linux drivers so that they actually work with Linux out of the box.
2. Your local computer store, e.g. CrapUSA, has boxes clearly marked, "This Product Works With Linux."
Getting Linux to run on a laptop-somebody-else-bought is easier said than done. I have been wrestling with a Compaq Presario 1200 for months now, the thing has a bridged Tulip network card that has reverse-IRQ priorities, the experimental kernels will run on the box but a distro e.g. Redhat 8 hangs on kudzu the 2nd time the sucker tries to boot. And I can't get the experimental kernel to compile properly under Redhat 8. Back to drawing board Natasha.
Fedex/UPS/other similar freight co's are known for being technology leaders; their drivers all have fancy wireless gizmos that purport to capture the consignee's "signature" at the time of delivery.
But they don't check ID nor do they look to see whether the proffered "signature" is even legible. You can get your packages using penmanship that would embarrass your doctor.
Surely it would be cost-effective, as well as competitively advantageous, to install digital cameras in the gizmos and take the consignees' photos. I would prefer to use a shipping company that offered such a service!
She should be reviewing movies for WBAI or American Urban Radio Networks.
...you'd have known all about Intuit's anti-consumer practices months ago:
Twist in Intuit's crippleware techniques doubles the cost of its tax-table service (4/27/01)
Intuit is up to its old tricks: Adding taxing burdens on its QuickBooks clients (3/17/00)
There is another column by Foster -- the #1 and only consumer IT columnist of whom I am aware -- on the practice of making QuickBooks users transmit invoices using Intuit's servers but you'll have to find it yourself.
Because most Americans have 28-screen cinemas and corporate video rental stores near their homes -- but the theater chains won't devote even 1 out of the 28 to anything that isn't Hollywood pap. The only way to see a movie that isn't written and directed by teenagers is to live near the art-house theaters of Manhattan or West Hollywood, or wait for it to (possibly) show up on cable. Whether or not a picture qualifies as True Art House is a question for purists and film school dropouts.
DEC and marketing. Remember the DEC Rainbow PC? It didn't come with a FORMAT program. You had to buy DEC floppys.
I run IE + ZA, and don't flame me (I would run only Linux if my devices were supported) and I am extremely frustrated at placing the cursor over the connection icon and discovering that 200K or more of outgoing data has left my box during a brief session. Surely no legit app has a need to send that much data. Surely there is an app which will tell me where the data is going, and why. Surely there should be a way to throttle the outgoing socket. Hellllp!!
In a nutshell: ** See it on cable.
Good: Halle Berry, special effects, permanent actors (Brosnan, Dench, Cleese).:
Bad: Main title, music, plot, script, direction, casting, humorlessness, invisible car, forgettable villains, action scenes that don't quite suspend your disbelief, Madonna. I counted at least 20 instances of aw-come-on unbelievable scenes that didn't work (example: car falls from airplane, doesn't break windshield). The idiot director felt he had to slo-mo every punch in every fight. Each and every plot twist was completely predictable. One of the lesser Bond pix. Get someone over the age of 16 to write the next one.
OK, I found out what I really wanted to know, which is how do they know people's heads don't explode Outland-style on contact with vacuum?
Enough on decompression already. Let's have a whack at some of my favorite, other stumpers:
More to the point, the ins. co. will call the restoration company and they will be there in a jiffy with their magic stuff. Take pictures first so that you can file a claim. If for some reason you didn't have fire insurance, hard to imagine if you have a mortgage, call an insurance agent and ask for a recommendation for a good fire restoration company. Then ask him how much is a fire insurance policy.
The following is an absolutely true Radio Shack dialogue which has occurred maybe a dozen times....
... and no RS clerk has ever, EVER asked for ID or otherwise indicated disbelief.... I often wonder what they do at the White House with all those catalogs addressed to Ben Franklin.....
Clerk (wraps up battery): That will be $2.26. Could I have your name, please?
Me (tenders $100 bill): Ben Franklin. That's
B-E-N F-R-A-N-K-L-I-N.
Clerk: And the address?
Me: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. 20500.
Clerk: Here's your $97.74 change. Is that a house or an apartment?
When I graduated in 2000 from a college in the Austin area I had an on-campus interview with Dell. I asked the recruiter the following question:
"After this current PC sales boom is over, what leads you to believe that Dell's sales will remain steady, allowing you to keep all of the workers you are currently hiring?"
The guy nearly tossed me out of the room.
Yah, I had the same thing happen to me. I had this interview in 1981 at Microsoft. Just me, Bill, Steve & Paul. I demanded to know what happens when everybody has an operating system. "Don't worry, the applications will break the OS and vice versa." "Yeah, what have you guys been smoking," I replied. Told 'em to shove their job. Besides, the planet Earth will be devoured by a black hole within 50,000 years. Why work?
IAAL, and one of the things that they don't teach you in law school is knowing which cases to take, and which ones not to take, on contingency. Libel/slander suits derived from Internet flame wars? Three words: Cash Up Front.
Pay a lawyer to register the copyright under a pseudonym. The lawyer cannot be forced to disclose your identity as to do so would violate attorney-client privilege. Case closed, trivial problem solved.
The standard in trademark law is "likelihood of confusion." I have it on good authority that people have been starting to wonder about Wyman-the-reporter. It turns out that reporter Wyman 1) doesn't play bass; 2) doesn't play with the Rolling Stones; and 3) has been known to just stand there like a statue. The third factor is what pushed the other Wyman over the edge and prompted him to sue.
Here is my proposal for a killer app music web site: I am too lazy to go and do it, so I will place the idea in the public domain.
Two words: Bubble Sort.
You have a site, say bubblesong.com. Aspiring bands record and upload their original tracks. Websurfers are asked to listen to two songs, of 3 minutes or less (à la old top 40 radio). After hearing both tracks, the listener votes for either A or B, and the preferred song moves upward on the Bubblesong charts.
Advantages: 1) The best tracks automatically bubble-sort to the top of the charts. 2) Users know they won't have to spend more than 6 minutes at the site in order to vote. 3) Bands can gain popularity and CD sales without spending lots of $ or selling out. 4) The user can click on a link and buy a CD directly from the band if they like a track.
Tweaks: 1) Users can specify in advance which musical genres they do or don't want to hear. 2) Users can be profiled and offered choices the software thinks they might like.
Methinks this was a Larry Niven short story. Scientist spills microscopic black hole from its magnetic bottle onto the floor of the lab........
Varies by airline. American lets me use my Kyocera Smartphone QCP6035, a combination PCS cell phone and PalmPilot. The phone turns off separately and a screen, "Phone is OFF," can be shown to inquiring flight attendants. But it has never come to this on AA. A JetBlue flight attendant with the intelligence of a disco rope boy demanded the entire unit be stowed and could not be bothered to look at the Phone is OFF screen.