that's exactly what the contract dispute is about. TW has to pay flat rates per subscriber on each tier. Content providers want their content on the highest tiers, or on premium channels. In order to fulfill their pricing agreements cable companies have to bundle to account for the pricing they pay. Cable companies prices are regulated... the contracts that set the prices for the content aren't... see the problem. Content providers are consolidated and getting greedy, figuring they can keep their viewership over the internet with ads per website and DVD sales, unless the cable companies give into demands to make practically every good channel cost $5 per month like HBO... then the content providers water down the non-premium channels with reruns and commercials to the point they're unwatchable. CBS/Viacom is the worst... think how many Showtimes, MTVs, and Nicks there are versus how much good content is out there for only 3 or 4.
MP3Tunes claims to use fair-use rules to allow you to pipe your music where you want it. According to them you would put the music that you "own" into a "locker" and they would share it to you on a phone, iPod, or thru the web to work or school. According to them legally it's the rights to "your" copy that you are moving...
but the labels are suing them for charging for running a service to make sure the fair-use rules are followed and not rampant illegal file sharing. It's certainly a grey thing MP3Tunes is doing, but for the label to say MP3tunes is taking away profits, then offer the same music for free and no DRM.. but not to legit customers like iTunes or other MP3 services like emusic is a bit two faced. Going to court and asking for damages is out of line.
but a Chinese business partner don't give a damn about those rules. They run extra stuff all the time from the sweatshops, fake bags, shirts, cell phones, iPods, etc. If you make it in China, they counterfeit it. HP can take their cut for their "IP", it's not like HP actually MADE any of that stuff, or the Chinese will ship the product with empty logo spots anyway and HP gets nothing.
Enforcing an embargo against any country is like trying to enforce the US labor unions in all those other countries! US companies are just middlemen now, they don't MAKE anything.
exactly, I'd doubt these printers ever touched US or allied soil. They probably went straight from China to Dubai. China will let HP get the money or simply run the factory overtime (counterfeits) and ship the printers from a different warehouse when the HP managers leave. HP USA has absolutely no control over HP China in matters like this. "be happy the Chinese pay HP to use the HP logo on the equipment, pray they don't alter the deal anymore".
Security and Admin won't do any more good. If the mandated retention is 6 months on Inboxes, then the admin dutifully archives every 6 months to tape, wipes the mailboxes, and files it away for security. As long as that tape is "available" (remember, retention legally means GONE, daily and weekly backup tapes for operations are not "archive") for the archivist the admin has done his legal duty... anything more than that, like choosing formats or organizing is the President's job to tell somebody to do.... and many executives purposefully leave organization out to make it very hard on legal.
Exactly, back in 2001 do you really have a way to restore, read or repair Office 97 and exchange 5 files? Especially if the data has been archived "according to law".. which means they wipe everybody's current mailbox every 6 months to a backup tape and start over.. now you have 8 years history of backup tapes of varying formats and varying versions of the software, none of it overlapping in time frames.
This is the same game Microsoft pull when you sue them they can produce lots of "documents" but your ability to actually read thru them and get something meaningful is greatly diminished. With paper, every body expects boxes of 8 1/2 by 11... with a computer you can make every page take the secret decoder ring from your box of Cracker Jacks!
This is more like what the article is saying. They were quizzing execs on the change in prices versus usage.. While the "industry association" quotes the increase in volume, the revenue "per text" is going down. Why, because the telcos want $10 every month from you, not wondering if you're going to send 100 or 40 text messages because they're so incredibly cheap to offer.
Out the other side of their mouths... PROFITS per text are falling... OMG! So they have to raise the price to compensate. The poor execs are being crushed by the burden!!
What the article is pointing out is that the total number of phone users has increased, and the plans are bundled. Where the cost is pointed out is in the fact that the "cost" to send one text is absorbed in the same data packet used to "phone home" to the nearest tower or to tell you how many bars you have. The space for those 160 characters is being used many times a MINUTE by every phone, all the time. Bandwidth for the text is already allocated by specification between you and the tower many times per minute.. but people physically can't send that many texts so the vast majority of available space is still empty. Sure, there's overhead to send the message to another phone... but we send how many emails... for FREE that are considerably larger?
I think what you have is the same kind of "unlimited" that gets ISPs in trouble offering "unlimited" dial up or DSL. Execs saw something they could charge for... but they don't want money in dimes and quarters per messsage, they want $10 per customer or it's not worth billing for. (on the flip side I think many telco features exist simply to justify buying new billing software, not because the customer or the company need something paid for) They gambled that they could get more people paying $10/month that wouldn't actually use 40-100 texts... people paying $10 up front gamble that they'll use more to get their money's worth. What they want is for your mom to just pay the $10 so you can send her 5 texts sometimes. They raise the price per text to some point that most people will pay up front and the telco comes out ahead. The side affect is that kids went crazy and invented twitter (not the troll) to use up their free texts per month.
But the right they happen to own is the one to distribute a movie... that means the company that paid the money and actually made the movie for their distributor gets back seat. That means on teh eve of the release, FOX could get the right to rip up the existing contracts about who gets paid from receipts and keep all the money for itself, as the court put them in line to get paid first above the people that are actually paying money up front to actors, sets, cameramen, and Trailers.
After FOX applies "hollywood accounting" there won't be anything left for Warner's share to pay off people. It's not "Fox's" movie, but the director now has no contract to get paid by movie theaters for their work... They hold the movie up while they figure out how to get paid, or they release with no contract under FOX and try to fight out payment terms later.
I think that's the deal. RIM was probably poaching employees that knew the Moto Ship was sinking so they didn't want to be sued directly for the non-competes and cut a deal.
Now Moto is cutting weight but the deal has run out and RIM is ready to snap up all the people they couldn't have before... Moto doesn't like that and wants the court to tell RIM they cant' hire people Moto has cast off under the old agreement.
Neither company wanted to open the secret reason for the original settlement that ran out, so I'd guess a sane judge would tell Moto tough luck....Whatever real issue they has has already got court time and the settlement ran out. Trying to sneak this into court on Christmas holiday so it won't be dealt with for a few weeks and RIM can't start cutting deals lets them play the process when they know they won't win the case.
you kidding? to them this is what copyright is all about. They signed a contract 20 years ago and now that somebody else has done the work, they can get their "fair share". Fox fronted money 20 years ago for an option... they get their big payout now, this is working out well for them.
but they're not even fixing suits brought up against people that they got the wrong name or didn't own a computer at all... They hide behind "oops" the other guy forgot to file their appeal even when they know the person absolutely didn't download. The lawyers are fighting suits they aren't even taking 5 minutes to review the "sanity" of... That's not winning, that's abusing their position and as we have seen has turned everybody against them... even the courts.
whoa there! You mean there's something wrong with the citizens "cheating" if automated cameras aren't recording enough violations... heaven forbid most people obey the law!!! What a concept..
That's why this kind of "infractions for profit" are such a bad idea because somebody in the chain needs to keep their margin.. not improve safety or obey the laws.
the phone company is extending credit. They should make sure their customers can actually pay the bills they run up.. that's basic business 101. The credit card companies set CREDIT LIMITS on nearly every card they issue. Even hackers with stolen cards can only run up 2-3 times the credit limit of a card before it gets "full". Usually fraud is detected way before then. If the credit card company doesn't protect against fraud, then customers stop using credit cards!!! And they don't pay!!! The phone company has you over a barrel because you can't not have a phone... so they don't implement reasonable limits to the type of telephone user you are. You can't go anyplace else, and it's only their money at stake so they got all the time in the world to go after you for it.
My credit cards have limits, my cell phone has a credit limit... nobody extends me $50K in unsecured credit... except for my $30 month phone bill?
exactly, Credit card companies put credit limits on your card based on what they think you can pay. Even if my card was stolen, they would only be able to charge a few times the credit limit before the cap kicked in, it's not an umlimited tap.
That a home or small business owner with a bill routinely in the hundreds can even run up $52K in charges is fraud on the part of the phone company. Like you said, will they give him time to pay it off? They extended the credit without checking if he could afford it first, he still needs the services to run his business.
Like other posters have said the problem is external to the phone company so they WON'T fix it. Even my wife's cell phone company does a credit check and caps monthly spending at a low amount. That phone companies allow this to continue is negligent.
we use them because we have slightly older equipment and don't want to be on the upgrade treadmill simply to add/replace one or two switches and don't want to lose the benefit of using the same model across the network. That's the real benefit of the refurb places, if you're already 3-4 years in and the manufacturer wants to obsolete equipment/software to make you buy new, it's a great place to look.
I work in a union steel shop and I see exactly that. None of the "30 and out" retirees live very long after. The swing shifts and 60 hour weeks burn them out by 60 or so.
If you want to see an expensive retirement, look at teachers. They live fairly routine, disciplined lives, they used to be mandated by law to live clean.. no smoking, drinking, fooling around.. and because of that they all live to be really old. Which means they suck down benefits for 20-25 years after they retire!!
if you take a loss on a house sale, that's capital loss deduction which is the same as knocking that much off your wages and you don't pay taxes. Of course, that assumes you have the equity to lose in a sale, which is the problem now, that house prices dropped 20% which wiped out all the down payments and equity so every body is stuck waiting to sell because they need a minimum value out of their property or they face bankruptcy.
also, property tax is assess on SALES values, so if the house sells for less, the new owners should pay less taxes.
Many states have balanced budget laws on the books. The legislature MUST present a balanced budget and they are barred from borrowing for general funds. If they don't balance the budget, then the governor gets to just start closing stuff until the funds are available.
We went through that last year in Michigan. We actually went without a budget for about a week and they actually closed a chunk of the state office down and sent the workers home for a few days because they couldn't legally pay them! It makes the states strong to have these rules, but when stuff like the last crash comes around you realize that the big taxpayers can simply choose not to pay by wiping out their profits for a few years when it's in fashion. That sends the states reeling to cut or replace the tax revenue they're not making so they have to push it on PEOPLE that can't escape so easily.
they did this in Michigan too. Although we do have sales tax on some of those things already. Our only exemptions are pretty much food. They tax phone, cable, all clothes, and we pay deposit on bottles. Last year they tried to tax personal services and repair services but it ended up being a wash because the tax was going to take more money to collect than it would generate because the amounts were so small per business.
We already pay sales tax on itunes as well just like anything at an Apple store. I don't think we pay taxes on concert tickets and movie tickets because there are exemptions to keep "art" around.
I think the idea of the bill is to make it "fair" and catch some of the smaller businesses that could be paying sales tax. But it's just too much work to get that last little drop, which is why it's not taxed.
the issue is that it's not the job of an out-of-state company to collect those taxes people in New York owe. That is an unfair tax burden to have to file tax paper in every state you might sell something to online.. it's a burden brick and mortar stores don't have to follow. Imagine if they could go to the first exit on the interstate outside NY and demand they file NY tax forms because NY drivers can drive there.
I think they should go after bank/credit card companies. There is more legal grounding because they have to have presence in your state to offer banking services and follow your state's laws. Visa/Mastercard banks are allowing people to skirt the laws when they know the true address of the person shopping. I think it would be a small thing to implement sales tax right at your credit card bill. It's mailed to your house address, so there's little room for dispute. It's better to chase companies IN the state than companies that just deliver to the state.
but they don't fix them when they are clearly brought up in court. Then the lawyers play to process and fine print to go after the settlement anyway, simply because they can. They are taking the "collateral damage" approach rather than being fair. If they make legal mistakes, throw the book at them.. hard.
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that's exactly what the contract dispute is about. TW has to pay flat rates per subscriber on each tier. Content providers want their content on the highest tiers, or on premium channels. In order to fulfill their pricing agreements cable companies have to bundle to account for the pricing they pay. Cable companies prices are regulated... the contracts that set the prices for the content aren't... see the problem. Content providers are consolidated and getting greedy, figuring they can keep their viewership over the internet with ads per website and DVD sales, unless the cable companies give into demands to make practically every good channel cost $5 per month like HBO... then the content providers water down the non-premium channels with reruns and commercials to the point they're unwatchable. CBS/Viacom is the worst... think how many Showtimes, MTVs, and Nicks there are versus how much good content is out there for only 3 or 4.
MP3Tunes claims to use fair-use rules to allow you to pipe your music where you want it. According to them you would put the music that you "own" into a "locker" and they would share it to you on a phone, iPod, or thru the web to work or school. According to them legally it's the rights to "your" copy that you are moving...
but the labels are suing them for charging for running a service to make sure the fair-use rules are followed and not rampant illegal file sharing. It's certainly a grey thing MP3Tunes is doing, but for the label to say MP3tunes is taking away profits, then offer the same music for free and no DRM.. but not to legit customers like iTunes or other MP3 services like emusic is a bit two faced. Going to court and asking for damages is out of line.
but a Chinese business partner don't give a damn about those rules. They run extra stuff all the time from the sweatshops, fake bags, shirts, cell phones, iPods, etc. If you make it in China, they counterfeit it. HP can take their cut for their "IP", it's not like HP actually MADE any of that stuff, or the Chinese will ship the product with empty logo spots anyway and HP gets nothing.
Enforcing an embargo against any country is like trying to enforce the US labor unions in all those other countries! US companies are just middlemen now, they don't MAKE anything.
exactly, I'd doubt these printers ever touched US or allied soil. They probably went straight from China to Dubai. China will let HP get the money or simply run the factory overtime (counterfeits) and ship the printers from a different warehouse when the HP managers leave. HP USA has absolutely no control over HP China in matters like this. "be happy the Chinese pay HP to use the HP logo on the equipment, pray they don't alter the deal anymore".
Security and Admin won't do any more good. If the mandated retention is 6 months on Inboxes, then the admin dutifully archives every 6 months to tape, wipes the mailboxes, and files it away for security. As long as that tape is "available" (remember, retention legally means GONE, daily and weekly backup tapes for operations are not "archive") for the archivist the admin has done his legal duty... anything more than that, like choosing formats or organizing is the President's job to tell somebody to do.... and many executives purposefully leave organization out to make it very hard on legal.
Exactly, back in 2001 do you really have a way to restore, read or repair Office 97 and exchange 5 files? Especially if the data has been archived "according to law".. which means they wipe everybody's current mailbox every 6 months to a backup tape and start over.. now you have 8 years history of backup tapes of varying formats and varying versions of the software, none of it overlapping in time frames.
This is the same game Microsoft pull when you sue them they can produce lots of "documents" but your ability to actually read thru them and get something meaningful is greatly diminished. With paper, every body expects boxes of 8 1/2 by 11... with a computer you can make every page take the secret decoder ring from your box of Cracker Jacks!
This is more like what the article is saying. They were quizzing execs on the change in prices versus usage.. While the "industry association" quotes the increase in volume, the revenue "per text" is going down. Why, because the telcos want $10 every month from you, not wondering if you're going to send 100 or 40 text messages because they're so incredibly cheap to offer.
Out the other side of their mouths... PROFITS per text are falling... OMG! So they have to raise the price to compensate. The poor execs are being crushed by the burden!!
What the article is pointing out is that the total number of phone users has increased, and the plans are bundled. Where the cost is pointed out is in the fact that the "cost" to send one text is absorbed in the same data packet used to "phone home" to the nearest tower or to tell you how many bars you have. The space for those 160 characters is being used many times a MINUTE by every phone, all the time. Bandwidth for the text is already allocated by specification between you and the tower many times per minute.. but people physically can't send that many texts so the vast majority of available space is still empty. Sure, there's overhead to send the message to another phone... but we send how many emails... for FREE that are considerably larger?
I think what you have is the same kind of "unlimited" that gets ISPs in trouble offering "unlimited" dial up or DSL. Execs saw something they could charge for... but they don't want money in dimes and quarters per messsage, they want $10 per customer or it's not worth billing for. (on the flip side I think many telco features exist simply to justify buying new billing software, not because the customer or the company need something paid for) They gambled that they could get more people paying $10/month that wouldn't actually use 40-100 texts... people paying $10 up front gamble that they'll use more to get their money's worth. What they want is for your mom to just pay the $10 so you can send her 5 texts sometimes. They raise the price per text to some point that most people will pay up front and the telco comes out ahead. The side affect is that kids went crazy and invented twitter (not the troll) to use up their free texts per month.
But the right they happen to own is the one to distribute a movie... that means the company that paid the money and actually made the movie for their distributor gets back seat. That means on teh eve of the release, FOX could get the right to rip up the existing contracts about who gets paid from receipts and keep all the money for itself, as the court put them in line to get paid first above the people that are actually paying money up front to actors, sets, cameramen, and Trailers.
After FOX applies "hollywood accounting" there won't be anything left for Warner's share to pay off people. It's not "Fox's" movie, but the director now has no contract to get paid by movie theaters for their work... They hold the movie up while they figure out how to get paid, or they release with no contract under FOX and try to fight out payment terms later.
I think that's the deal. RIM was probably poaching employees that knew the Moto Ship was sinking so they didn't want to be sued directly for the non-competes and cut a deal.
Now Moto is cutting weight but the deal has run out and RIM is ready to snap up all the people they couldn't have before... Moto doesn't like that and wants the court to tell RIM they cant' hire people Moto has cast off under the old agreement.
Neither company wanted to open the secret reason for the original settlement that ran out, so I'd guess a sane judge would tell Moto tough luck....Whatever real issue they has has already got court time and the settlement ran out. Trying to sneak this into court on Christmas holiday so it won't be dealt with for a few weeks and RIM can't start cutting deals lets them play the process when they know they won't win the case.
you kidding? to them this is what copyright is all about. They signed a contract 20 years ago and now that somebody else has done the work, they can get their "fair share". Fox fronted money 20 years ago for an option... they get their big payout now, this is working out well for them.
but they're not even fixing suits brought up against people that they got the wrong name or didn't own a computer at all... They hide behind "oops" the other guy forgot to file their appeal even when they know the person absolutely didn't download. The lawyers are fighting suits they aren't even taking 5 minutes to review the "sanity" of... That's not winning, that's abusing their position and as we have seen has turned everybody against them... even the courts.
microsoft had that kind of money too... "all the money in the world"... and we got Vista!
whoa there! You mean there's something wrong with the citizens "cheating" if automated cameras aren't recording enough violations... heaven forbid most people obey the law!!! What a concept..
That's why this kind of "infractions for profit" are such a bad idea because somebody in the chain needs to keep their margin.. not improve safety or obey the laws.
this is why nobody wants to hire ACs.
the phone company is extending credit. They should make sure their customers can actually pay the bills they run up.. that's basic business 101. The credit card companies set CREDIT LIMITS on nearly every card they issue. Even hackers with stolen cards can only run up 2-3 times the credit limit of a card before it gets "full". Usually fraud is detected way before then. If the credit card company doesn't protect against fraud, then customers stop using credit cards!!! And they don't pay!!! The phone company has you over a barrel because you can't not have a phone... so they don't implement reasonable limits to the type of telephone user you are. You can't go anyplace else, and it's only their money at stake so they got all the time in the world to go after you for it.
My credit cards have limits, my cell phone has a credit limit... nobody extends me $50K in unsecured credit... except for my $30 month phone bill?
exactly, Credit card companies put credit limits on your card based on what they think you can pay. Even if my card was stolen, they would only be able to charge a few times the credit limit before the cap kicked in, it's not an umlimited tap.
That a home or small business owner with a bill routinely in the hundreds can even run up $52K in charges is fraud on the part of the phone company. Like you said, will they give him time to pay it off? They extended the credit without checking if he could afford it first, he still needs the services to run his business.
Like other posters have said the problem is external to the phone company so they WON'T fix it. Even my wife's cell phone company does a credit check and caps monthly spending at a low amount. That phone companies allow this to continue is negligent.
we use them because we have slightly older equipment and don't want to be on the upgrade treadmill simply to add/replace one or two switches and don't want to lose the benefit of using the same model across the network. That's the real benefit of the refurb places, if you're already 3-4 years in and the manufacturer wants to obsolete equipment/software to make you buy new, it's a great place to look.
all the state cares about is that YOU paid money to THEM for something. What you bought is irrelevant.. only that the state want's their cut.
I work in a union steel shop and I see exactly that. None of the "30 and out" retirees live very long after. The swing shifts and 60 hour weeks burn them out by 60 or so.
If you want to see an expensive retirement, look at teachers. They live fairly routine, disciplined lives, they used to be mandated by law to live clean.. no smoking, drinking, fooling around.. and because of that they all live to be really old. Which means they suck down benefits for 20-25 years after they retire!!
if you take a loss on a house sale, that's capital loss deduction which is the same as knocking that much off your wages and you don't pay taxes. Of course, that assumes you have the equity to lose in a sale, which is the problem now, that house prices dropped 20% which wiped out all the down payments and equity so every body is stuck waiting to sell because they need a minimum value out of their property or they face bankruptcy.
also, property tax is assess on SALES values, so if the house sells for less, the new owners should pay less taxes.
Many states have balanced budget laws on the books. The legislature MUST present a balanced budget and they are barred from borrowing for general funds. If they don't balance the budget, then the governor gets to just start closing stuff until the funds are available.
We went through that last year in Michigan. We actually went without a budget for about a week and they actually closed a chunk of the state office down and sent the workers home for a few days because they couldn't legally pay them! It makes the states strong to have these rules, but when stuff like the last crash comes around you realize that the big taxpayers can simply choose not to pay by wiping out their profits for a few years when it's in fashion. That sends the states reeling to cut or replace the tax revenue they're not making so they have to push it on PEOPLE that can't escape so easily.
they did this in Michigan too. Although we do have sales tax on some of those things already. Our only exemptions are pretty much food. They tax phone, cable, all clothes, and we pay deposit on bottles. Last year they tried to tax personal services and repair services but it ended up being a wash because the tax was going to take more money to collect than it would generate because the amounts were so small per business.
We already pay sales tax on itunes as well just like anything at an Apple store. I don't think we pay taxes on concert tickets and movie tickets because there are exemptions to keep "art" around.
I think the idea of the bill is to make it "fair" and catch some of the smaller businesses that could be paying sales tax. But it's just too much work to get that last little drop, which is why it's not taxed.
nope. iTunes cards add cash to the account. That is then charged off like a credit card with sales tax included.
the issue is that it's not the job of an out-of-state company to collect those taxes people in New York owe. That is an unfair tax burden to have to file tax paper in every state you might sell something to online.. it's a burden brick and mortar stores don't have to follow. Imagine if they could go to the first exit on the interstate outside NY and demand they file NY tax forms because NY drivers can drive there.
I think they should go after bank/credit card companies. There is more legal grounding because they have to have presence in your state to offer banking services and follow your state's laws. Visa/Mastercard banks are allowing people to skirt the laws when they know the true address of the person shopping. I think it would be a small thing to implement sales tax right at your credit card bill. It's mailed to your house address, so there's little room for dispute. It's better to chase companies IN the state than companies that just deliver to the state.
but they don't fix them when they are clearly brought up in court. Then the lawyers play to process and fine print to go after the settlement anyway, simply because they can. They are taking the "collateral damage" approach rather than being fair. If they make legal mistakes, throw the book at them.. hard.