Step Right Up and Get Your Free Money!
Capital, EMI, Virgin, Priority, Time Warner, Warner-Elektra-Atlantic, Warner, Warner Bros, Atlantic, Elektra, Rhino, Universal, UMG, Bertelsmann, BMG, Sony, MTS, Tower, Musicland and Trans World settled a lawsuit that was filed on behalf of all those who bought prerecorded music products between 1995 and 2000 and were thereby victims of illegal conspiracy to fix prices.
This means you.
To claim your share of the $6,375,000 settlement, fill out a form at the official
site and wait. Depending on how many people file claims, the individual award will be either nothing, or a check for between $5 and $20. (The "nothing" comes into play if too many people file claims to justify the expense of mailing out checks, in which case the award will go to charities.)
8.1.03
7.1.03
Opt Out!
The Central Opt-Out Database provides bulk mailers with a list of encrypted addresses which will allow them to remove your email from their mailing lists. Currently this is voluntary and unlikely to have much effect, but the tide is going to turn against the spammers, and databases like this one may someday be the enforcement tool (either from ISP's or the Gov't.)
At least your participation counts as a vote for opting out of unsolicited mail.
The Central Opt-Out Database provides bulk mailers with a list of encrypted addresses which will allow them to remove your email from their mailing lists. Currently this is voluntary and unlikely to have much effect, but the tide is going to turn against the spammers, and databases like this one may someday be the enforcement tool (either from ISP's or the Gov't.)
At least your participation counts as a vote for opting out of unsolicited mail.
2.1.03
Free Maria Callas!
World renowned operatic soprano Maria Callas, under contract to EMI Records since 1952, is now beginning to shed her cash-cow straitjacket and enter the public domain --- our domain. Yesterday her first EMI recording - a test of "Non mi dir" from "Don Giovanni" - became the shared property of the citizens of the European Union. It's still the property of EMI in the United States, though. (See the New York Times Story on Yahoo). Callas, who cashed her last royalty check before she died in 1977, has since become the property through which EMI takes in as much as five percent of its annual corporate earnings. (I use the word "earnings" in the loose commercial sense).
At this point, it seems silly to argue that extended copyright protection for her recordings is fulfilling the original intent of copyright law, which is to encourage the distribution of creative works. It appears to me quite the opposite - EMI uses its ownership of Callas' rights to stifle any distribution that does not enhance their corporate profits and steers its resources into protecting and enhancing the marketability of fifty year old creations at the expense of fostering new creative work. Copyright, intended to protect the artist's ability to reap the rewards of appreciation of her work, is siezed and harnessed to the service of capital investors, the least creative group you could imagine.
It is those investors, through their good friends and golfing buddies in congress, that have succeeded in extending copyright protection for creative works from the original seventeen years to as much as one hundred years after the death of the artist. These rights can be bought and sold on the market and benefit only publishers and heirs. They provide no benefit to the public and should never have been enacted by a body sworn to serve the public.
As it now stands, European artists and publishers will be free to re-release, re-interpret, revise, alter, incorporate, enhance and distribute any recording more than fifty years old. Anyone who attempts to share any of that creative effort and public property with the citizens of the free United States will be subject to felony prosecution. How different this is than the rhapsodizing of Thomas Jefferson on the free nature of human creative output:
"That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation keeps this Copywrite FAQ archived for your reference. The Jefferson quote is from an inspiring essay by EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow
World renowned operatic soprano Maria Callas, under contract to EMI Records since 1952, is now beginning to shed her cash-cow straitjacket and enter the public domain --- our domain. Yesterday her first EMI recording - a test of "Non mi dir" from "Don Giovanni" - became the shared property of the citizens of the European Union. It's still the property of EMI in the United States, though. (See the New York Times Story on Yahoo). Callas, who cashed her last royalty check before she died in 1977, has since become the property through which EMI takes in as much as five percent of its annual corporate earnings. (I use the word "earnings" in the loose commercial sense).
At this point, it seems silly to argue that extended copyright protection for her recordings is fulfilling the original intent of copyright law, which is to encourage the distribution of creative works. It appears to me quite the opposite - EMI uses its ownership of Callas' rights to stifle any distribution that does not enhance their corporate profits and steers its resources into protecting and enhancing the marketability of fifty year old creations at the expense of fostering new creative work. Copyright, intended to protect the artist's ability to reap the rewards of appreciation of her work, is siezed and harnessed to the service of capital investors, the least creative group you could imagine.
It is those investors, through their good friends and golfing buddies in congress, that have succeeded in extending copyright protection for creative works from the original seventeen years to as much as one hundred years after the death of the artist. These rights can be bought and sold on the market and benefit only publishers and heirs. They provide no benefit to the public and should never have been enacted by a body sworn to serve the public.
As it now stands, European artists and publishers will be free to re-release, re-interpret, revise, alter, incorporate, enhance and distribute any recording more than fifty years old. Anyone who attempts to share any of that creative effort and public property with the citizens of the free United States will be subject to felony prosecution. How different this is than the rhapsodizing of Thomas Jefferson on the free nature of human creative output:
"That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation keeps this Copywrite FAQ archived for your reference. The Jefferson quote is from an inspiring essay by EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow
29.12.02
Suggestive Scientific Citation of the Day
"Scrotal Inflation: A New Cause for Subcutaneous, Mediastinal and Retroperitoneal Emphysem," G. Bush and R. Nixon, Henry Ford Hospital Medical Journal, vol. 17, no. 3, Fall 1969,pp. 225-6.
from HotAIR: The Science of G. Bush
"Scrotal Inflation: A New Cause for Subcutaneous, Mediastinal and Retroperitoneal Emphysem," G. Bush and R. Nixon, Henry Ford Hospital Medical Journal, vol. 17, no. 3, Fall 1969,pp. 225-6.
from HotAIR: The Science of G. Bush
23.12.02
Dr. Seuss on Homeland Security:
Amid our long and drawn-out fight, Jap loyalists pass out dynamite, recruiting the help of the slanty-eyed sneetches, whose yellow skin soils our Pacific coast beaches. (cartoon)
Now this time around when the threat is jihad, we round up the towel-heads treading our sod. We lock them all up and we turn out the lights and all in the name of protecting our rights. (story)
Amid our long and drawn-out fight, Jap loyalists pass out dynamite, recruiting the help of the slanty-eyed sneetches, whose yellow skin soils our Pacific coast beaches. (cartoon)
Now this time around when the threat is jihad, we round up the towel-heads treading our sod. We lock them all up and we turn out the lights and all in the name of protecting our rights. (story)
19.12.02
Merry Christmas, you filthy animals
Hundreds of U.S. Residents in southern California who were born in Muslim countries found themselves herded into holding tanks when they went to register with their local INS office under a new Federal Order. The INS will not discuss how many were detained. It is probable that most of them will be trucked to Arizona for processing.
Don't you just love compassionate conservatism? (Reuters Story on Yahoo! News)
Hundreds of U.S. Residents in southern California who were born in Muslim countries found themselves herded into holding tanks when they went to register with their local INS office under a new Federal Order. The INS will not discuss how many were detained. It is probable that most of them will be trucked to Arizona for processing.
Don't you just love compassionate conservatism? (Reuters Story on Yahoo! News)
16.12.02
Hunga Rican History Minute
Frederick Karl Pruetzel (Freddie Prinze) was born on June 22, 1954 in New York City. He attended the Fiorello LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts, but dropped out to pursue a career as a stand-up comic. Prinze's early material revolved around his unique ethnic heritage. His mother was Puerto Rican and his father was a Hungarian Jew. He frequently referred to himself in his act as a "Hungarican." It was this early ethnic-based stand-up work that led to his big break on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, where Prinze impressed both Carson and casting directors. Soon Prinze was cast in the title role of Chico in Chico & The Man. [...] Sadly, he was not prepared for the stresses and pressures that came with the level of fame he had achieved so quickly. Prinze struggled with drug abuse and his marriage failed. On January 19, 1977 Freddie Prinze made what was to become his final public appearance at the Inaugural Ball for President Jimmy Carter. One week later, Prinze wrote a good-bye note and took his own life.
- See what you can learn at TV Land!
Frederick Karl Pruetzel (Freddie Prinze) was born on June 22, 1954 in New York City. He attended the Fiorello LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts, but dropped out to pursue a career as a stand-up comic. Prinze's early material revolved around his unique ethnic heritage. His mother was Puerto Rican and his father was a Hungarian Jew. He frequently referred to himself in his act as a "Hungarican." It was this early ethnic-based stand-up work that led to his big break on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, where Prinze impressed both Carson and casting directors. Soon Prinze was cast in the title role of Chico in Chico & The Man. [...] Sadly, he was not prepared for the stresses and pressures that came with the level of fame he had achieved so quickly. Prinze struggled with drug abuse and his marriage failed. On January 19, 1977 Freddie Prinze made what was to become his final public appearance at the Inaugural Ball for President Jimmy Carter. One week later, Prinze wrote a good-bye note and took his own life.
- See what you can learn at TV Land!
14.12.02
Twelve Days of Catechisms
You may have seen the story going around that the Twelve Days of Christmas is a veiled catechism. A lot of things about that story don't make any sense at all. Fortunately I didn't have to do much research...
""The Twelve Days of Christmas" is what most people take it to be: a secular song that celebrates the Christmas season with imagery of gifts and dancing and music.[...]Nonetheless, plenty of writers continue to expound upon "the beauty and truly biblical and spiritual meanings locked away in this wonderful song that puts Christ into Christmas where he doesn't appear to be." Emphasizing that Christ is part of Christmas is a fine thing, but achieving that goal by inventing and spreading phony explanations about purely secular aspects of Christmas is not. And perhaps those who consider this tale (regardless of its literal truth) to be "beautiful" and "inspirational" should consider its underlying message: that one group of Jesus' followers had to hide their beliefs in order to avoid being tortured and killed by another group of Jesus' followers. Of all the aspects of Christianity to celebrate at Christmastime, should this really be one of them?"
From the moderately researched but exhaustively explicated debunking at Snopes.com
You may have seen the story going around that the Twelve Days of Christmas is a veiled catechism. A lot of things about that story don't make any sense at all. Fortunately I didn't have to do much research...
""The Twelve Days of Christmas" is what most people take it to be: a secular song that celebrates the Christmas season with imagery of gifts and dancing and music.[...]Nonetheless, plenty of writers continue to expound upon "the beauty and truly biblical and spiritual meanings locked away in this wonderful song that puts Christ into Christmas where he doesn't appear to be." Emphasizing that Christ is part of Christmas is a fine thing, but achieving that goal by inventing and spreading phony explanations about purely secular aspects of Christmas is not. And perhaps those who consider this tale (regardless of its literal truth) to be "beautiful" and "inspirational" should consider its underlying message: that one group of Jesus' followers had to hide their beliefs in order to avoid being tortured and killed by another group of Jesus' followers. Of all the aspects of Christianity to celebrate at Christmastime, should this really be one of them?"
From the moderately researched but exhaustively explicated debunking at Snopes.com
12.12.02
Observations from Hong Kong
"When I was being given directions to the tram up the peak, those giving me instructions searched their wallets for a bit to drag out currency. Rather than having presidents or monarchs, the banknotes all have images of banks on them, and my instructions went "Go to the building on this bill, then turn towards the building on this one...". Good that a city knows where its leadership really comes from." - Dan Lyke
Read the rest on Dan's weblog, Flutterby!
"When I was being given directions to the tram up the peak, those giving me instructions searched their wallets for a bit to drag out currency. Rather than having presidents or monarchs, the banknotes all have images of banks on them, and my instructions went "Go to the building on this bill, then turn towards the building on this one...". Good that a city knows where its leadership really comes from." - Dan Lyke
Read the rest on Dan's weblog, Flutterby!
9.12.02
Which Problems?
Trent Lott told an audience at Strom Thurmond's birthday party that, had the segregationist Dixiecrat been elected president of the United States that "we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years."
I can only imagine the problems we WOULD have. (shudder)
Coming Soon: Info on the 1948 Dixiecrat Party Convention Held in Birmingham, Alabama at which Thurmond was nominated with a platform of "We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race."
Thanks to Dan for the heads up.
Trent Lott told an audience at Strom Thurmond's birthday party that, had the segregationist Dixiecrat been elected president of the United States that "we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years."
I can only imagine the problems we WOULD have. (shudder)
Coming Soon: Info on the 1948 Dixiecrat Party Convention Held in Birmingham, Alabama at which Thurmond was nominated with a platform of "We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race."
Thanks to Dan for the heads up.
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