Negotiating Away Innovation: Dish Agrees To Kill Autohop To End TV Blackouts

from the shameful dept

Filed Under: autohop, autohopper, blackouts, contracts, copyright, retransmission, tv
Companies: cbs, dish, disney

'Doctor' Promoting Roca Labs Actually A Pediatrician Who Lost His Medical License For Child Porn

from the this-company-seems-so-trustworthy dept

Roca Labs’ website and YouTube channel are saturated with images of attractive men and women wearing lab coats emblazoned with the caduceus – a symbol commonly associated with doctors and medical professionals — leaving the viewer with the impression that these are educated, licensed professionals. This is a product I can trust!

Until yesterday, Roca Labs held out one such doctor — “Dr. Ross” — as its “Director of Medical Team”, hailing from “NJ, USA.” The company rarely identified him by his full name, instead severing his last name to a mere initial. In a “Letter to Your Doctor”, Dr. Ross described himself as “an independent medical consultant” describing the “Roca Labs Formula” to assure his “fellow doctor” as to its benefits. The letter was signed with his full name, followed by “MD” – medical doctor.

This allegation is corroborated by an Order of Revocation from the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners, which incorporates a plea agreement, and an Order for Non Practice of Medicine from the New York State Department of Health. The substance of the agreement was that the Dr. Ross — a pediatrician — surrendered his licenses to practice medicine in New Jersey and New York and was prohibited from seeking a “license to practice medicine in any jurisdiction at any time in the future.”

The New Jersey order also includes prohibitions which “not only bar[] a licensee from rendering professional services, but also from providing an opinion as to professional practice or its application” and requires “affirmative action to stop advertisements by which his/her eligibility to practice is represented.”

In addition to the advertisements above, there’s also this now-deleted post, under the “ask the doctor” in which Dr. Ross F. recounts his role in the company:

I have reviewed thousands of formal inquiries from the public that request to begin using the Roca Labs Formula for weight loss. [...] I review each case individually for medical accuracy. I have been the medical director at Roca Labs for the past year. I was in clinical medical practice for 10 years before moving into pharmaceutical management. I have been involved in the development and ongoing monitoring of the Roca Labs Formula. I work directly with the staff and customers to maintain the highest levels of medical accuracy and safety.

And while it’s unclear whether the feature ever launched, a now-deleted page advertised that the company would soon offer, for thirty-five dollars, online consultations with Dr. Ross to provide “consultation and medical advice.” Another now-deleted post advertised that for a mere $380, the “online medical staff will be at your service with detailed answers and advice 24/7″ — an option known as “be my doctor”, although it’s unclear whether Dr. Ross was employed by Roca at the time.

To be sure, the orders of New Jersey and New York explicitly do not require Dr. Ross F. to “affirmatively advise patients or others of the revocation, suspension or surrender” except in response to an inquiry, nor is it entirely clear whether the order prohibits his association and work with Roca Labs. In fact, his precise relationship with the company is entirely unclear: was he merely there to give the appearance that someone whose name is preceded by “Dr.” endorses and gives legitimacy to the company’s “formula”? Or did he have a greater role in the company’s product? If so, did those acts — whatever they were – constitute the practice of medicine? And if there are other doctors — posts on the BBB site by Roca indicate that a doctor reviews qualification forms — what are their qualifications?

Nevertheless, this is the conduct of a company which says that it is “completely transparent” and that “nothing is hidden“: intimidate critics with ominous (and likely baseless) threats of legal action and, when questions are raised, refuse to answer.

Filed Under: contracts, dr ross, gag, gastric bypass surgery, nutraceuticals, reviews
Companies: pissedconsumer, roca labs

Jimmy Graham Loses $5 Million In Part For Listing Himself As A Tight End On Twitter

from the the-poorest-saint dept

We've had a great many discussions about how employers react to the social media content of their employees. There have been questions over whether employers should be able to fire staff for Facebook content, whether staff can be perma-banned from using social media sites at all, or even whether or not employees should be required to cough up social media passwords to their employers. These stories tend to focus on an employer doing something that makes the employee uncomfortable.

You want to know what's really an uncomfortable result of an employer looking into an employee's social media account? How about losing five million dollars? That's exactly what happened to New Orleans Saints receiving tight end Jimmy Graham.

Unable to negotiate a deal, the Saints slapped Jimmy Graham with a franchise tag as a tight end. Graham disagreed, declaring himself a receiver, in order that he be paid like one. The dispute went to arbitration, and today arbitrator Stephen Burbank came down on the Saints' side. The difference is significant. A franchise tag pays a player the average of the five highest-paid players at that position, and WRs—especially the top tier—are paid better than their TE counterparts. A ruling favorable to Graham would have seen him make $12.312 million this season; instead, he'll make $7.035 million.

The arbitrator's decision isn't public, but dribs and drabs of Burbank's reasoning have come out. (Ian Rapaport and Albert Breer are your best sources.) Among Burbank's justifications:

-Graham attends TE position meetings.
-Graham was drafted by the Saints as a TE.
-Graham lists himself as a TE in his Twitter bio. (Yes, the Saints argued this.) Burbank, via Rapaport: "Mr. Graham refers to himself as a tight end in social media that he controls and his agents do so as well."
-Graham lined up within four yards of the offensive line on a majority of his snaps last season.

Filed Under: arbitration, contracts, football, franchise player, jimmy graham, tight end
Companies: nfl, twitter

German Government Drops Verizon Contract Over NSA Spying, But Still Won't Investigate

from the actions-speak-louder-than-political-investigations dept

"There are indications that Verizon is legally required to provide certain things to the NSA, and that's one of the reasons the cooperation with Verizon won't continue," said [Interior Ministry spokesman Tobias] Plate.

Filed Under: contracts, germany, nsa, surveillance
Companies: verizon

General Mills Changes Policy After Internet Did Not 'Like' Its Plan To Remove Your Ability To Sue If You 'Liked' Its Facebook Page

from the just-trying-to-help dept

As has been widely reported, General Mills recently posted a revised set of Legal Terms on our websites. Those terms – and our intentions – were widely misread, causing concern among consumers.

So we’ve listened – and we’re changing them back to what they were before.

We rarely have disputes with consumers – and arbitration would have simply streamlined how complaints are handled. Many companies do the same, and we felt it would be helpful.

But consumers didn’t like it.

We’ll just add that we never imagined this reaction. Similar terms are common in all sorts of consumer contracts, and arbitration clauses don’t cause anyone to waive a valid legal claim. They only specify a cost-effective means of resolving such matters. At no time was anyone ever precluded from suing us by purchasing one of our products at a store or liking one of our Facebook pages. That was either a mischaracterization – or just very misunderstood.

Not that any of that matters now.

On behalf of our company and our brands, we would also like to apologize. We’re sorry we even started down this path. And we do hope you’ll accept our apology. We also hope that you’ll continue to download product coupons, talk to us on social media, or look for recipes on our websites.

Filed Under: arbitration, cheerios, contracts, legal terms
Companies: general mills

Weather Channel To DirecTV: Meet Our Cost Demands Or EVERYONE WILL DIE!

from the storming-out-of-your-contract dept

In previous stories where a television channel goes to war with DirecTV and its peers, the mantra by the channel requesting a higher contract is typically the same: our entertainment provides value beyond what we're paid. That was the case when Viacom held its fans hostage in one such dispute, for instance, or when the far-more-sane AMC had a similar dispute. The point is that it always seems to come down to nothing more than money, where the dispute is over how much monetary value a channel has to a broadcaster. Nothing more, nothing less.

Not so, when it comes to the Weather Channel's dispute with DirecTV. Sure, they similarly want more money, but their response campaign to DirecTV bristling at the request while offering a different, televised weather channel is, shall we say, slightly more melodramatic and massively more aggressive.

Usually when cable channels and distributors go to war over money, the two sides warn customers that a blackout will be inconvenient. This time, the Weather Channel is saying it'll be downright dangerous. The channel has tried to rally the public's support by reminding people that it is an emergency lifeline during severe weather.

"The Weather Channel isn't just another TV network. It's a must-have resource that keeps families safe," proclaimed a headline on Weather.com.

DirecTV executives say that, contrary to the Weather Channel's positioning, there are many other sources for urgent weather news these days, including WeatherNation.

"When information is readily available everywhere, it's no longer necessary for people to have to pay a premium," York said in a telephone interview. He also asserted that the Weather Channel devotes up to 40 percent of its programming schedule to "reality TV shows."

Filed Under: contracts, disputes, tv, weather
Companies: directv, the weather channel

Digital Music News Explains To Apple What Fair Use Is, Reposts Contract That Apple Tried To DMCA Away

from the do-you-want-to-litigate? dept

Apple should know better. Although Apple may not have been pleased by DMN's coverage, the solution was not to suppress the information that DMN had provided. Certainly, the contract includes sufficient original expression to be copyrighted, but the posting was plainly fair use. The contract was posted for reasons of newsworthiness, a transformative and essentially non-commercial use. The posting of the contract in now way interfered with the market for the document, which is not sold, after all. Indeed, the purpose of the takedown was not to protect legitimate copyright interests, but to suppress criticism, which could well be deemed copyright misuse. In issuing the DMCA takedown, Apple was required to consider the fair use reasons for the posting, and the filing of the notice implicitly represented that the posting was not fair use. Consequently, we believe that the takedown was wrongful.

We are, however, focused on the future. Today, DMN has published a new story entitled Who's Screwing You Worse: iTunes Radio, or Pandora... and it has included links to the contract which is now hosted on its own server.... In the event Apple serves a DMCA notice on DMN, or on its upstream provider, or if Apple takes any other action against the availability of the contract, we will assume that Apple has decided to litigate the fair use issue. We will be ready to accommodate such a choice.

Filed Under: contracts, copyright, fair use, itunes, itunes radio
Companies: apple, digital music news

Billy Bragg Says Don't Blame Spotify; Blame The Record Labels

from the there-we-go dept

The problem with the business model for streaming is that most artists still have contracts from the analog age, when record companies did all the heavy lifting of physical production and distribution, so only paid artists 8%-15% royalties on average.

Those rates, carried over to the digital age, explain why artists are getting such paltry sums from Spotify. If the rates were really so bad, the rights holders - the major record companies - would be complaining. The fact that they're continuing to sign up means they must be making good money.

Here in Sweden - where I'm doing a show tonight in Malmo - artists have identified that the problem lies with the major record labels rather the streaming service and are taking action to get royalty rates that better reflect the costs involved in digital production and distribution. UK artists would be smart to follow suit.

Filed Under: billy bragg, contracts, labels, luddites, streaming
Companies: pandora, spotify