As noted in a comment above, his wife is now the attorney of record for the ADA shakedown lawsuits. This slight setback has barely impacted the rate. The only thing that might slow them down is if she actually has to show up in court.
How many of the companies you name are really American?
Google, for instance, is apparently largely a Bermuda based company. That's where the license payments for the EU / EMEA region go to. It's not an especially profitable business for the EMEA subsidiary, as the license payments are almost exactly the total revenue minus cost of sales.
Apple isn't being fined. Apple isn't being told they have to pay taxes.
Ireland is being told that the absurdly law tax rate that it offered a select few large companies is illegal state aid.
It might sound a little odd to people in the U.S. But the reason the E.U. has "jurisdiction" is because multinational companies can pick where they recognize EU revenue. Apple cut a special deal with Ireland where they pay almost no tax in exchange for all profit being recognized in Ireland.
There is an extra wrinkle that isn't being talked about yet. This isn't just an issue with revenue earned in the EU. A bunch of tech companies have transferred all of their IP to newly created Irish shell companies. They put this on the books as have very little value at the time of transfer. They then license the software back at a rate that closely matches their revenue. Magically all of the taxable profit then ends up in Ireland, with all other subsidiaries in other tax jurisdiction barely breaking even. They wouldn't be doing this without company-specific tax deals.
The movie industry is well known for "Hollywood Accounting", where the main corporation makes no money no matter how successful the movie is. Most of the added expenses are clearly fraudulent -- they aren't supported by any accounting standard or practice outside the movie industry.
This accounting scheme is often used to defraud naive suppliers that don't understand a movie production company is a throw-away shell that is intended to end up in debt.
Megaupload wasn't running that kind of criminal enterprise.
The Olympics are the ultimate commercialized sport
How is the Olympics anything besides a totally commercialized event? They have unique trademark exceptions, along with global copyrights. The worst abuses and claims of MLB and the NFL pale in comparison.
The competitors are unpaid, yet are required to wear advertising. And only that advertising. They aren't allowed to wear anything from their sponsors, or even allow their sponsors to talk about their Olympic performance.
The filing listed an address of 400 Pratt Street. That's a large business building in downtown Baltimore.
It's possible that it was picked at random, but it's more likely that it's an accurate address for someone involved.
Most of the businesses there don't look especially likely. A few fast food places, parking, accounting, architecture, specialized tech businesses. The only company that stuck out was R2integrated, which does social network marketing.
They fit the profile of sleazy marketing. A search reveals cringe-worthy statements such as "sitting at the cool kids table" and "aligns brand, demand, and technology to deliver on the new promise of integration today".
OK, someone committed a fraud upon the courts in Mr Patel's name.
Has his lawyer notified the court so that the order may be vacated? Doesn't his lawyer have a responsibility to do so immediately? Not eventually, not in due course, but as soon as practical.
Not being illegal doesn't mean that the content industry isn't going to claim that they are illegal.
The 'Betamax case' was decided by the supreme court over a three decades ago. It was well known by everyone in the industry. Yet the industry continues to assert that time and format shifting is illegal.
What about the other side of the bargain -- 'limited time'?
The discussion above leaves out the rest of the constitutional justification -- "for a limited time".
The cable companies want more than the exclusive right to sell the works. They want full control over the access and use of the works. For all time.
They want a world where there is no equivalent of a public library. No equivalent of reselling a book. No equivalent of saving a book for your children to read when they are older. And notably, minimal possibility that the work will ever be available in the public domain.
The IOC claims to own all performance rights. Which goes beyond what any country typically allows.
In the U.S. the standard is "fixed in tangible form", which limits copyright to a specific recording. Major league sports have pioneered the effort to assert ownership to everything relating to the game, including reporting results, but that generally hasn't been supported by the U.S. courts.
No update on sanctions because Oracle revealed sealed information in open court? Just a minor issue of Annette intentionally mis-stating a precedent case?
Oracle wants another crack at a trial that it *lost*, not just a decision it disagreed with. I hope they are re-opening a whole bunch of their own bad behavior.
And shouldn't this trial be in Ireland, since both companies do most of their business there? Oracle claims $7B of revenue there, and Google $12B. Shouldn't this battle be fought where they pay taxes?
We already have emergency communication bands, with long-established networks.
The problem is that they don't interoperate.
The 'solution' is create a new, incompatible and more expensive network. In reality, a new empire with a direct funding path from congress. It doesn't need to be cost-effective, or even work, because no one relies on it.
A far better solution would have been to spend a few hundred million on industry standards, and have the FCC only allow standards-conforming communication systems on the reserved bands.
The absurdity of having private companies buy the spectrum and then having a monopoly to sell it back to the government boggles the mind. The more they spend, the more the justification for high prices. Why only $7.5B? Why not $30B, charge 4x as much, and make 4x the profit? It's basically a poker game where the player with the most money wins everything.
Do we really expect that police-involved deaths are so common that the reports need to batch up the incidents?
It would be much more reasonable for a report to be required within a short period (two weeks) of the death. I'm not a proponent of additional paperwork, but it doesn't seem unreasonably burdensome to document someone's death.
A strategy for fighting a large fire is to light a small fire to create a burnt-out zone. With no fuel to expand, the fire is contained.
Hulu looks as if it was created to suck the life out of nascent competitors, and to "prove" to VCs that no similar model could be profitable.
Except that Netflix, YouTube and other flanked that line and are filling in behind with original programming. And, in YouTube's case, clips that have the key content.
The reference wasn't to the book, but to a story that referenced back to SuperFreakonomics.
I enjoy the Freakonomics stories, but they often omit important details in order to make a point. In this case, they were just one of the several hopping points to legitimizing a number that is bogus.
It appears that the data source that the "27,000 miles" estimate came from was using the category "alcohol positive", which is much larger than the 0.05 BAC number that NHTSA uses as a base number for risk.
It's worth reading the actual NHTSA study reports, rather than the 'opinion piece' summaries. They don't publicize that at the lower levels of "alcohol positive" your risk of an accident goes down. At 0.01 BAC it's about half of a typical sober driver. So if you toss in the low end of "alcohol positive" driving, there are a lot of mile driven by people that have had a drink but aren't arrested. But they aren't legally drunk or statistically dangerous.
The quoted story of "27,000 drunk driving miles per arrest" is obviously bogus. First of all you linked to an AOL story that quoted a different source that had extrapolated from a NHTSA report. And that report was clearly "stacking the number" -- counting the same cost multiple times to exaggerate the cost of the problem. Which is fine for an opinion piece, but it's just the sort of bogus number that changes from unsupported guess to "established fact" after being quoted a few times.
The USOC doesn't need to be legally right in order to make effective threats.
A company risks overwhelming fines, high legal costs and a protracted legal limbo even if they win. Getting a lower-risk, lower-cost declarative judgement isn't possible. They won't have standing until they get a letter from the USOC, and that will be timed so that a judgement won't be made before the issue is moot.
On the post: Prenda's Paul Hansmeier Loses His Law License; Won't Be Filing Bogus ADA Lawsuits For Now
ADA lawsuits now filed in his wife's name..
On the post: Rather Than Coming Up With Brand New Taxes For Tech Companies, The EU Just Issues A Massive Fine On Apple
Re: EU and Apple
Google, for instance, is apparently largely a Bermuda based company. That's where the license payments for the EU / EMEA region go to. It's not an especially profitable business for the EMEA subsidiary, as the license payments are almost exactly the total revenue minus cost of sales.
On the post: Rather Than Coming Up With Brand New Taxes For Tech Companies, The EU Just Issues A Massive Fine On Apple
Apple isn't being fined. Apple isn't being told they have to pay taxes.
Ireland is being told that the absurdly law tax rate that it offered a select few large companies is illegal state aid.
It might sound a little odd to people in the U.S. But the reason the E.U. has "jurisdiction" is because multinational companies can pick where they recognize EU revenue. Apple cut a special deal with Ireland where they pay almost no tax in exchange for all profit being recognized in Ireland.
There is an extra wrinkle that isn't being talked about yet. This isn't just an issue with revenue earned in the EU. A bunch of tech companies have transferred all of their IP to newly created Irish shell companies. They put this on the books as have very little value at the time of transfer. They then license the software back at a rate that closely matches their revenue. Magically all of the taxable profit then ends up in Ireland, with all other subsidiaries in other tax jurisdiction barely breaking even. They wouldn't be doing this without company-specific tax deals.
On the post: Creative Commons Wants To Step Into Lawsuit Over Definition Of 'Noncommercial' In A CC License
FedEx is guilty of piracy
We need to shut down those industries that enable piracy.
On the post: New Zealand Court Grants Kim Dotcom's Request To Have Extradition Hearing Livestreamed On YouTube, Despite DOJ Protests
Movie industry business model
This accounting scheme is often used to defraud naive suppliers that don't understand a movie production company is a throw-away shell that is intended to end up in debt.
Megaupload wasn't running that kind of criminal enterprise.
On the post: If You're Angry About Twitter Banning Someone 'Permanently' For Sharing Olympics GIFs, Blame Copyright Law
The Olympics are the ultimate commercialized sport
The competitors are unpaid, yet are required to wear advertising. And only that advertising. They aren't allowed to wear anything from their sponsors, or even allow their sponsors to talk about their Olympic performance.
On the post: Bogus Defamation Lawsuit With Fake Defendant Results In Negative Reviews Of Dentist Being Taken Down
Possible involved company...
It's possible that it was picked at random, but it's more likely that it's an accurate address for someone involved.
Most of the businesses there don't look especially likely. A few fast food places, parking, accounting, architecture, specialized tech businesses. The only company that stuck out was R2integrated, which does social network marketing.
They fit the profile of sleazy marketing. A search reveals cringe-worthy statements such as "sitting at the cool kids table" and "aligns brand, demand, and technology to deliver on the new promise of integration today".
And yes, they are in the "reputation management" business.
http://www.r2integrated.com/r2insights/hows-your-online-reputation
On the post: Bogus Defamation Lawsuit With Fake Defendant Results In Negative Reviews Of Dentist Being Taken Down
Has his lawyer notified the court so that the order may be vacated? Doesn't his lawyer have a responsibility to do so immediately? Not eventually, not in due course, but as soon as practical.
On the post: Copyright Group, In Arguing Against FCC's Set Top Box Proposal, Appears To Argue That VCRs & DVRs Are Also Illegal
The 'Betamax case' was decided by the supreme court over a three decades ago. It was well known by everyone in the industry. Yet the industry continues to assert that time and format shifting is illegal.
On the post: Copyright Group, In Arguing Against FCC's Set Top Box Proposal, Appears To Argue That VCRs & DVRs Are Also Illegal
What about the other side of the bargain -- 'limited time'?
The cable companies want more than the exclusive right to sell the works. They want full control over the access and use of the works. For all time.
They want a world where there is no equivalent of a public library. No equivalent of reselling a book. No equivalent of saving a book for your children to read when they are older. And notably, minimal possibility that the work will ever be available in the public domain.
On the post: Mexican Government Officials Have Press Creds Withdrawn From Olympics Over Uploaded Cell Phone Footage
In the U.S. the standard is "fixed in tangible form", which limits copyright to a specific recording. Major league sports have pioneered the effort to assert ownership to everything relating to the game, including reporting results, but that generally hasn't been supported by the U.S. courts.
On the post: Hold On... We May Actually Be In For A THIRD Oracle/Google API Copyright Trial
Oracle wants another crack at a trial that it *lost*, not just a decision it disagreed with. I hope they are re-opening a whole bunch of their own bad behavior.
And shouldn't this trial be in Ireland, since both companies do most of their business there? Oracle claims $7B of revenue there, and Google $12B. Shouldn't this battle be fought where they pay taxes?
On the post: Court To Prenda's John Steele: Okay, Now We'll Sum Up How Much You Cost Taxpayers And Need To Pay
Speculation about the costs...
If so, is it possible that it's almost exactly $65,263 plus the additional expense of tabulating the expense plus the cost of the additional hearing?
And a prosecution for perjury.
On the post: Allegations Of Dysfunction Continue To Plague FirstNet, Our $47 Billion (And Growing) National Emergency Network
The problem is that they don't interoperate.
The 'solution' is create a new, incompatible and more expensive network. In reality, a new empire with a direct funding path from congress. It doesn't need to be cost-effective, or even work, because no one relies on it.
A far better solution would have been to spend a few hundred million on industry standards, and have the FCC only allow standards-conforming communication systems on the reserved bands.
The absurdity of having private companies buy the spectrum and then having a monopoly to sell it back to the government boggles the mind. The more they spend, the more the justification for high prices. Why only $7.5B? Why not $30B, charge 4x as much, and make 4x the profit? It's basically a poker game where the player with the most money wins everything.
On the post: DOJ Finally Going To Force Law Enforcement Agencies To Hand Over Info On People Killed By Police Officers
Why quarterly reports?
Do we really expect that police-involved deaths are so common that the reports need to batch up the incidents?
It would be much more reasonable for a report to be required within a short period (two weeks) of the death. I'm not a proponent of additional paperwork, but it doesn't seem unreasonably burdensome to document someone's death.
On the post: Hulu Ditches 'Free' Model Without Giving It A Chance To Succeed
A strategy for fighting a large fire is to light a small fire to create a burnt-out zone. With no fuel to expand, the fire is contained.
Hulu looks as if it was created to suck the life out of nascent competitors, and to "prove" to VCs that no similar model could be profitable.
Except that Netflix, YouTube and other flanked that line and are filling in behind with original programming. And, in YouTube's case, clips that have the key content.
On the post: No, A New Study Does Not Say Uber Has No Effect On Drunk Driving
I enjoy the Freakonomics stories, but they often omit important details in order to make a point. In this case, they were just one of the several hopping points to legitimizing a number that is bogus.
It appears that the data source that the "27,000 miles" estimate came from was using the category "alcohol positive", which is much larger than the 0.05 BAC number that NHTSA uses as a base number for risk.
It's worth reading the actual NHTSA study reports, rather than the 'opinion piece' summaries. They don't publicize that at the lower levels of "alcohol positive" your risk of an accident goes down. At 0.01 BAC it's about half of a typical sober driver. So if you toss in the low end of "alcohol positive" driving, there are a lot of mile driven by people that have had a drink but aren't arrested. But they aren't legally drunk or statistically dangerous.
On the post: No, A New Study Does Not Say Uber Has No Effect On Drunk Driving
A misquote of a misinterpretation of a non-study
On the post: Minnesota Carpet Cleaning Business Sues US Olympic Committee Over Its Ridiculous Social Media Rules
'No standing' until the case is moot
A company risks overwhelming fines, high legal costs and a protracted legal limbo even if they win. Getting a lower-risk, lower-cost declarative judgement isn't possible. They won't have standing until they get a letter from the USOC, and that will be timed so that a judgement won't be made before the issue is moot.
On the post: Texas Governor Latest To Ask For A 'Hate Crime' Law That Covers Attacks On Cops
(Did I miss something?)
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