CORPORADOS

DEMOCRATS TARGET CREDIT CARD COMPANIES

[Christian churches might want to consider reviewing what the Bible has
to say about usury and reflect on whether this might not be a more
worthy target of concern than gays who want to get married

MARCY GORDON, AP - Democratic lawmakers challenged credit card
executives over rising late fees and other penalties and marketing
practices they portrayed as predatory. . . Several Democratic members of
the panel are proposing legislation to require companies to provide more
details to consumers on how long it will take them to pay off their debts if
they make minimum monthly payments, and to rein in solicitations of college students. . .

A study by congressional investigators released in October found that
fees for paying credit card bills late averaged $34, up from $13 in
1995, while some card issuers impose penalty interest rates of more than
30 percent on consumers who pay late or exceed the credit limit.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-6371309,00.html

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

STATE FARM CHERRY PICKS ITS OUT OF MISSISSIPPI

JOSEPH RHEE, ABC NEWS BLOTTER - Blaming lawsuits filed against the
company by angry homeowners, State Farm Insurance says it will no longer
sell business or homeowner policies in Mississippi. The decision will
have a huge impact in Mississippi as State Farm currently covers 30
percent of homeowners in the state. . . State Farm had been hit by a
wave of lawsuits from victims of Hurricane Katrina who claimed the
company had wrongly denied or low-balled their claims. An exclusive
report by ABC News detailed charges that State Farm Insurance
supervisors demanded that Hurricane Katrina damage reports be buried or
replaced or changed so that the company would not have to pay
policyholders' claims in Mississippi.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

RECORDING INDUSTRY HAS TO PAY ATTORNEY FEES TO ONE OF ITS VICTIMS

WIRED - Debbie Foster, the RIAA file sharing defendent who notoriously
took on the organization after it went after her for copyright
infringement, has won some amount of the legal fees she seeks from the
RIAA after having their case against her dismissed last summer. This is
a significant development; the landmark case could have dramatic
repercussions for the RIAA's legal campaign against file sharers, since
a precedent now exists for the RIAA to compensate wrongfully-sued
defendants for their legal costs. (Capitol Records' mistake was to claim
Debbie Foster was liable for any infringement occurring on her internet
account, regardless of who actually downloaded and subsequently shared
the files.). . .

What a bad day for major labels... first Steve Jobs tells them he's had
it with DRM, and now a judge says they're going to have to pay up if
they sue people for sharing files, but then can't prove that the
infringement happened.

http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/02/scoop_label_mus.html#more

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

MOVEMENT TO BOYCOTT RECORDING CORPORADOS

GIZMODO - We've been following the RIAA's increasingly frequent affronts
to privacy and free speech lately, and it's about time we stopped merely
bitching and moaning and did something about it. The RIAA has the power
to shift public policy and to alter the direction of technology and the
Internet for one reason and one reason alone: it's totally loaded.
Without their millions of dollars to throw at lawyers, the RIAA is
toothless. They get their money from us, the consumers, and if we don't
like the way they're behaving, we can let them know with our wallets.

With that in mind, Gizmodo is declaring the month of March Boycott the
RIAA month. . .

Firstly, I encourage everyone to purchase music from unsigned bands and
bands on independent record labels. . .

Secondly, you can still support RIAA-signed bands without buying their
music. Go see them live and buy their merchandise; they get a hell of a
lot more money from that then they do from album sales. . .

Let me just reiterate that we are not saying you should stop buying
music and start pirating everything. We need to send a message with our
wallets to the RIAA, and that message will only be stronger if we show
support for musicians without your money making its way to the lawyer
fund.

So come on, make next month one to remember. Let's stand together and
let the RIAA know that yes, we are paying attention and no, we aren't
going to put up with their unethical practices any longer. -Adam Frucci

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/putting-our-money-
where-our-mouths-are-boycott-the-riaa-in-march-239281.php

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

ELECTRIC SLIDE INVENTOR CLAIMS COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT FOR VIDEOS OF
DANCING

DANIEL TERDIMAN, CNET NEWS - The inventor of the "Electric Slide," an
iconic dance created in 1976, is fighting back against what he believes
are copyright violations and, more importantly, examples of bad dancing.
Kyle Machulis, an engineer at San Francisco's Linden Lab, said he
received a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice about a
video he had shot at a recent convention showing three people doing the
Electric Slide. "The creator of the Electric Slide claims to hold a
copyright on the dance and is DMCAing every single video on You Tube"
that references the dance, Machulis said. He's also sent licensing
demands to The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Machulis added.

Indeed, Richard Silver, who filed the copyright for the Electric Slide
in 2004, said on one of his Web pages that the DeGeneres Show had been
putting up a legal fight as he tried to get compensation for a segment
that aired in February 2006 in which actress Teri Hatcher and other
dancers performed the popular wedding shuffle. . .

http://news.com.com/Electric+Slide+on+slippery+DMCA+slope/
2100-1030_3-6156021.html?tag=nefd.top

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||