Top New Years Resolutions Stocks

Consumers are planning their New Year's resolutions now, including weight loss, exercising, and getting a job. Investors are also planning their resolutions by looking at New Year's resolutions companies. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has just updated the list of top New Years resolution stocks, which could make your portfolio healthier. Check out the following.

Weight Watcher's International Inc. (WTW), founded in 1963, is one of the oldest weight loss companies in the world. The stock has a forward PE of 13.6, and pays a fairly generous yield, at least compared to other New Years stocks, of 1.9%.

Herbalife Ltd. (HLF) has done quite well this year, rising from 39.87 at the end of December last year to over 68 today, an increase of an amazing 70%. The company, a provider of nutritional supplement and personal care products, has a forward PE of 13, with a yield of 1.4%.

Lululemon Athletica Inc. (LULU) is another resolution stock that has performed extremely well, going from around 31 per share at the beginning of the year, doubling to above 68. It is a Vancouver, Canada based company that produces and markets fitness related apparel for yoga, running, dancing, and other exercise related activities. The stock has a forward PE of 39, and doesn't pay a dividend.

To see the entire list of New Years Resolution stocks, which can be downloaded, sorted, and updated, go to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

Disclosure: Author did not own any of the above at the time the article was written.

By Stockerblog.com

No Luck Returning Christmas Gifts? Recycle!

The holiday whirlwind is subsiding. Most of the wrapping paper has been rounded up and set out at the curb in a bulging plastic bag. What’s left is a pile of stuff under the tree that needs to go somewhere. Not the decorations, mind you. They have a box in the basement. It’s all those new gifts that loving friends and family showered upon you this year. You didn’t have the heart to tell them that you already have a smartphone or game console or MP3 player or navigation device or even a laptop computer that’s better than the new one in the box. Now what?

The week after Christmas is traditional for schlepping gifts back to the store from which they came. Another item or, better yet, a cash refund is your reward for standing in long lines to present your paperwork for inspection.

Oh, no. You have no paperwork. These gifts did not come with a refund register slip. The giver never thought of that or was so sure they were giving you the gift of a lifetime that you wouldn’t consider exchanging it for something else. Are you going to tell Aunt Millie, your mom or your bosses boss that you really don’t want that electronic whatever?

Save yourself the embarrassment and the standing in lines. There’s a much easier and more discrete way to unload a Christmas burden... er... gift. Just go ahead and recycle it.

What? Stick that new e-reader in the curbside recycling bin? That’s nuts!

Of course it is. I’m not talking about trashing a valuable piece of new electronic or photographic gear. What I’m suggesting is that you quickly and easily sell your new, but unwanted, stuff for cash to an online recycler. They’ll take care of finding it a new home where it will be wanted and you’ll be all the richer. Best of all, nobody’s going to rat you out to the boss or relatives.

How much can you get? The best way to see is to find your item on the Gazelle website. They maintain an up-to-date database of all the stuff they buy, with an instant online offer. You simply find the item you have to sell, check a few boxes indicating condition and available accessories, and then click a button to get an offer. If you like what you see, you accept the offer and you’ll get a free postage paid shipping box sent to you. Then carefully pack your item in the box, wish it the best for a new life, and drop it off for shipment. Once your item has been received and evaluated, you’ll get a check. It’s that easy.

What sort of gadgets does Gazelle buy? All sorts of cell phones, digital cameras, desktop computers, external drives, tablets, video games, PDAs, calculators, streaming media, e-readers, movies, gaming consoles, LCD monitors, home audio, laptop computers, GPS devices, camera lenses, projectors, MP3 players, camcorders, satellite radios and Blu-Ray players.

You’ll get the most money for new items, but you can also sell used devices of recent vintage in good condition. Cell Phones that have just come out of service are excellent candidates for resale. Sometimes you can get paid a good chunk of change for a cell phone that you got free from your provider. It’s well worth your while to check offers for every piece of qualified gear that you have around the house or office.

Now that you know how to convert gifts to cash the easy and discrete way, go ahead and get all that unwanted but valuable stuff out of your way before you have to find a place to store it. Once you have cashed-in unwanted gifts, you can look the givers in the eye and honestly say that you wound up with exactly what you wanted.

The Company that Benefits the Most from Higher Interest Rates

Investors are afraid of higher rates. They are concerned that rising interest rates will make it harder to buy real estate, make it more expensive for companies to get and repay short-term loans, and make it difficult for consumers to make their credit card payments. So higher rates will adversely affect banks, REITs and utilities, and of course any companies that incur a lot of debt.

Most analysts say that pharmaceutical stocks and consumer staples are the best places to put your money during rising rates. But there is one stock that will benefit big time from higher interest that doesn't fall into either of these sectors. The stock is Apple Inc. (AAPL).

Why Apple? First of all, it has no long-term debt. Second, the company has a huge amount of cash. No wonder why I referred to Apple as a money market fund a few months ago. Although many articles report that it has about $51 billion in cash, that number includes $25.391 billion in what Apple's accountants consider long-term marketable securities. But Apple does have $11.261 billion in cash and cash equivalent securities plus $14.359 billion in short term marketable securities, for a total of $25.56 billion.

Apple's weighted average interest rate has been dropping for the last three years, as have rates in general, from 3.44% in 2008, to 1.43% in 2009, to 0.75% for the current year. Of the $25.56 billion in what is essentially cash, total income based on the 0.75% weighted rate is about $191.7 million.

If the rate increased to 3% and assuming the balance remains the same (but it should certainly increase), interest income on effective cash would rise to $766.8 million, and at 5%, the income would be $1.278 billion, or $1.18 in additional earnings per share, currently at $15.15 per share. This additional interest is a pre-tax number, but based on the company’s effective tax rate, additional earnings would still be close to a dollar a share.

Plus there are no other expenses incurred in generating this income. No salaries, no capital expenditures of manufacturing equipment, no purchase of raw materials, no office space rental, no nothing; just some electrons on a computer screen. Talk about easy money.

If you want to check out the lists of stocks which have a lot of cash, which can be downloaded, sorted, and updated, go to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

Disclosure: Author owns AAPL.

By Stockerblog.com

How to rescue magazine sales on iPad

It is no surprise that magazine sales on the iPad have fallen since the summer, as the novelty of pawing through a publication on the new toy wore off. In the most extreme case of fatigue, Wired sold 100,000 copies of the first issue it put on the iPad in June but only about 22,000 in November, according to statistics culled from the Audit Bureau of Circulations and first reported at Women’s

Add International Capability To Your Cell Phone

The move from landlines to wireless phones is picking up steam. That offers an opportunity for mobile professionals to always be able to connect with prospects, customers and suppliers. One limitation, though, is that cell phone plans tend to exclude international calls or impose rates that make international long distance service impractical. Is there a solution?

There is a terrific solution in the form of a third party add-on service that integrates seamlessly with whatever cellular service you have now. Technically, it’s called international dial-around. You are not changing providers. Instead, you use the dial-around service to literally “dial around” your current cellular service when you need to make overseas calls from the US and Canada.

TEL3Advantage is a leader in the international dial-around space. Take one look at the per minute rates to the destination of your choice and you’ll see why. Let’s just choose to call China, for instance. The Flex Plan rate is 1.32 cents per minute. You read that correctly. It’s cheaper to call your contacts in China using Tel3Advantage than it is to call another city with most landline long distance services. Actually, this service will work just as well from a landline as a cell phone, so it makes sense to get Tel3Advantage and use it from all your phones.

By the way, you can call China for 30 days at just a penny a minute using the special Promo Plan when you sign up for Tel3Advantage service. Compare quality and service with your current long distance service or the calling cards you get at the convenience store. You’ll be so impressed by the calling rates, connection quality and customer service that you’ll gladly continue after the 30 day introductory period is over.

Give it a fair test. The stated rates are impressive enough. But note that there are no hidden fees involved like you run into with prepaid calling cards. Did you know that you almost never get the stated rate from a calling card? There are connection fees, inactivity fees and so on that reduce the number of actual minutes you get for your dollar. The true rate is often several times what’s printed on the face of the card when you actually start making calls. With Tel3Advantage you’ll pay the stated per-minute rates. You only get charged extra for calls from a payphone, if you can even find one anymore, or if you call from Alaska, Hawaii or US territories beyond the 48 continuous states.

Also note that your cellular provider will probably charge you minutes for the time spent calling through Tel3Advantage unless you are making calls during the free nights or weekends provision of your plan. That’s probably not important for most users, since you are paying for a bundle of minutes per month anyway. It can be a consideration for pre-paid cellular plans. Even so, just where are you going to get cheaper international rates even including the per minute charges of a pre-paid cell plan?

So, how does this service actually work? It’s pretty easy. You dial a local or toll free access number to reach the Tel3Advantage platform. Then you dial the international number you want to reach. There are no long PIN numbers to remember. You register your phone numbers with Tel3 and the system recognizes your phone when you call. You can avoid even dialing the access number yourself by downloading a TEL3App for your iPhone or smartphone. Then it’s no harder to make an international call than to place a call to a business across town.

Do you have a need to make low cost international calls from a landline phone, a cell phone or both? If so, learn more, compare rates and check out additional free minute offers for TEL3Advantage International Calling Service.

Note: Globe image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Warren Buffetts Next Door

The book The Warren Buffetts Next Door: The World's Greatest Investors You've Never Heard Of and What You Can Learn From Them by Matthew Schifrin is an interesting compilation of true stories about 'average Joes' who have made huge amounts of money in the stock market. Some use technical analysis, some use fundamental analysis, and some use gut feelings.

This book gives hope to every investor and trader. Each chapter covers a different person, describing what their occupation is, how old they are, their investment strategy, what broker they use, and what their favorite web sites and chat rooms are. Also, their best and worst picks, along with the long term track record. My favorite one is the Stock Angler in Chapter 9. The guy has a full time job, trades during the hour or two before he leaves for work, and has been able to achieve a 33% average annualized return since January 2003.

Every trader that is profiled provides an example of on of their successful trades, and shows how the decision was made to make the trade. I really like the last chapter which lists all the major investment websites which he calls Investor Incubators. You should read The Warren Buffetts Next Door for proof that you don't have to be Warren Buffett, George Soros, T. Boone Pickens, or Carl Icahn to be a successful stock trader.

The Problems with Our Educational System

Check out the real life exams and homework that was turned in, and note the teacher's comments. Some of these are funny, some of these are sad, some are both funny and sad.

Use it or lose it? The Scottish Law Commission reflects on copyright and limitation periods

The 1709 Blog has just heard news from the Scottish academic and amiable IP personality Hector MacQueen that the Scottish Law Commission has just published its Discussion Paper No 144 entitled "Prescription and Title to Moveable Property". This doesn't sound much like anything to do with copyright, but let Hector take up the story:

"In Part 11 it considers the possibility raised amongst many other points in Fisher v Brooker [2009] UKHL 41 [the "Whiter Shade of Pale" case, potted by the 1709 Blog here], namely that under Scots law's Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 non-use of a copyright work for 20 years could lead to the right-holder being unable to enforce the right and indeed losing it altogether. While Lord Hope in Fisher thought this could not be right, there is no provision in the 1973 Act to make the point directly. The Discussion Paper discusses the implications for the problem of orphan works, and suggests that the 1973 Act should have added to it a provision similar to section 39 of the Limitation Act 1980 in England, under which limitation rules do not apply to any right for which a fixed time period is provided by any other enactment, whether passed before or after the coming into force of the enactment in question.
This would apply to the copyright legislation and prevent any possible difference between Scotland and England in the application of copyright law.

One of the difficulties for the Commission is that, so far as it can tell, this suggestion could only be put into effect by the Westminster Parliament. This is because it seems that the amendment would apply only to intellectual property legislation, which is not devolved to the Scottish Parliament under the Scotland Act 1998. One of the things the Commission would like to know is whether section 39 of the Limitation Act 1980 has any application beyond intellectual property legislation. If it does, it might then be possible to say that the Commission's suggestion did not apply only to intellectual property and hence could be legislated upon by the Scottish Parliament. Para 1.12 of the Discussion Paper briefly explains the issues".

Hector adds, and we agree, that it would be very helpful if any of our readers who are expert in English law generally could point the Commission in any relevant direction on this.

Secret Year-End Tax Tips

I am not a CPA nor am I a tax attorney, and any of the following suggestions are just ideas that should be reviewed with your own CPA and/or tax attorney. Second, some of these suggestions may trigger or adversely affect the Alternative Minimum Tax, so talk to your tax advisor about this. I tried to come up with some uncommon tips that you normally wouldn't see written about elsewhere.

1. $20 Gold Pieces for Your Heirs
This is one I heard from a coin dealer, so be very skeptical about this and definitely run it by your accountant. The technique is to buy a bunch of rare $20 Gold Pieces which you will eventually leave to your heirs. When I say rare, I mean $100,000 or $200,000 for a coin. When you pass away, because the coins are still considered currency, they will only be valued at $20 each for estate tax purposes (according to this coin dealer). The coin dealer has other suggestions with these coins (i.e. being paid with them to reduce capital gains, etc.), but I'm even more skeptical about that. (Do you think the coin dealer has a hidden motive by saying this?) Like I said, ask your CPA or tax attorney.

2. Anonymous Donations to Charity
If you have ever wanted to make a totally anonymous donation to a charity (and there are several reasons you may want to) but still want to be able to take a tax deduction, here is what you can do. Go to your local post office and buy some Postal Money Orders. You are allowed up to $1000 per money order. Don't request more than three at once, otherwise the Post Office will request identification from you. On the money orders, write the name of the charity where it says "Pay to" along with the charity's address, but leave the part where it says "From" blank. However, on the receipt, which you will keep with your tax records, you can fill in your name as the sender. As for the original, send it in to the charitable organization in a plain envelope and no one will be able to trace it back to you.

3. Worthless Stocks
According to the IRS, "a taxpayer who owns stock that was acquired on the open market for investment and that has declined in value is allowed a deduction for a capital loss in the taxable year in which the stock is sold or exchanged or becomes wholly worthless." But the big question is "When do they become worthless?" Worthless is kind of a nebulous word. Just because a company declares bankruptcy, doesn't necessarily mean that the stock stops trading. And I've seen several stocks stop trading for a year or two then start up again. If you have the stock in the form of a certificate, there are companies that will buy your old certificates as collectibles. It may not be much, maybe only a dollar, unless the company is in an unusual industry or has an interesting picture on it. The sale might be considered a transaction for capital loss purposes, but you need to ask your advisor.

Please note, if a public company committed accounting fraud (e.g Enron), you cannot deduct the loss as a theft loss. The IRS states that they will disallow such deductions and may impose penalties.

4. Short Selling
If you are a short seller, and you short a lot of stocks that pay dividends, remember that technically you owe and pay the dividends to the owner of the shares that you shorted. Since this is an investment expense, make sure your accountant takes this into consideration.

5. Municipal Bonds from US Territories
For the owners of a diverse portfolio of municipal bonds who live in states with income taxes, remember that if you have any munis from Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, or Guam, the income is exempt from state income taxes. On the Tax Statement Form from brokerage firms, generally all income from municipal bonds are lumped together in the same section. If you live in California, and you own munis from New York, California, Puerto Rico, and Texas, the interest on the California and Puerto Rico bonds are exempt. Occasionally, staff workers at accounting firms may carve out (in this case) just the California interest, and lump all the other interest together, including the Puerto Rico interest, as taxable California income. Of course, it's always a good idea to check your entire return before you sign it.

You will of course see a lot of other tax saving tip articles this week. A couple things to keep in mind. Many income and deduction adjustments can trigger the AMT. Also, if you expect your income to be much higher next year, take a longer term approach to planning your deductions. As previously mentioned, check any tax techniques, the ones above and any others that you read about, with your tax advisor.

By Stockerblog.com

How to Get Unlimited FDIC Coverage on One Bank Account

All funds in a 'noninterest-bearing transaction account' are insured in full by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from December 31, 2010 through December 31, 2012. This temporary unlimited coverage is in addition to, and separate from, the coverage of at least $250,000 available to depositors under the FDIC's general deposit insurance rules.

The term 'noninterest-bearing transaction account' includes a traditional checking account or demand deposit account on which the insured depository institution pays no interest. It does not include other accounts, such as traditional checking or demand deposit accounts that may earn interest, NOW accounts, money-market deposit accounts, and Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts.

For more information about temporary FDIC insurance coverage of transaction accounts, visit http://www.fdic.gov.

Bond Trading Versus Stock Trading

Bond Trading Versus Stock Trading

Guest Article

Overview of bond trading

In the financial and investment market, bonds refer to a type of debt security whereby the issuer of the bond owes the purchaser a debt. Depending on the specific terms of the bond, the issuer is obligated to paying the purchaser interest and/or repays the total principle to the purchaser at a later date. This date is referred to as the maturity day. It is a formal financial contract the borrowed money is repaid with interest included and paid at fixed intervals throughout the life of that contract.

There are numerous types of bonds such as bearer bonds, fixed-rate, and many others. However one of the most common and popular are the municipal bonds which are typically issued by different government agencies such as a city or local governments, state governments, or US territories. The interest that the purchaser of the bond receives is normally exempt from federal and state income taxes.

Overview of stock trading

Even though stock trading is a common terminology, it is actually a misnomer because you really don’t trade shares of stock. You purchase them for the purposes of selling them at a profit. In the language of the financial and investment markets, you purchase and sell shares of stock either on the floor of one of the different stock exchanges or online. Additionally, the individual who purchases and sells shares of stocks is referred to as a stock trader.

Advantages and disadvantages bond trading

As with any type of financial and investment instrument, there are certain advantages and disadvantages to trading bonds. Although they tend to be much less aggressive than shares of stocks typically are, they usually provide the investor with a steady income stream. Over the long-term, this means that their performance might be poorer than what you would experience with stocks. Additionally, and like other investments, there are certain risks involved with bond investing.

The two primary advantages are those involving income and ratings. The income advantage is the fact that they are a safer investment than stocks while the rating advantage is a system that enables the investor to gauge a bond’s reliability. The key disadvantages involve risk and security. The former is associated with the fact that you can’t always trust those systems that rate bonds. The security disadvantage refers to the fact that the bond is only as good as what the borrower’s ability to repay the loan is.

Advantages and disadvantages of stock trading

As with trading in the bond market there are certain advantages and disadvantages where stock trading is concerned that you need to be aware of:

The key advantages are:

o better returns on one’s investment
o familiarity with the larger companies
o wide range of investment choices

The key disadvantages include:

o cost of shares
o leverage is typically lower than other forms of investments such as the FOREX market
o uptick rules regarding short selling meaning that you have to wait for the price of the stock to increase before you can short sell it

The Easy Way To Host Lots Of Domains

With more and more businesses moving online, companies are finding that one domain name is no longer adequate. You may very well want an individual domain name for each product line you offer. Online marketers will definitely find themselves constructing separate web sites to be fine tuned for each type of product sold or even each demographic group being targeted. The problem then becomes how to host all those domains.

The traditional difficult and expensive hosting solution is to buy a separate hosting service for each domain you register. Even at $5 to $10 per month each, that can get expensive for smaller businesses and independent marketing people. If all you have is a few domain names and that’s all you ever expect to need, then go ahead and add hosting services at the same time you buy your domains. For only a few domains it won't get that pricey and you'll avoid paying for a large hosting account that you’ll never need.

So how can you host a dozen or more domains without breaking the bank? One approach that is often touted for this purpose is to start with a single hosting account and then purchase “add on” domain hosting. Usually for a couple of bucks a month each, the hosting service will program their servers to allow you to have an additional domain on your shared hosting service. The way this works is that a separate folder is created within your public HTML hosting space where you put the files for this extra site. It’s just like any other folder, except that the system knows to direct the visitor to those files for the “add on” domain. As you add more domains, you add more and more folders.

I’ve used this approach and, while it works, you still have only one control panel and one htaccess file to cover all domains. Frankly, I much prefer the flexibility and independence of giving each domain its own cPanel and being able to allocate storage and bandwidth quotas depending on the size and traffic for each site. You’ll really appreciate this if you need to do some experimenting during development of a brand new site and don’t want to risk affecting the operation of your existing sites.

Does this mean you need to stick with individual hosting plans for each domain to decouple them? No, not at all. The solution you want is called reseller hosting. It was intended for Internet development businesses that support many clients and want to give each of them their own separate account. With a reseller account, you can create web sites for many businesses and then let them make their own updates, confident that one customer can’t do anything to damage the site of another customer. You can also use reseller hosting to rebrand the hosting plan so you can sell hosting accounts to your customers.

The name “reseller” pretty much describes a service that is intended to be split into smaller accounts and resold at a profit. You can also keep all of the accounts for yourself and treat each web site you construct as if it were for a separate customer. The difference is that you personally maintain all the sites by logging into a separate control panel for each site. You also get a master control panel called the WHM or Web Host Manager to create, upgrade and delete all those individual sites.

Why would you want to buy something for your own use that is designed to be resold? Simple. The price is right. For instance, You can get a HostGator reseller web hosting account for $24.95 a month. That gives you 50 GB of disk space and 500 GB of bandwidth to host unlimited domains.

You read that correctly. You can host all the domains that will fit into your reseller account for $24.95 a month. Let’s say that you want to host 25 sites on your account. You can assign each site 2 GB of storage and 20 GB of monthly bandwidth. The cost spread across all sites comes to $1 per site for hosting. Just where are you going to get professional grade web hosting with free website templates, free site builder software, unlimited MySQL Databases, unlimited sub domains, and unlimited POP 3 email accounts for a buck a month per site?

With the $24.95 per month reseller hosting account, you may find that you can host dozens and dozens of small “mini sites” or affiliate marketing customized sites to support Internet sales. One beauty of this approach is that you can always add another site at a whim when a bright idea occurs. Just buy a domain name, set the name servers for that domain to the ones for your reseller hosting, and create an account for your new domain. In a matter of hours or less you can have a completely new site up and running, even in the middle the night. I know, I’ve done it many times to capture a new business opportunity that suddenly emerged.

By the way, you are not limited to 50GB disk & 500 GB bandwidth. If you need more, order a larger reseller account up to 200 GB disk & 1400 GB bandwidth for $99.95 per month. Beyond that, you may ready to move up to virtual private hosting or a completely dedicated server. All of these are available and fully explained at HostGator.

Note: Photo of server rack courtesy of William Viker on Wikimedia Commons.

Book Review: The Disneyland Encyclopedia

I have been a fan of Walt Disney, Disneyland, and The Walt Disney Company (DIS) for many, many years, maybe since I was born. As a devotee (and fortunately a California resident), I have been to Disneyland numerous times, for birthdays, dates, high school graduation celebration, family vacations, etc. So I was very pleasantly surprised to receive as a gift the book The Disneyland Encyclopedia: The Unofficial, Unauthorized, and Unprecedented History of Every Land, Attraction, Restaurant, Shop, and Event in the Original Magic Kingdom by Chris Strodder.

This book is by far the most complete reference on Disneyland ever, covering every attraction that ever existed, every store and shop that was ever set up in the Magic Kingdom, even every restroom right down to the bathroom signs. The book also includes write-ups on the people involved in the design and building of Disneyland. It also covers interesting trivia about some of the Disneyland secrets such as Club 33 and what the names on many of the Main Street windows represent. (Here's a trivia question: where does the 33 come from for Club 33?)

I especially enjoyed reading the sections on the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. If you like Disneyland and you like trivia, you will love The Disneyland Encyclopedia.

The Network is Your Customer

The quality of books I have been asked to review during the last month or so has gone way up; not sure why, but the last couple have been excellent. The one I'm reviewing now, The Network Is Your Customer: Five Strategies to Thrive in a Digital Age by David L. Rogers, is great. The books covers how to be successful in business through networking, using five strategies, access, engage, customize, connect, and collaborate.

I love the real life examples that he gives throughout the book, and includes both small (as small as one person) and large organizations. Chapter 8 is probably the most important one, describing how to implement his advice. Each step is broken down into easily understandable and implementable sub-steps. At the end of the book is a helpful self-assessment which allows you to determine how networked your organization is.

If you are involved with a business or even a non-profit organization, and your organizational networking could use come improvement, then I highly recommend The Network Is Your Customer.

Here's an Investment: Purse Weapon $13,100

A purse from the Almond Collection which originally sold for $345, was recently sold for $13,100 on eBay (EBAY). This was the purse that was used to hit a gunman at a Florida school board meeting. The proceeds will go to charity and will be matched by the purse manufacturer.

Founder of Vanguaard Group Speaking at Museum of American Finance

Speaking of Wall Street, John C. Bogle, Founder of Vanguard Group, will be speaking at the Museum of American Finance, located at 48 Wall Street, Manhattan, New York on January 19, 2011, 5:30pm to 7:00 pm. Free to members, $15 for non-members.

Sweater for Bull Statue on Wall Street

The 'Charging Bull' on Wall Street, a popular 7,000 pound bronze attraction for tourists, received a gift of a bright purple sweater. The sweater was removed a few hours after it was discovered on this Wall Street icon.

Punishment by Press Release, as General Court raps Commission's knuckles

In Case T-19/07 Systran SA and another v European Commission, a General Court of the European Union decision of 16 December 2010 which is still available in French only, the Court ordered the European Commission to pay Systran liquidated damages of €12,001,000 for infringing the IP in Systran's copyright and know-how relating to the Unix version of Systran's machine translation software.

In short, the non-contractual liability of the European Union depends on the following conditions being satisfied: (i) the conduct alleged against an institution must be unlawful, (ii) actual damage must have been suffered and (iii) there must be a causal link between the conduct and the damage alleged. The General Court considered that the Commission's conduct ticked all three boxes.  According to the Curia press release,

"Between 22 December 1997 and 15 March 2002, the company Systran Luxembourg adapted, under the name EC-Systran Unix, its Systran-Unix machine translation software to the specific needs of the Commission in this field.

On 4 October 2003 the Commission published a call for tenders for the maintenance and linguistic enhancement of its machine translation system. The services required by the Commission from the successful contractor concerned, inter alia, ‘enhancements, adaptations and additions to linguistic routines’; ‘specific improvements to analysis, transfer and synthesis programs’ and ‘system updates’, as covered by the call for tenders.

Following that call for tenders, Systran – the parent company of Systran Luxembourg – contacted the Commission to inform it that the planned work appeared likely to infringe its intellectual property rights. For more than 40 years Systran has supplied companies and authorities with machine translation solutions based on the software which bears its name. In particular, Systran created and marketed a version of the Systran software capable of functioning on the Unix and Windows operating systems (Systran Unix) and of replacing the earlier, now obsolete version, which functioned on the Mainframe operating system (Systran Mainframe).

After correspondence between Systran and the Commission, the latter took the view that Systran had not produced ‘probative documents’ capable of establishing the rights which Systran might claim in respect of its EC-Systran Unix machine translation system. The Commission therefore considered that the Systran group had no right to object to the work carried out by the company which had been successful in the call for tenders.

Considering that, after the award of the tender contract, the Commission had unlawfully disclosed its know-how to a third party and that the Commission was infringing its copyright when unauthorised development of the EC-Systran Unix version was carried out by the successful contractor, Systran and Systran Luxembourg brought an action for damages against the Commission before the General Court.

Since the parties could not reach any agreement to resolve the matter when invited by the General Court following the hearing to attempt conciliation, the General Court now gives its ruling on the action for damages.

The General Court states, first, that the dispute concerns non-contractual liability. The contracts entered into in the past by the Commission to enable it to use the Systran software do not deal with questions of disclosure of Systran’s know-how to a third party or the carrying out of work which might infringe the intellectual property rights of that company.

As regards the unlawfulness of the Commission’s alleged conduct, the General Court considers
that the Systran group has established that there is a substantial similarity, in the core material and certain linguistic routines (programmes), between the Systran Unix and EC-Systran Unix versions, and that the Systran group can therefore rely on the rights held in the Systran Unix version, developed and marketed by Systran since 1993, to object to the disclosure to a third party without its consent of the derivative EC-Systran Unix version, adapted by Systran Luxembourg from 1997 onwards to meet the needs of the Commission.

For its part, the Commission was unable to establish over which parts of the core material and the linguistic routines of Systran Unix it claimed rights of property as a result, inter alia, of the rights it held in dictionaries encoded by its own staff.

Moreover, Systran has proved that, contrary to the claims of the Commission, the alterations
requested by the call for tenders require access to elements of the EC-Systran Unix version which are taken from the version Systran Unix and require their alteration.

Consequently, by granting the right to carry out work which necessarily entailed an alteration of elements of the Systran Unix version of the Systran software which are within the EC-Systran Unix version, without first obtaining the consent of the Systran group, the Commission acted unlawfully by infringing the general principles common to the law of the Member States applicable to copyright and know-how. That wrongful act, which is a sufficiently serious breach of the copyright and know-how held by the Systran group in the Systran Unix version of the Systran software, gives rise to non-contractual liability on the part of the European Union.
As regards the damage, the General Court rules that liquidated damages and interest amounting to €12 001 000 must be paid to Systran to compensate it for the damage suffered as a result of the Commission’s unlawful conduct, namely:

- €7 million corresponding to the total fees which would have been payable between 2004 and 2010 if the Commission had requested permission to use Systran’s intellectual property rights in order to carry out the work specified in the call for tenders, which requires access to and alteration of elements of the Systran Unix version reproduced in the EC-Systran Unix version;
- €5 million as compensation for the effect which the Commission’s conduct might have had on Systran’s turnover in the years 2004 to 2010, and more widely on the development of that company;
- €1 000 as compensation for non-material damage.

In addition, the General Court observes that it is for the Commission to draw all appropriate
conclusions in order to ensure that Systran’s rights in the Systran Unix version are taken into account as concerns the work relating to the EC-Systran Unix version. If they are not taken into account, given that the damage for which compensation is awarded in this case holds only for the period from 2004 to the date of delivery of this judgment, Systran would be entitled to bring before the General Court a fresh action seeking damages in respect of the further damage it might suffer.

Lastly, the General Court adds that the publication of this press release is also a form of
non-pecuniary compensation for the non-material damage caused by the harm to Systran’s
reputation as a result of the Commission’s unlawful conduct".

GoPro HD Camera

GoPro HD Motorsports HERO Camera

I just got one for Christmas.  I can't wait for my 64GB SD card to show up so that I can play!

Click on the link above to buy it from Amazon.

PRI Lines For Domestic Call Centers

Domestic call centers have become a popular option for many companies. These range from in-house customer contact centers to independent call centers that contract for the customer service of other businesses. One thing that is common to all call centers is telephone service. The most popular option in telephone service is PRI lines. Let’s see why.

PRI stands for Primary Rate Interface. It is part of the ISDN or Integrated Services Digital Network specification. ISDN was envisioned as a way for all telephone lines to move from analog to digital. The basic service is called BRI or Basic Rate Interface. It offers two phone lines, a phone line and a 64 Kbps data service or a 128 Kbps data service.

ISDN BRI never took off to become the popular small business and residential service that was intended. What happened is that DSL and Cable broadband emerged to deliver much higher bandwidths. Telephone service has made a major transition to cell phones and VoIP. Even so, BRI is still popular, where available, for radio station remote broadcasts & interviews.

ISDN PRI, the big brother to BRI, is now the most popular way to connect to a PBX telephone system for businesses and other organizations. As a digital phone service it is configured into 23 separate digital telephone lines plus a data channel for switching and Caller ID.

PRI service is available just about everywhere. That’s because it was designed to ride on a common 24 channel T1 line provisioned on two twisted pair copper wires. Nearly all businesses have bundled twisted pair cables already installed for multi-line telephone service. A couple of extra pairs can easily be put to use to bring in ISDN PRI, also called T1 PRI.

When businesses get to a size where they need 10 or 12 outside phone lines, it generally makes sense to replace all those separate lines with a single ISDN PRI digital trunk. You don’t need to run a PRI at full capacity. You can save money over analog service by using only half the 23 line capacity.

Most call centers can easily use 23 phone lines. So what do you do when you run out of capacity? That’s easy. Just install a second PRI line and get 23 additional outside lines. The PBX phone equipment used to manage those lines for the agents comes with ISDN PRI connectivity already built-in or easily added with a circuit card. Many circuit cards can handle up to 4 PRI lines for a total of 92 outside lines. Larger systems can handle multiple interface cards.

How can those lines be configured? That’s up to you. The lines can be set up to handle any combination of local, long distance, incoming only, outgoing only, incoming & outgoing calls, toll free numbers, and DID or Direct Inward Dialing that gives every phone its own unique number.

The competition to ISDN PRI lines is SIP trunking. Both types of line services will work with either conventional PBX or the newer IP PBX telephone systems. Which is optimum for the call center connectivity you need? Get customized pricing and availability of digital phone line service for your business location so you can make the best decision.

Chocolate Cough Medicine

What is it about chocolate and medical cures? Chocolate benefits keep appearing regularly. It supposedly reduces wrinkles and aging according to Barry Callebaut AG (BYCBF.PK) the large chocolate maker, and it is even good for your liver. Chocolate has even helped Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) (BRK-B) stock portfolio.

Now British scientists are working on developing a persistent cough remedy made out of chocolate. A company called SEEK, which is not publicly traded, is working on creating a drug called BC1036 which utilizes theobromine, a major ingredient in chocolate and cocoa.

Fortunately, there are several stocks with a significant exposure to chocolate, a few with dividends. Here are a couple that may be worth sinking your teeth into.

Hershey (HSY), founded in 1894 is the largest manufacturer of chocolate in North America and one of the largest candy companies in the world. Hershey's Kisses were invented in 1901 and their chocolate chips were released in 1928. The stock has a price to earnings ratio of 22, a forward PE of 17, with a delicious yield of 2.7%. It sports a price earnings growth ratio of 2.14.

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory Inc. (RMCF) based in Durango, Colorado, which makes and markets caramels, creams, mints, and truffles. The company, which was founded in 1981, has over 300 franchise locations in 40 states, along with Canada and the United Arab Emirates. The P/E is 15.4, and the company pays a very tasty yield of 4.2%.

If you want to see a free Excel list of all the publicly traded chocolate stocks, which can be downloaded, sorted, and updated, go to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

Disclosure: Author did not own any of the above at the time the article was written.

By Stockerblog.com

Music industry and copyright: can you recommend a book?

Add caption

A friend has written to ask for some guidance in terms of good reading materials. He says:

"I am writing in the hope that you will be able to recommend a practitioners' book that deals with copyright in the music industry and the various layers of rights that come with musical creations. I am interested in getting an overview of "licensing in" the rights to use music/lyrics and/or adapt them to create a new work and to get an idea what standard practice is in the industry. Any recommendation will be greatly appreciated! Many thanks in advance".

If readers have any recommendations or preferences, can they please post them below. If the jurisdiction(s) covered are not immediately apparent, can they give us a clue?

Stocks Going Ex Dividend the First Week of January

Here is our latest update on the stock trading technique called 'Buying Dividends'. This is the process of buying stocks before the ex dividend date and selling the stock shortly after the ex date at about the same price, yet still being entitled to the dividend. This technique generally works only in bull markets. In flat or choppy markets, you have to be extremely careful.

In order to be entitled to the dividend, you have to buy the stock before the ex-dividend date, and you can't sell the stock until after the ex date. The actual dividend may not be paid for another few weeks. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has compiled a downloadable and sortable Excel list of the stocks going ex dividend during the next week or two. The list contains many dividend paying companies, all with market caps over $500 million, and yields over 2%. Here are a few examples showing the stock symbol, the market capitalization, the ex-dividend date and the yield.

Erie Indemnity Company (ERIE) market cap: $3.2B ex div date: 1/3/2011 yield: 3.2%

Raytheon Company (RTN) market cap: $16.6B ex div date: 1/3/2011 yield: 3.3%

Brandywine Realty Trust (BDN) market cap: $1.5B ex div date: 1/4/2011 yield: 5.3%

Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) market cap: $64.5B ex div date: 1/4/2011 yield: 3.3%

Bristol Myers Squibb Co. (BMY) market cap: $45.4B 1/5/2011 yield: 5.0%

SYSCO Corporation (SYY) market cap: $17.0B ex div date: 1/5/2011 yield: 3.6%

General Mills, Inc. (GIS) market cap: $22.7B ex div date: 1/6/2011 yield: 3.1%

Progress Energy, Inc. (PGN) market cap: $12.7B ex div date: 1/6/2011 yield: 5.7%

The additional ex-dividend stocks can be found at wsnn.com. (If you have been to the website before, and the latest link doesn't show up, you may have to empty your cache.) If you like dividend stocks, you should check out the high yield utility stocks and the Monthly Dividend Stocks at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com or WSNN.com.

Dividend definitions:

Declaration date: the day that the company declares that there is going to be an upcoming dividend.

Ex-dividend date: the day on which if you buy the stock, you would not be entitled to that particular dividend; or the first day on which a shareholder can sell the shares and still be entitled to the dividend.

Record date: the day when you must be on the company's books as a shareholder to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is normally set for stocks two business days before the record date.

Payment date: the day on which the dividend payment is actually made, which can be as long at two months after the ex date.

Don't forget to reconfirm the ex-dividend date with the company before implementing this technique.

Disclosure: Author did not own any of the above at the time article was written.

By Stockerblog.com

Small Business Merchant Accounts

Are you losing potential business because you don’t accept credit cards? You may think that it is just too expensive and way too complicated to accept credit cards and debit cards in your retail business. It certainly can be if you try to figure it all out for yourself. But if you have the right processing company on your side, it can be a very simple and easy process.

Don’t construe this to mean that the credit card processing procedure is simple. It is anything but that. There are banks, credit card companies, merchant service providers, computer networks and specialized equipment involved. The good news is that you don’t have to worry about any of that arcade detail. It’s all taken care of for you by Elite Processing Systems.

EPS has the knowledge, procedures, financial relationships, equipment and networks needed to make it possible for you to accept credit cards, debit cards and EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) at your point of sale. They’ve been doing this successfully for small businesses like yours for almost a decade. When you become an Elite merchant you’ll get 24 hours US based customer service, individual account management and rate schedules that are customized and competitive.

Any business that wants to accept electronic payments needs what is called a merchant account. That’s how the customer’s payment gets to you. Elite Processing Systems will provide you with that account and everything you need to make it work. But they also offer a lot more in the way of support for your business.

For instance, do you cringe when a customer starts writing out a personal check? Most of them will be perfectly all right, but what about the one’s that aren’t? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get instant verification that the check was good while the customer was still standing there? You can with the Telecheck service provided by Elite. Verify funds electronically at your POS and avoid the traditional four day delay involved in receiving the check, bringing it to the bank and waiting for it to clear. You’ll breathe a lot easier when you have Telecheck working for you.

Do you have trouble securing working capital when you need it? That’s not unusual in these economic times. EPS has a partnership with Merchant Money, Ltd. to make cash advances available to you based on your credit card processing future receivables. It’s linked to your processing account so you never have to write a check and funds are taken back through your credit card sales. Request funds today and have them available tomorrow.

How about other business services that you use regularly, such as payroll and insurance? Elite Processing Systems offers payroll solutions powered by ADP for efficiency and security. Other available services include life insurance, health insurance, disability and simple IRA plans.

Credit Card Processing by Elite Processing Systems a registered ISO/MSP of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. Walnut Creek CA.

Get a Charge Out of High Yield Electric Utilities

There are many factors affecting the revenues and earnings of electric utilities. The sway of the Public Utilities Commissions, the source of fuel to run the generators along with the cost of the fuel, the efficiency of the organization, growth in the area served from both commercial and residential (don't see much of that lately), and many other factors. But if investors want a simple way of finding which electric utility stocks are successful with many of these issues, one way is to check and see if the companies have increased their dividend.

One example is OGE Energy Corp. (OGE), which pays one of the lowest yields of the top 30 electric utilities at 3.3% but has been increasing its dividend over time, providing annual increases since 2006. The company announced this month that it is increasing its annual dividend to $1.50 per share from $1.45 per share, effective the first quarter of 2011. OGE, which provides electricity in Oklahoma and western Arkansas, trades at 15 times forward earnings.

DPL Inc. (DPL) is another utility with a rising track record, increasing the quarterly dividend from $0.3025 to $0.3325 per common share this month, giving the stock a great CD beating yield of 4.6%. Dividends has risen every year since 2003. The stock has a forward price to earnings ratio of 10.8.

Edison International (EIX) also announced an increase in the annual dividend, from $1.26 per share to $1.28 per share. Dividends have been boosted since 2004. The stock trades at 12.8 times forward earnings and pays a yield of 3.3%.

To see a free Excel list of all the top yield electric utility stocks which can be downloaded, sorted, and updated, go to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

Disclosure: Author did not own any of the above at the time the article was written.

By Stockerblog.com

Artist Resale Royalty, Harmonisation and a Comment from Down Under

Following Monday's post ("Artist's Royalty Right: not as much impact as was hoped/feared"), The 1709 Blog has received the following thoughts and observations from a pair of Australians Dr Anne Sanders (an art historian) and John R Walker (an artist), who write:

"We have been following developments with regard to the derogation concerning the resale royalty legislation in the UK. Australia has recently enacted an artist resale royalty legislation that differs in major ways from the scheme created by DACS in the UK. The scheme adopted in Australia is nothing like the scheme that was lobbied for by DACS’ sister organisation, Viscopy (Australia). The tender for the implementation of the Australian scheme was not awarded to Viscopy (the CEO of Viscopy is Joanna Cave, ex CEO of DACS). The sole official Australian agency appointed by the government for the implementation and collection of the resale royalty is the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL). 

The Australian resale royalty scheme is not in any way a precedent for the adoption of a fully retrospective, compulsory scheme, as envisaged by DACS. The resale royalty differs so much from one country to another as to beg the question: harmonising with what? The UK is being forced to harmonise with a phantom construct. The EU directives are very vague on important detail and the Berne Convention expressly forbids formalities such as compulsory, collective management (rhe Berne Convention Article 5(2) expressly forbids any member country imposing registration on a rights holder as a condition of protecting his copyright. The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality). Any claim that there is a single, uniform model of artists resale royalty is extremely dishonest. 

The scheme, as it exists in the UK, is already a violation of the fundamental concepts that it claims to honour. The current push to further extend it in the UK continues the violation of both copyright as an individual right of control of usage and of the Berne Convention’s requirement that there be no imposed formalities. The imposition of retrospectivity, under Australia’s constitution, raised fatal difficulties under two sections of the constitution; one of which deals with unjust enrichment and the other with what are effectively privatised, tax collections (such as hypothecated taxes). 

The Australian Act is not retrospective; it does not apply to the first resale of artworks that were purchased prior to the introduction of the scheme (9 June 2010). The scheme is not compulsory for artists. There is a case-by-case freedom (Clauses 22 & 23) to refuse consent to collection and if an artist wishes to, they can make their own arrangements regarding collection. Neither usage of the right nor collective management is compulsory. The foundational ethos of Australia’s polity is democratic, community-minded, pragmatic and liberal. In Australia, retrospective violation of individual property rights and compulsory collective management need much stronger justification than payments of benefits to those artists most favoured by the market. 

Speaking as a successful mid-career artist, retrospectivity, for me, is morally wrong. I have no right to and certainly don’t deserve a royalty on resales of the hundreds of artworks I have sold at good prices to buyers years ago; buyers who were innocent of the knowledge of a future royalty. These buyers gave me bread and wine for my journey. I am grateful for the help and support they gave me. If I had been forced to collect the royalty then I would, as a matter of conscience, have returned all of the money including the collection fee to the person it had been stolen from. 

Resale Royalties are of doubtful net value to artists. In 2004, Viscopy commissioned Australia’s highly respected economic modelling agency, Access Economics, to model the likely impact of the fully retrospective, and very draconian scheme, that Viscopy was lobbying for. In this report, Access Economics warned that the claim of net benefit to artists was: “based upon extremely unrealistic assumptions, in particular the assumption that seller and buyer behaviour would be completely unaffected by the introduction of RRR [ARR]” and that, “Access Economics considers that the results of this analysis are both unhelpful and potentially misleading” (see Access Economics' report). Viscopy suppressed this report. 

The harm caused by such schemes is in the form of what doesn’t happen, and therefore the harm is easily overlooked and underestimated. When an artist, such as myself, sells a painting for $10,000, I pay $4,000 to the costs of sales and marketing (through my representative agent) and retain $6,000 as income. In the case of $10,000 resale, I would receive $500 (according to the Australian scheme with its flat 5% rate). If buyer nervousness about the resale royalty, was to cause me to lose just one $10,000 first sale (on the primary market), I would need the royalty owed on $120,000 of future resales to recoup the lost income of that one primary market sale. These are very unattractive odds. 

The only clear beneficiary of the DACS model of the resale royalty scheme is the management of this piece of transaction fee velocity. The correct term for schemes such as this, and their advocates, is ‘rent-seeking’. The largest single payment will always be to the costs of running the scheme. In the current financial situation, the last thing needed is the imposition of further transaction costs on any market. 

The compulsory scheme advocated by DACS and Viscopy is a monopoly restriction of the terms of trade of artists. It is anti-market, anti-competitive and economically illiterate. It imposes significant opportunity costs upon artists as well as significant and unnecessary transaction costs upon the market in which artists make their living. For many artists, maximising first sale prices is a much better bet than gambling on payments when you are old or dead. 

The only argument for extending the scheme to long-dead artists is to further increase payments to management. The proposed extension of the UK scheme is rent-seeking par excellence. The principles of a free, civil society are far more important than the secondary, instrumentalist goals of efficiency and convenience for managements. 

We should not forgot to mention that the Australian legislation for an artists' resale right is sui generis; it was thought to be too tax-like to be incorporated as an amendment to the Commonwealth Copyright Act, hence recognising the profoundly different definitions and intentions of 'royalty' and 'tax', a point that has escaped the proponents of compulsory, collective management. It is significant again in that it does not conform to the harmonisation argument and being sui generis, does not compromise or set a precedent within the Copyright Act that encourages a diminuition of individual right of control".

This blog welcomes comments from Australia, from Europe and indeed from elsewhere on these observations.

Web Feature: The Agent Pool

BACKGROUND

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Find the best Philippines job openings and job vacancies at The Agent Pool. The Agent Pool is the Philippines best jobs and career management system, and is the only tool for you to showcase your talents and abilities to the entire job market in the Philippines. It is the fastest and easiest way to conduct a targeted job search, and it’s the only way to show companies that you have the skills required to get hired for one of the many job vacancies and job openings that they have posted. Sign up, take the employment aptitude test, let companies present you with the best job opportunities, and get hired today!

USER REVIEW

I have signed up with The Agent Pool because I am drawn in with their Employment Aptitude Test (EAT). I have been interested to see what are my skills and what areas I still have to work on. After I signed up, I immediately take the test.

The test is very nice and applicable to almost any industry but in my opinion it is more advantageous to persons seeking positions as call center agents or customer service representatives. You need a webcam and a headset with microphone if you want to use all the features of the test. The webcam is optional but when you download your test certificate, no picture will be included. Before the test, you will be asked to read and record a paragraph. Although this is optional, it will be advantageous for those seeking positions in call centers. The test is timed and covers many areas such as, data analysis, situational discourse, analogies, reading comprehension, listening comprehension, sentence completions, problem solving, logic, analysis of explanations, reasoning and arithmetic. You will need the headset for the listening comprehension part where an audio clip will be played and a question will be given based on the clip.

After the test, a test result will be shown and there will be an option to download your test certification. A chart will also display your relative strength and weakness on the areas covered.

The author's EAT result at The Agent Pool http://www.theagentpool.com/

Another M, another copyright reform

Judging by light attire, it appears that New Year
celebrations in Moldova are warm and sunny.  But will
the new Copyright Law be so warmly welcomed?

It's all happening in countries beginning with 'M', it seems. First Macedonia's new copyright law moves into EU-friendly and theatrical-producer-unfriendly mode (see yesterday's 1709 Blog post here). Now it's the turn of Moldova, where copyright owners, users, collecting societies and no doubt infringers will all be sitting up till midnight to greet the Law on Copyright and Related Rights, No. 139/2010 when it enters into force on 1 January 2011. This new statute replaces the Law on Copyright and Related Rights, No. 293-XIII, which has survived for 16 years -- quite a feat in these digital days. According to East Europe IP specialists Petosevic:

"The text of the new law was drafted by the State Agency for Intellectual Property (AGEPI), in cooperation with the European experts, as part of the program Assistance in Implementing the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), World Trade Organization (WTO) and EU-Moldova Action Plan in the Context of the European Neighborhood Policy, with the purpose of harmonizing the national legislation with the European and international provisions [This looks a bit like drafting by committee,not usually a good idea -- but any law is only as good as the courts let it be].

The text introduces new provisions concerning the videogram producer rights, the collective administration system, remuneration method and rates, the Mediation and Arbitration Commission organization and responsibilities, and the authorization procedure for institutions that will administer the authors’ patrimonial rights. The Mediation and Arbitration Commission is to be appointed by the AGEPI and will be responsible for examining and settling copyright disputes.

The text of the law defines the videogram as the first imprint of certain images, possibly accompanied by sound, irrespective of whether it represents an audiovisual creation. The physical or legal person whose name appears on a videogram is considered the author thereof until proven otherwise".

Source: Petosevic

Seasons Greetings

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours. We’ll be back next week with more from Telexplainer.

Spain rejects 'US influenced' copyright bill

After a narrow vote, a Spanish parliamentary commission has rejected a controversial bill aimed at protecting content owners from internet downloaders. All of the main Spanish parties, except for Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialists rejected the so-called Sinde Bill, named after Culture Minister Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde. The draft legislation would have set up a government commission which would have then provided courts with details of websites offering access to copyright-protected material such as music, movies, video games or software. A judge could then have ordered the closure of offending websites.

The bill sparked furious opposition from internet users who accused the government of violating the freedom of expression but Gonzalez-Sinde said the law only intended to put an end to Spain's position as a 'paradise of piracy.' Techdirt put a different slant on things, firstly praising Spain’s “somewhat more reasonable copyright laws than other parts of the world” highlighting provisions that say that “personal, non-commercial copying is not against the law and also says that third parties should not be liable for copyright infringement done by their users” adding that obviously Hollywood ‘hates’ this and that Spain's recently introduced reform package seemed like a “checklist of the entertainment industry's wishes" and that one of the recent Wikileaks diplomatic cable leaks showed that “US diplomats played a role in pressuring the Spanish government to make these changes, at the behest of movie industry lobbyists”.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101221/15434012367/spanish-legislature-rejects-hollywood-backed-copyright-law-changes.shtml

But is it art?

An interesting decision by the European Commission on the thorny issue of VAT prompted another post Meltwater muse, but this time on art – and whether we might be expecting an ‘Infopaq’ decision on what constitutes an “artistic work” - it might be marvellous darling – but ‘is it art?’



The case involves a light installation at the Hayward Gallery by Dan Flavin and the decision revolves around whether VAT on Flavin’s work was payable at 5% as an artistic sculpture or at full rate (17.5%) as a light fitting. HM Revenue & Customs unsurprisingly asked for VAT at full rate (£36,000) but the VAT & Duties Tribunal rejected the HMRC claim. I can’t find any details of the case on BAILII on the First Tier Tribunal (Tax) pages, but it seems that HMRC were not convinced and asked Brussels for a ruling on the question of whether or not the installation was “art”. The European Commission ruled that the work should be classified for tax purposes as simple light fixtures. Flavin’s work, they said, has "the characteristics of lighting fittings … and is therefore to be classified … as wall lighting fittings" saying “It is not the installation that constitutes a 'work of art' but the result of the operations (the light effect) carried out by it." Although why anyone would pay thousands of pounds for a light fitting doesn’t seemed to have been answered, it also affects the work of Bill Viola, another American whose work is video pieces, filmed in extreme slow motion...



Art Newspaper reports that Pierre Valentin, the lawyer who challenged the original HMRC ruling saying “To suggest, for example, that a work by Dan Flavin is a work of art only when it is switched on, is comical" adding "One is entitled to ask if the Commission has made a judicious use of its powers when overruling these judicial decisions. The reasons given in the regulation in support of the classification are absurd, and the regulation conflicts with the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice." Is there one rule for tax – and one for copyright?



But what is and isn’t art has long been debated. In 2007 a London art storage company was ordered to pay compensation to a Swiss collector after an Anish Kapoor sculpture ended up in a skip. In 2004 the Tate Gallery was embarrassed when a cleaner innocently threw out an overflowing rubbish bag. It was part of an installation by Gustav Metzger, aptly entitled Recreation of First Public Demonstration of Auto-Destructive Art. Pickled cows, sheep and sharks in a glass case? Step forward Damien Hirst. A Pile of bricks? Equivalent VIII by Carl Andre was bought by Tate in 1972 and featured in special displays in 1974 and 1975. Tracy Emin’s unmade Bed (1999)? Bags of rubbish? Art? Really?



In the UK, Artistic Works must be ‘original’ and a measure of skill, judgment and labour must be present. Section 4 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 provide that these works are (1) (irrespective of artistic quality) a graphic work, photograph sculpture, collage; (2) works of architecture and (3) works of artistic craftsmanship not within category (1) or category (2). Cornish details that a simple drawing of a human hand showing where a vote should be cast, the label design for a sweet tin and drawings for patchwork bedspreads have all been accorded copyright protection (Kenrick v Lawrence [1890] 25 QBD 99, Tavener Rutledge v Specters [1959] RPC 355 CA, Vermaat v Boncrest [2001] FSR 44). In Wham-O v Lincoln even a Frisbee was held to be an engraving because of the concentric rings on the plastic body 91985)although the court in Metix v Maughan [1997] FSR 718 found that a sculpture was “a three-dimensional work made by an artist’s hand’.



But what of tax law and art .... of course some of these debates end up in Court and in 1926 a row erupted in the USA over the work of the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi. The American collector Edward Steichen had bought a bronze version of his tall slender Bird In Space, and attempted to import it to the US. Since it had neither head, feet nor feathers, US customs refused to accept it as a zero-rated work of art, and instead classified it as "a manufacture of metal ... held dutiable at 40%". Steichen paid the $600 duty, but he and the sculptor then went to court – with his legal fees paid by the millionaire collector Peggy Guggenheim. Steichen succeeded in having the decision overturned and in 1928 the court ruled that "while some difficulty might be encountered in associating it with a bird, it is nevertheless pleasing to look at and highly ornamental". So free of tax.



I look forward to seeing where Mr Flavin gets with his claim - and comments most welcome.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/dec/20/art-dan-flavin-light-euhttp://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Flavin+and+Viola+light+works+ruled+%e2%80%9cnot+art%e2%80%9d/22069



Photo A presumed Banksy of Michael 'Jay-Z' Eavis on a wall in Glastonbury Town. By Ben Challis (c) 2010.

Macedonia gets tough with infringers, collecting societies -- and theatrical producers

Levies are to be paid to artists
for use of their copyright works

The new Law on Copyright and Related Rights for Macedonia -- the former Yugoslavian bit rather than the current Greek bit, that is -- came into force on 8 September, as part of that country's efforts to bring its IP laws in line with the rest of the European Union, which it aspires to join (Macedonia applied in 2004 and became an official candidate in 2005).

The new law, in accordance with the EU IP Enforcement Directive 2004/48, treats copyright infringement as a criminal offence [this might surprise some readers, who only view the Directive as having civil application, but recital 28 of the Preamble states "In addition to the civil and administrative measures, procedures and remedies provided for under this Directive, criminal sanctions also constitute, in appropriate cases, a means of ensuring the enforcement of intellectual property rights"]. For this crime, the law provides a prison sentence of six months to five years for natural persons, and a fine for legal entities. The court is also given the power to order copyright infringers not to continue their business activities.  According to the 1709 Blog's sources,

"The new law is more precise and more structured than the previous one. The new regulations are meant to de-monopolize copyright collectives, which guarantee more effective protection and enforcement of copyrights. So far, in practice, a single copyright collective for authors and composers of musical works had a monopoly in copyright protection [It would be good to know more about this move and to place it in the context of the European Commission's current review of collecting society practices].

The law also abolishes copyright protection for theatrical producers. This change was made in accordance with comparative practices, which showed that these copyrights are considered most abstract and are not recognized in most legal systems [We'd love to know more about this.  Can anyone enlighten us?].

The new copyright law also sets more realistic copyright levies that should be paid to artists for use of their copyright works by third parties, and it clearly lists all possible cases of free use of copyright works".

Source: "New Macedonian Copyright Law Treats Copyright Infringement as Criminal Offense", PETOŠEVIĆ, 29 November 2010