The Big Oil Discount

Eliminating Tax Subsidies for Oil Companies

Happy 4th of July

Yo! Happy Independence Day from T1 Rex’s Business Telecom Explainer and the Founding Fathers:



Best wishes for a safe and happy 4th,

John

Money for old tracks: a reader asks

One of our readers has written to ask the 1709 Bloggies if they have any advice or experience that they can bring to bear on this little problem.

A British-based advertising agency has been approached by the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) in relation to its use of US music tracks. It seems that the AFM is asking for backdated payments on behalf of background artists who contributed to those music tracks, for example as backing singers ot musicians.

This agency has assumed that the normal procedure adopted by agencies in the UK when they want to use music tracks is (1) contact the music publisher and (2) contact the recording company to seek permission to use the sound recording. When it uses British music, it generally contacts the Musicians Union, which confirms how much to pay with regard to background artists. However, where US music is concerned, this agency has not been contacting the AFM, because it didn't know it had to -- a belief that was reinforced by assurances from some of the recording companies. The UK agency has also heard that the reason why advertising agencies in the US contact the AFM to arrange for payment in relation to use of background artists is because they have already made an agreement with the AFM to do so.

The UK agency therefore asks as follows:
(1) if it isn't a signatory to the agreement that was signed between the AFM and US agenices, does it still need to pay?
(2) does the answer to (1) change if the practice for some time has been that it never had to pay? and
(3) if it does have to pay, will it have to pay the backdated sums? and
(4) likewise, if it has to pay, what proof if any does the AFM need to bring in order to establish how much it should pay (right now, it seems, the AFM is asking for what appears to be an arbitrary sum, based on little proof of how many background artists were actually involved in a track).

The UK agency adds that it has heard that advertising agencies in Canada are facing the same payment requests from the AFM.

Can any readers offer any practical or legal guidance here?

Toll Free Number Availability Now

You’re thinking about getting a toll free number for your business, but, oh, the grief involved in trying to find one that’s available and then having to send in a bunch of paperwork and waiting a couple of weeks or a couple of months to get service. Is that really worth it?

NO. It certainly is not, and why should you? There are toll free numbers all set up and ready to go right now. All you have to do is pick the one you want from a list of choices and then take about 5 minutes to get your service started. You do all this online at Kall8’s Instant Online Activation site. No need to wait for standard business hours. Get your number tonight, on the weekend, any holiday, or any time at all. The process is totally automated and self-service. As soon as you are set up, you can start using your new toll free number.

So how much does this all cost and what do you get? How’s $2 to get your 866, 877 or 888 toll free number? Not bad, huh? For every month that you want to keep that number, your credit card will get charged another $2. When customers or prospects call you on that number, you’ll pay just 6.9 cents a minute for the length of the call. Rates are a bit higher for Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Guam and Saipan. I’ll bet you didn’t even know that you could take toll free calls from those locations, did you?

Sounds cheap enough, but what do you get in the way of service? First of all, you get the ability to change your ring-to number at will. That’s a powerful feature if you aren’t always at the same phone. For instance, many professionals and small business owners on the go will have the toll free number ring to their cell phone when they are not in the office. That way, they will never miss an important call... or that all-important chance to close a sale. If you are going to be in the office all day, change the ring-to number so that all incoming toll free calls will ring your office phone. At night, set it to ring your home phone. You’ll never have to “check in” to see if you got any important calls. They’ll come directly to you wherever you are.

Of course, you get voice mail with your toll free number. After all, there are always some times when you can’t answer the phone. But, this voice mail can be checked online or you can even have voice messages sent to you as email attachments. The same is true with FAX messages. Just have your clients send the FAX to your toll free number. The Kall8 system will turn it into an electronic image and send that to you as an email attachment. Or, you can get your FAX messages online at any time.

There are many other features, such as conference calling, call blocking and forwarding, and Caller ID, and they are all included for the same price: $2 a month plus the cost of calls. You can check those out at your leisure on the Kall8 site. I don’t want to bog you down in details, because you want a toll free number right now. Well, don’t wait a second longer. Select your toll free number and order for instant availability. You can begin accepting calls on your new toll free number in, literally, a matter of minutes.

FEMA's sale of Katrina trailers sparks criticism - washingtonpost.com

After Katrina displaced 770,000 Gulf Coast residents, the federal government embarked on what watchdog groups dubbed a "hurricane of waste." Lacking plans and contracting experts, FEMA spent $2.7 billion on 145,000 trailers and mobile homes. Many of the mobile homes, it turned out, could not be placed near the coast, under FEMA's own rules.

The agency rushed production of the trailers, with few safety specifications. Then, over nearly two years, FEMA officials suppressed internal warnings that there were health problems among 300,000 trailer occupants -- what lawmakers later called an "official policy of premeditated ignorance" -- before declaring that trailers should be abandoned in early 2008.

When they finally conducted tests, officials found formaldehyde levels in trailers five times greater than the average in most modern homes, and in some cases 40 times greater.

[Via: The Washington Post]

Is BP Hiding Seriously Ill Clean-Up Workers? « SpeakEasy