Monthly Archives: July 2015

Filmmakers fighting “Happy Birthday” copyright find their “smoking gun”

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“Warner/Chappell has built a licensing empire based on ‘Happy Birthday,’ which in 1996 was pulling in more than $2 million per year. [..] An important line of text published underneath the song’s lyrics was ‘blurred almost beyond legibility’ in the copy that Warner/Chappell handed over in discovery. Plaintiffs’ lawyers note that it’s ‘the only line of the entire PDF that is blurred in that manner.’  Plaintiffs acquired their own copies of the songbook, including a first edition published in 1916, which didn’t have the song, and versions published 1922 and later, which include it without a copyright notice.”

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/07/filmmakers-fighting-happy-birthday-copyright-find-their-smoking-gun/

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Georgia sues legal rebel for posting state’s copyrighted law summaries

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“Georgia claims that a legal rebel, Public.Resource.org, is publishing and making it easy for others to copy the physical text and accompanying annotations of Georgia’s state law—the Official Code of Georgia Annotated. The state’s Code Revision Commission maintains that PublicResource.org is not entitled to reproduce the annotated version of Georgia’s code. Annotations are summaries of the law’s meaning and those summaries are contracted to a third party to write. So what Georgia is essentially saying is it is not OK to copy and distribute the texts of the state’s laws if those texts are accompanied with the state-owned summaries of what the law actually means.”

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/georgia-sues-legal-rebel-for-posting-states-copyrighted-law-online/

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Crisis and Opportunities: An Elliott Wave Overview of the Markets

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“Big market moves create sizable risks and potential rewards. Come hear what Elliott Wave International thinks about the markets for the remainder of the year and beyond.”

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How Hillary Clinton plans to ‘save capitalism’

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“Clinton proposed raising capital gains taxes on investments held for only short periods of time. The tax on investment earnings would nearly double from their current rate of 20% for investments held less than two years. And the rate for those in the top tax bracket would be set on a sliding scale, with incentives for people who hold their investments longer.  Meanwhile, Clinton said she would change the tax code to eliminate incentives for CEOs to be paid based on short-term bumps in share prices, with the aim of encouraging leaders to plan more strategically for the future.  Clinton also took on what she called ‘hit and run’ shareholders – activist investors.”

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/how-hillary-clinton-plans-save-capitalism

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In this London pub, drink prices rise and fall like stocks

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“This may be the one market where every trader is rooting for a crash.  At the new Reserve Bar Stock Exchange in the City of London’s ‘Square Mile’ financial district, drink prices swing up and down according to supply and demand, sending thirsty City workers on a roller-coaster ride in their hunt for the best-priced bender.  With its real-time exchange screens, rapidly fluctuating prices and secondary markets, it has the feel of a trading floor, without the unnerving risk of a market tumble. The worst-case scenario — or best, if you will — occurs when drink quotes climb too rapidly, triggering a ‘market crash.’ This results in cheap booze all around.”

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/when-this-market-crashes-traders-get-trashed-2015-07-17

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House Flippers Are Back Together With Wall St.

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“Bridge loans, also known as hard-money or asset-based loans, give flippers cash for home purchases and construction with about a year to repay, and are backed by the real estate. Blackstone, the world’s biggest alternative-asset manager, is seeking to make $1 billion of the loans a year, according to Nick Gould, executive chairman of the firm’s B2R Finance unit.  Home flippers are benefiting from rising prices, limited new construction and a shortage of inventory on the market. While quick resales have decreased from the start of the housing market’s rebound, when investors snapped up discounted distressed homes, profits are getting bigger.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-08/hard-money-comes-easy-as-wall-street-funds-home-flippers

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U.S. Home Prices at Record High, Surpasses 2006 Market Peak

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“According to the National Association of Realtors, existing-home sales in the U.S. increased in June 2015 to their highest pace in over eight years, while the cumulative effect of rising demand and limited supply helped push the national median sales price to an all-time high. All major regions experienced sales gains in June and have now risen above year-over-year levels for six consecutive months.  The percent share of first-time buyers fell to 30 percent in June from 32 percent in May, but remained at or above 30 percent for the fourth consecutive month. A year ago, first-time buyers represented 28 percent of all buyers.”

http://www.worldpropertyjournal.com/real-estate-news/united-states/june-2015-existing-home-sales-record-home-prices-median-home-price-in-us-lawrence-yun-nar-rising-home-prices-real-estate-sales-data-2015-9241.php

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US health insurers rush to consolidate after Obamacare ruling

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“If the Anthem-Cigna deal is consummated soon, it would mean that the ‘big five’ health insurers, with 134m customers and combined annual revenues of $346bn, would have agreed to become a ‘big three’ in a matter of weeks.  The Supreme Court’s decision was the final part of a puzzle that has been painstakingly pieced together since the ACA was signed into law in 2009. The act was vehemently opposed at its inception by many health insurers, not least Anthem, then known as WellPoint. But it has created big opportunities for the industry, as Medicaid, a federally funded scheme for those on low incomes, is expanded, and millions of uninsured people are brought into private health plans.”

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9908ecd0-242c-11e5-bd83-71cb60e8f08c.html#axzz3hEGJuw00

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Investors in Hot IPOs Are Overlooking Some Serious Risks

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“Would you buy stock in a company that doesn’t regularly record its debits and credits? Or one that admits it lacks accounting skills? How about one that couldn’t account for some of its expenses?  Apparently you would.  About 30% of companies that went public last year acknowledged they were at serious risk of incorrectly reporting their financial information, according to a study by Proskauer Rose LLP. That’s up from 17% of issuers in 2013, the study shows.  Yet investors weren’t bothered. The 32 companies — from GrubHub Inc. to GoPro Inc. — that reported material weaknesses in their accounting systems last year have surged an average of 42% since their stock debuts.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-01/who-cares-that-ipos-lack-accounting-standards-nobody-really

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The Spy in Your Pocket

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“Because they merely obtained business records from a third party, the court says that the police didn’t invade Davis’s privacy.  Because there wasn’t a ‘search,’ the Fourth Amendment didn’t even apply.  Despite the court’s logic, something about this case still makes many observers feel uneasy. Even AT&T filed a brief in the case, arguing that the government’s actions were illegal. We all turn over huge amounts of information to third parties every day, and almost all of our activities can be tracked through our ‘smart’ devices. And as the amount of data that businesses collect on us grows, so do concerns over the government’s ability to access that data.”

http://fee.org/freeman/detail/the-spy-in-your-pocket

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