Posts Tagged ‘sue’
Rupert Murdoch plans to charge for the Web, sue everyone!
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
The billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch suffered the indignity of seeing his global empire make a huge financial loss yesterday and promptly pledged to shake up the newspaper industry by introducing charges for access to all his news websites, including the Times, the Sun and the News of the World, by next summer.
Stung by a collapse in advertising revenue as the recession shredded Fleet Street’s traditional business model, Murdoch declared that the era of a free-for-all in online news was over.
“Quality journalism is not cheap,” said Murdoch. “The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels but it has not made content free. We intend to charge for all our news websites.”
What does “quality journalism” have to do with Murdoch’s tabloids?
The Australian-born press and television baron was speaking as his News Corporation holding company slumped to a $3.4 billion net loss for the financial year to June, hit by huge writedowns in the value of its assets, restructuring charges and a dive in commercial revenue…
At present, only the Wall Street Journal charges a fee for online access and until recently, received wisdom in the publishing industry was that readers would not pay to read newspapers on the internet…
He accepted that there could be a need for furious litigation to prevent stories and photographs being copied elsewhere: “We’ll be asserting our copyright at every point…”
The group’s television division, including its Fox stations in the US and Star networks in Asia, saw profits fall from $1.12bn to $174m.
Should be an interesting couple of years. The few pundits in the world of tech that I consider worth reading on this topic – pretty much agree Murdoch’s plan stinks on ice.
His plan to sue everyone should deliver about as much of a return as it did for the RIAA.
Tracking down the Billion$ withdrawn before Madoff was arrested
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission
About $12 billion was pulled out of accounts at Bernard L. Madoff’s firm in 2008, according to several people briefed on an analysis of Mr. Madoff’s business records. About $6 billion, or half, was taken out in just the three months before the financier was arrested in December and charged with operating an extensive Ponzi scheme.
Those figures offer a bit of hope for Mr. Madoff’s thousands of defrauded customers. Under federal law, the trustee overseeing the Madoff bankruptcy can sue to retrieve that money from the investors who withdrew it.
Indeed, the trustee, Irving H. Picard of Baker & Hostetler, filed two lawsuits on Tuesday seeking the return of a total of $6.1 billion, which he estimated had been withdrawn over the last decade.
One case seeks the return of $5.1 billion from various trust funds and partnerships run by Jeffry M. Picower, a prominent Palm Beach, Fla., investor whose charitable foundation was considered one of the notable victims of Mr. Madoff’s fraud.
Mr. Picard also sued to recover $1 billion withdrawn last year by Harley International, a hedge fund based in the Cayman Islands and administered by a unit of the Dutch bank Fortis.
Girls threatened with porn charge sue prosecutor – UPDATED
One summer night in 2007, a pair of 13-year-old northeastern Pennsylvania girls decided to strip down to their skivvies to beat the heat.
As Marissa Miller talked on the phone and Grace Kelly flashed a peace sign, a third girl took a candid shot of the teens in their white bras.
It was harmless, innocent fun, the teens say.
But the picture somehow wound up on classmates’ cell phones, and a prosecutor has threatened to charge Miller and Kelly with child pornography or open lewdness unless they participate in a five-week after-school program followed by probation.
On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge to block Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick Jr. from filing charges, saying that the teens didn’t consent to having the picture distributed and that the image is not pornography, in any event.
Skumanick said he would fight the lawsuit. “Frankly, we just wanted to protect these kids…
The ACLU’s lawsuit claims…the photos are protected First Amendment speech.
Basic premise #1: people who think images distributed electronically are like carrying a single copy to show a friend and, then, bringing it back home safely are too ignorant for polite description.
Basic premise #2: 19th Century moralists in cop suits are about as useful to the process of moderating communications between human brings as a cast-iron gag. The all-seeing eye of someone who’s growing old awaiting his turn to run for governor.
UPDATE: The ACLU and the girls won their case and the judge has ordered charges dropped. Bravo for common sense.
Sarkozy needled by voodoo doll
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has threatened to sue a publishing company if it does not withdraw from shops a “voodoo doll” in his image.
The doll comes with pins and a manual with instructions on how to put the evil eye on the president. Users can stick the pins into choice quotes from Mr Sarkozy which are printed on the doll.
Mr Sarkozy’s lawyer said the president had the “exclusive and absolute rights” over his own image.
He also has exclusive and absolute rights to act like a fool.
