Archive for March, 2007

It looks like the US Patent Office will begin to post patent applications and allow for a Wiki/Digg-style system for sorting out comments/objections in a pilot program.� This means that a� reviewed sort of system could help the patent office sort out the signal from the noise.� We’ll see if any of the gaming that happens in some social networks makes its way over there, but you gotta admit, it’s a pretty nifty idea.� Microsoft and HP are already planning to take part in the first phase.

With people� reviewing these and presumably having an input over their grant or denial, I wonder if patent� legalese will become� more readable to the average educated citizen?� That would be refreshing, as the language used on some patents is really ridiculous.� I know that it has evolved over many years within the ranks of patent attorneys, but must it be so difficult? � � Will it get better, so that reviewers can actually talk about the patents, or more cryptic, to exclude them from constructive commentary?

Most social comment sites I’ve seen, save, perhaps Wikipedia, are brief, casual, and rather unrefined in their responses.� With patent law and its hyper-structured format, this could be an interesting juxtaposition of language.� I can see it now….

“A ball cap comprising a plurality of gores forming a body, a sweat band having an elastic sweat portion, and an elastic gore that is stretchable to provide a ball cap that is stretchable to assume a variety of stretched conditions to accommodate a variety of head sizes, comprising a stiffener assembly that continuously supports the elastic gore in all stretched conditions, said stiffener assembly comprising a main body portion sized to underlie the elastic gore in its unstretched condition, a transverse channel housing the sweat band elastic portion, and a pair of folded side wings attached to the side edges of the elastic gore which unfold as the ball cap stretches to its stretched conditions to continuously support the elastic gore and the elastic sweat band portion.”

comment:� “Is that the part that goes on your head?”

comment: “I don’t like pluralities, those are for girls.”

comment: “I have an Iron Maiden Hat for sale on Ebay [link removed]“

comment: “Iron Maiden rocks”

If you need a model of web design, you don’t need to look further than our own Bluegrass state for one of the best� I’ve seen.� A measured balance between graphics, clean headings, and well written text greet consumers on every page in a friendly way when it could easily have been overwhelming.� There’s an uncompromising style guide in place, good accessibility scores, and tasteful use of, but not dependence on,� subtle hues.

The UK Healthcare site was recently honored for its new design by receiving a national Merit Award in the Patient Education Class by the WWW Health Awards.� Other honerees were St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital and Holy Spirit Health System.

The web, graphics, and marketing team are all to be� congratulated on putting the consumer first by avoiding the traps that snag so many developing big sites these days.

Would you like to give instructions to your visitors about how to white list your domain name when they sign up for your email list? Get tired of keeping up with the latest instructions? Well fret no longer, just point your visitors to my free whitelist generator, which will produce a custom white list instruction set for your newsletter. And, since I’ll keep it up-to-date, you’ll never have to worry about it again. And no, it’s not covered with ads.

Here’s all you need to do….

• Site or Newsletter Name - Your Newsletter Name, spaces replaced with “%20″… so “Weekly Newsletter” becomes “Weekly%20Newsletter”.
• Your Domain Name - your “.com” name. For example, websiteadvice.com… don’t use the “WWW”
• SendAddress - the address that will appear in the “From” field of newsletters. CHECK IT, this is important.

Here’s how the link is assembled:

http://www.sitecreations.com/whitelist.php
?params&SiteName=SITE-or-NEWSLETTER-NAME
&DomainName=yourdomainname.com
&SendAddress=send@yourdomain.com

Examples of this in use (don’t forget to replace the information in the link)

Click here for instructions about how to make sure you get our newsletter.

White-listing instructions for our newsletter.

Where to Use it:

• On your “thank you for signing up page”
• On your email footer.
• On your website or blog.

Did I skip a spam filter? Bugs? Let me know and I’ll take a look.

Beware of the Ides of March!

Okay, we don’t need to get astrological on this, and after all, it was just a graph that cause the technical problem, but try telling that to the average identity-theft-security-paranoid-id customer who logs on to these major financial sites.�

(Click thumbnail to zoom JP Morgan’s screen shot)

George Gombossy, Consumer Watchdog who writes for the Hartford Connecticut Courant, has confirmed first-hand that Best Buy has good reason for using its employee kiosks and links to the “bestbuy.com” website to verify sales prices customers are expecting to find. It’s not the real website, but a fake Intranet site made up to look just like bestbuy.com. In the allegations presented, a customer comes in asking about a sale price they saw online. The clerk says that sale isn’t available anymore. The customer says they’ll show you. The clerk brings up the pages on the kiosk and … what the???… no sale price! I guess I must have been wrong… your browser may have had page cached… ..yeah right.

Make sure you print out the real sale prices before you come in! And be sure to capture the entire URL on the printout.

If they try to pull this crap on you, I guess you could fight fire with fire, and phish out your hosts file to make your very own bestbuy.com before coming in. If you’re running Windows Mobile, you can do it on your device, surf to bestbuy.com, and show the clerk right there in the store! See, 60″ plasma, $999… it’s right there on the site! Now, now… I don’t condone any such behavior, of course, as we all know that phishing is probably illegal in the real world. This is just fantasy stuff.

I think that the State Attorney General is about to file a big honkin’ lawsuit, and you may see a big class action on this one.� Perhaps they’re cloaking based on the IPs of the stores? Perhaps a central proxy? It’s far too technical for most lawyers and too easy make the issue go away.

oodness this stuff is sleazy.

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) has has published a decision on Internet radio royalties, adopting the “per play” rate that SoundExchange had promoted. The rates that the Board has decided on, effective retroactively through the beginning of 2006. I’ve created a spreadsheet to calculate the reality of all of this.

Excel Worksheet: Internet Radio Profits/Loss Calculator Under New Rules

IMPROVE THIS WORKSHEET, and SEND ME the new one.� I’ll keep posting improvements.

This assumes the advertiser can’t ask for more than $3 CPM, but who knows where radio ad costs will go.

A performance is one song streamed to one listener, and so if a station has 2000 listeners who listen to one song, that’s 2000 performances. Noncommercial webcasters get 159,140 Aggregate Tuning Hours (where the hell did they get that number?) per month, and pay the regular commercial rate after that. Oh, there’s a $500/year minimum (hat tip to Chachi� for the correction.) � Uh, oh. Time for a begathon.

I just question how they’ll account for listeners, performances delivered,etc. and it will be interesting to see the MANY creative ways internet broadcasters will Torrent and Mirror their way around this one!

Random Follow Up Thoughts�

Update: ASCAP recently asked the courts to count all transmissions of musical works to the public be considered public performances.

What about podcasts?

SoundExchange was designated by the U.S. Copyright Office to administer the collection and distribution of the statutory or compulsory license available to digital music service providers. SoundExchange collects royalties from “noninteractive digital” performances reported by cable music services, including residential Muzak, DMX, and Music Choice, webcasters, and satellite radio primarily XM and Sirius. The term “noninteractive” means that the subscriber chooses a channel rather than a particular song, and the songs that our licensees transmit cannot be manipulated by the listener, as in fast forwarding, rewinding, or downloading. Downloads are reproductions and are considered a different right not covered by statutory license and thus not part of SoundExchange’s responsibilities. Such rights must be licensed directly from the SRCO.”

So are podcasts the same as compilations?� Well, not under current law if I read it right.� But reading it right is not easy!� I think that we need to extend copyright law to consider podcasting-like activities as new sort of activity so it can be addressed in the courts on its own merit.

After a walk to Starbucks, I got to thinking about Steve Jobs’ recent article “Thoughts On Music.” It leads me to wonder where things are going with music online.� It makes me appreciate Woodsongs even more as a great ipod-filler.� But that music doesn’t appeal to everyone.� � I think that Internet Radio, free from fees, seems like an ideal way for artists to give away a selection of songs for use on streams or podcasts, and then refer to full albums/other merchandise they want to sell RIGHT on their websites.� We’d have a rich selection of music flowing every day, and a great collection to share everywhere, especially if you believe Steve Jobs manifesto.

Oh, yeah… if you’re in Austin on March 15th, attending the SXSW Music Panels where David Byrne will be exploring the state of the music business from an artists perspective in a panel called “Record Companies: Who Needs Them?“� That should be very good.� � It would be great if someone would send me his response to the whole Internet Radio fee question, if asked.