Last week Constantin Films got YouTube to pull almost all the Angry Hitler parody clips by using the website’s Content ID tracking system. The process is automatic, and YouTube immediately takes down a video once it’s been tagged. However, that also means you can use this system in reverse to get your clips back up, at least for as long as you’re in dispute with the copyright holder. Whether you do this or not will depend on how willing you are to risk a potential lawsuit later on. [More]
Government Policy
FTC Protects Your Privacy, But FCC Rules At Hoops
By 4.24.10
In a wide-ranging interview, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz spoke with NPR’s On the Media about the agency’s role in protecting consumer privacy, fighting back against deceptive marketing practices — and about Leibowitz’s weekend basketball games with Federal Communications Commission chief Julius Genachowski: “Julius has been schooling me on the basketball court for some time. … He’s very crafty.” [More]
The Woman In Charge Of Making Sure You Are Not Offended By Movie Posters
By 4.23.10
The NYT takes us behind the scenes of the endless nitpicking that goes on before a movie poster can be shown to the easily-offended public. Meet Marilyn Gordon. She is in charge of a team whose goal is to make sure you, the public, are not offended. [More]
Massachusetts Appliance Rebate Program Lasts 145 Minutes
By 4.22.10
When Massachusetts announced their cash-for-clunker appliance rebate program, Consumerist bet it would last one day before the rebate cash ran dry. We were wrong — it took less than three hours. [More]
Obama To Bankers: Remember When Creating The FDIC Was Going To Ruin The Economy?
By 4.22.10
During the President’s address to Wall Street bankers today in New York City, he reminded them that their predecessors had completely flipped out about a bill that passed through Congress way back in 1933. It was, in their view, sure to “not only rob them of their pride of profession but would reduce all U.S. banking to its lowest level.” What was this reform bill? [More]
Lay's Says Redesigned Salt Molecule Won't Need FDA Approval
By 4.22.10
Want to eat lots of salty potato chips without overdoing the salt? Frito-Lay thinks it has the answer. Apparently, because of the way salt crystals form, most of the salt you eat doesn’t have time to dissolve on your tongue — but instead is digested. Now Frito-Lay/PepsiCo, the maker of Lay’s potato chips, says it has redesigned salt to melt more efficiently — allowing them to cut back on the amount you eat without sacrificing taste. [More]
White House: Free Market Isn't "Free License To Take Whatever You Can Get"
By 4.22.10
The White House has released potions of a speech to be made by the president later today in NYC. In it Mr. Obama calls on banking industry lobbyists to halt their efforts to stop financial reforms that he feels are in the best interest of the market and the country. [More]
Recall Recall!
By 4.21.10
Tropical Bedding Mattress Sets (fire)
Le Hing Baby Walkers (falling)
Mares Dive Computers (drowning)
Hammary Furniture Chests and Tables (lead)
Oriental Furniture Roman Shades and Roll-Up Blinds (strangulation)
Fake IRS Agent Racks Up $55K In Hotel Bills
By 4.21.10
A woman in California lived for free in a hotel room for two years — a $55,000 bill — by pretending to be an IRS agent. Of course, now she’s been caught and has to pay it all back. [More]
Pay Your Doctor In Chickens
By 4.21.10
Sue Lowden, a senate candidate in Nevada, says if you want to combat health care costs you should consider bartering with your doctor. In an appearance on a local political talk show yesterday, she clarified her proposal: [More]
Miami Businessman Charged With Running $900 Million Ponzi Scheme
By 4.21.10
It’s not exactly Bernie Madoff’s $65 billion, but the Securities And Exchange Commission has charged a Florida businessman with operating a $900 million Ponzi scheme, telling people they were investing — risk-free and at interest rates upward of 26% — in his grocery business, when in fact he was just using the money to fund his lavish lifestyle. [More]
$100 Bill Redesigned, Now Has Hidden Images
By 4.21.10
Today the Treasury Department will reveal a redesigned $100 bill. The new design brings the bill in line with the smaller denominations that are already in circulation, and it adds a fancy new anti-counterfeiting measure called Motion that uses special threads to “create an optical illusion of images sliding in directions perpendicular to the light that catches them.” [More]
War Declared On Salt!
By 4.20.10
Are you tired of the high fructose corn syrup battles? Today the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, released a report that said Americans on average eat enough salt every second to kill a humpback whale kraken. I have not actually read the report, but it probably said something like that. It also said that public education campaigns have failed to reduce sodium intake, and voluntary self-regulation by the food industry hasn’t been effective. [More]
Should Google Be Broken Apart?
By 4.20.10
The consumer group Consumer Watchdog is planning to ask the Justice Department to “launch an antitrust action against the search giant and seek remedies including a possible break up,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The group will host a press conference in Washington, D.C. tomorrow where it will argue that there’s enough evidence to warrant antitrust action from the feds. [More]
Amazon Sues North Carolina, Says It Won't Divulge Customer Names
By 4.20.10
North Carolina’s tax collectors want to find out which of the state’s residents have bought untaxed goods from Amazon over the past seven years, so they visited Amazon’s HQ in Seattle and demanded the retailer turn over its records. When Amazon said no, the state threatened to sue. What it got instead was a preemptive lawsuit from Amazon that “says the demand violates the privacy and First Amendment rights of Amazon’s customers.” [More]
SEC Wants Disclosures For Asset Backed Securities Written In Python
By 4.20.10
“Waterfall” provisions of asset backed securities are the rules that explain the flow of funds in the transaction, and they are are very hard to read. Blogger/professor Jayanth Varma calls them “horrendously complicated,” leading trustees to make mistakes or pull stunts that investors never expected. To remedy this, the SEC is proposing that the provisions be written in a programming language, filed on EDGAR, and made available as downloadable Python source code. [More]
Should "Legal Pot" Be Made Illegal?
By 4.20.10
For several years, it’s been completely legal for just about anyone in the U.S. to get their hands on K2, a so-called “herbal incense” which also happens to be sprayed with cannabinoids, meaning you should get a similar experience from smoking K2 as you would marijuana. However, it’s recently been banned in Kansas and the state of Illinois is looking into the legality of K2. [More]
Toyota Recalls 9,400 2010 Lexus GX 460 Vehicles
By 4.19.10
Less than one week after our lab coat-wearing brethren at Consumer Reports issued a “Don’t Buy” rating on the 2010 Lexus GX 460 SUV because of potential rollover issues, Toyota has announced a voluntary recall of approximately 9,400 GX 460s worldwide. [More]
