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Filmmakers Claim To Have Conclusive Proof Against “Happy Birthday” Copyright Claim

(Karen Chappell)

“Happy Birthday” (aka “Happy Birthday To You”) may be sung millions of times a day at birthday bashes around the world, but putting it in a movie or recording a version of the brief ditty will set you back some money for royalties to Warner Music Group, which has long claimed to hold the copyright for the song. But a recently filed court document claims that there is conclusive proof that the song belongs in the public domain.

The makers of Happy Birthday, a movie about the classic song, have sued Warner/Chappell Music to get back the $1,500 they had to pay to use the song in the film. They are also hoping to represent a class of others who have paid what they contend is a bogus royalty on the “Happy Birthday” song.

In a recent filing [PDF] with the federal court hearing the case, the filmmakers claim they can show “conclusively that Happy Birthday has been in the public domain since no later than 1922.”

Warner/Chappell’s copyright claim is based on a 1935 version credited to writers Preston Ware Orem and Mrs. R.R. Forman, rather than Patty and Mildred Hill, the sisters who actually wrote it decades earlier.

But the filmmakers and others have argued that this copyright is only for a particular piano arrangement of the song, and that the new evidence shows the Hills’ version of the song had already been given over to the public domain by 1922.

According to the plaintiffs, they recently received 500 pages of documents from Warner/Chappell as part of the discovery process. Included in that cluster of documents was the 15th edition of The Everyday Song Book from 1927, which they claim is the “proverbial smoking-gun.”

Included in the songbook is “Good Morning and Birthday Song,” which uses Patty Hill’s words for “Happy Birthday” and the very similar “Good Morning” with sister Mildred Hill’s music.

And while there is a line of text below this song that reads “Special permission through courtesy of The Clayton F. Summy Co.,” there is no specific copyright claimed. However, the filmmakers note that every other individual song in the book has an explicit declaration of copyright.

They were able to obtain a revised Fourth Edition of the songbook from 1922, and again the song contains the permission notice but no copyright claim. This, argue the filmmakers, “is fully consistent with Plaintiffs’ position that the Happy Birthday lyrics had been dedicated to the public many years before then.”

As Ars Technica’s Joe Mullin points out, the lack of an explicit copyright notice in the 1922 songbook is “critical, because under the 1909 Copyright Act which was then in force, a published work had to include the word ‘Copyright,’ the abbreviation ‘Copr.,’ or the ‘©’ symbol, or ‘the published work was interjected irrevocably into the public domain.'”

Additionally, even if the court holds that the “permission” line constitutes a valid copyright in 1922, the laws in place at the time would have put the song into the public domain by 1949. And, even if that copyright had been renewed, it would ultimately have expired at the end of 1997.

The filing from the filmmakers came only days before a scheduled hearing on the copyright issue, so there may be an update coming later this week.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

BMW Beat Google To The “Alphabet” Name And Website

Before Google created its new parent company, BMW used and trademarked the Alphabet name and domain.

Yesterday, Google announced a massive reorganization that will put the Internet giant and all its other side businesses under the umbrella of a new company called Alphabet. But don’t expect to visit Alphabet.com anytime soon, unless you want to buy a bunch of BMWs.

The New York Times reports that BMW, which currently uses Alphabet for a subsidiary that provides services to corporations with vehicle fleets, wasn’t informed by Google of its new company’s name.

A spokesperson for the German automaker says it hasn’t received any offers to buy the Internet domain or the trademark. And even if it did, it’s not selling, claiming the website is a “very active” part of the subsidiary.

Still, BMW says its subsidiary’s alphabet.com website has been overloaded with visitors since Monday’s announcement. Google’s new parent company already has a website at abc.xyz.

The automaker tells the Times it will look into whether or not Google’s use of the name Alphabet has led to any instances of infringement.

Of course, as the Times points out, there are no rules that prohibit one company from using the name already employed by another company.

However, two well-known corporations utilizing the same name may lead to consumer confusion, which could constitute infringement, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Although BMW and Google don’t seem to have much in common at first glance, the tech giant has made a push in the auto industry recently with increased testing of self-driving cars.

Google Creates Alphabet, but Runs Into BMW [The New York Times]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Regulators Shut Down Debt Relief Operation That Took Millions From Consumers

(Arks Endeavors)

The Florida Attorney General’s Office and the Federal Trade Commission make a pretty effective pair when it comes to putting an end to companies and operations taking advantage of consumers. Just a day after the regulator and state’s attorney general teamed up to sue a company behind medical alert robocalls, the two entities announced they shut down a debt relief scheme that took million from consumers with credit card debt.

The FTC announced today that a federal court granted its request to temporarily halt a debt relief telemarketing operation consisting of six related companies – doing business as Satisfied Services Solutions LLC – that promised consumers help with their credit card debts if they paid a hefty up-front fee.

According to the FTC and State of Florida complaint [PDF], since January 2013 the operation cold-called consumers with credit card debt and identified themselves as “card services,” “credit services,” and “card member services,” or one of the defendants’ phony businesses.

The telemarketers then allegedly promised that for a fee between $695 and $1,495 they could save consumers thousands of dollars by reducing their credit card interest rate.

If the relief failed to materialize, the debt relief company promised it would return the up-front fees. However, the complaint alleges this was also a lie.

In order to win the trust of consumers, telemarketers allegedly said they knew the amount of the individual’s credit card debt, provided the caller’s license or badge number, mentioned the Internet domain name of the phony business, and falsely claimed they had a business relationship with the consumers’ lenders.

During the call, the FTC and Florida AG claim the debt relief company billed consumers’ credit cards between $500 and $1,500 and promised to provide a savings of about $5,000 within 90 days.

Like most other debt relief scams, the up-front fees never resulted in savings, the FTC says.

“In return for the hefty fees that they pay, most consumers do not achieve any debt relief at all,” the complaint states. “But instead find themselves saddled with even more debt than before because of the fees Defendants charge to their credit cards.”

The FTC notes that debt relief scams of this nature are not new. In fact, two of the principals in this case – Steven Short and Karissa Dyar – operated a similar scheme through Pro Credit Group, which was shut down by regulators in September 2013.

FTC and State of Florida Charge Debt Relief Scammers [Federal Trade Commission]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

People Mad About Dinner Roll Lawsuit Keep Calling Wrong Attorney

When you’re the lawyer behind an infamous lawsuit against a beloved institution, members of the public will call you. For example, there’s the one where a woman is suing a restaurant after she was injured by a hurtling dinner roll at a restaurant famous for its “throwed rolls.” Fans of the restaurant are looking up the lawyer behind it and calling or e-mailing to complain. The problem: they’re calling the wrong attorney.

“We got a lot of crazy phone calls and crazy emails from people who loved the throwed rolls and they are pretty upset about the lawsuit,” says attorney John Meehan of St. Louis, who is not Bill Meehan, also of St. Louis, who is representing the 67-year-old pastor. John Meehan works for his father. J. Justin Meehan, and they call themselves “Meehan Law LLC.” Adding to the confusion, the father-and-son Meehans do handle personal injury cases, so it’s easy to see where an annoyed roll fan could go wrong here.

“However,” they say in an announcement on their website, “we are actually huge supporters of that restaurant, and have stopped there regularly on the way to visit relatives down south.”

Lambert’s Cafe, a micro-chain with restaurants in Missouri and Alabama, is famous for the roll-throwing. Heck, they’ve registered the domain name throwedrolls.com, and sell t-shirts with cartoons of rolls on them that say, “Catch this!”

While the restaurants are famous for this, the pastor’s attorney says that it isn’t the first time the company has been sued for a roll-related injury, and he believe’s that’s an argument in his client’s favor.

She claims that a roll hit her in the eye and caused a scratched cornea and loosened retina, and that she has continuing pain and blurriness in her eye.

Videos of the roll-throwing in action show how this could have gone wrong: they aren’t a 100 MPH fastball, but those rolls are going pretty fast when thrown overhand.

‘Throwed Roll’ attorney says this isn’t the first lawsuit against Lambert’s [Fox 2]
NEWS FLASH!! We are NOT the Law Firm Suing Lambert’s Cafe! [Meehan Law]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Very Personal Information For Over 30 Million Ashley Madison Users Set Loose On Internet In Wake Of Hack

Ashley Madison, the website for cheating cheaters who specifically want to go have an affair, was hacked in July. A day later, the company said that it was working to secure its users’ data and all personally identifiable data had been taken down. But perhaps the company is taking after the worst habits of its member base, because that too turns out to be a pack of dirty lies: the full data for over 30 million Ashley Madison accounts is now out there in the wild.

The good news, such as it is: the 33 million passwords that are part of the data dump are hashed (encrypted) and probably won’t be cracked. That, however, is a very, very small silver lining in a giant, ominous stormcloud of doom. The rest of the leaked data includes 36 million e-mail addresses (including, Ars Technica points out, 15,000 from .gov or .mil domains) and 33 million usernames and first and last names.

It gets worse for the 33 million users who now have their names and user IDs out there: the rest of their profile information went along with. That includes likes, dislikes, partnership status, sexual preferences, date of birth, and more. Physical addresses and phone numbers are also attached, along with the last four digits of millions of users’ credit card numbers.

But wait! There’s more! You also get the full records of the last seven years worth of credit card transactions that the site had, to the tune of 9.6 million records. A researcher also says he has found valid, active credit card numbers in the data.

In sum, this leak is very, very bad for all of Ashley Madison’s users. The internet now has a hold of their private secrets combined with their public identities, and the internet being the internet, is unlikely to be kind.

And yet, the breach may be even worse for the business: the data dump, researchers have found, doesn’t just include user data. It also includes an overwhelming amount of Ashley Madison’s internal data. There’s financial and security info in the leak, including information for PayPal accounts company executives use and Windows domain credentials for employees. And there are also a huge number of internal documents in the data stash, including communications, org charts, contracts, and more.

Ashley Madison’s former CTO, who has been working as a consultant with the company since the discovery of the breach in July, told security expert Brian Krebs that “The overwhelming amount of data released in the last three weeks is fake data.”

Alas, that does not appear to be true for this massive, final dump. Not only does the volume of internal company data released along with the user profiles indicate that the information is genuine, but also multiple site users confirmed to Krebs that they had identified their own personal info in the leak.

The most recent statement from Active Life Media, Ashley Madison’s parent company, condemns the hackers for appointing themselves “as the moral judge, juror, and executioner, seeing fit to impose a personal notion of virtue on all of society,” and adds a plea for anyone with information that can ID the hackers and lead to prosecution to come forward.

Ashley Madison hack is not only real, it’s worse than we thought [Ars Technica]

by Kate Cox via Consumerist

Surprise! This $200 Off Kroger Coupon Is Actually A Scam

This coupon promises to get you $200 off your next $20 shopping visit to the supermarket chain Kroger. Well, except for how the coupon doesn’t actually work at Kroger. Or exist. The promise of unrealistically amazing coupons is used to get people to click on a link that could harm your computer.

While it might seem obvious to you that a $200 off coupon for a $220 purchase is not a real thing, people who aren’t so scam-savvy or coupon-savvy are falling for it and clicking through.

It’s a good idea to avoid coupons that don’t originate with a product manufacturer or a retailer: if a friend passes you a coupon using e-mail or you see the promise of an unbelievably good coupon on Facebook, don’t believe it. Swapping coupons with trusted friends is fine, but buying coupons on eBay, for example, can land you in a world of trouble.

If you want to help rid the world of scammy coupons, the Coupon Information Corporation, an industry-funded group, wants your help. They’re currently holding a survey and collecting information on where people swap coupons on Facebook.

Here’s the statement that Kroger published about this specific coupon earlier today:

Attention Kroger Customers: There is currently an unauthorized “Save $200 when you spend $220 or more in one transaction” offer circulating. This giveaway is not affiliated with or supported by the Kroger Co. in any way. We recommend not engaging with the site(s) that offer links to the coupon, or providing them with any personal information. Our team is actively working with Facebook and domain service providers to address the concern.

There is currently an unauthorized “Save $200 when you spend $220 or more in one transaction” offer circulating. [Kroger]
Coupon Information Corporation
Kroger warns of fake $200 coupon [WVEC]

SEE ALSO:
Publix Coupon Promising $100 Worth Of Free Stuff Is (Gasp!) A Scam

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

5 Dead Simple SEO Hacks to Save You Time | Entrepreneur.com

5 Dead-Simple SEO Hacks to Save You Time

February 10, 2014

Let me be very clear, when I talk about “hacking” SEO, I’m talking about saving time and doing things as efficiently as possible. I’d never encourage gray or black hat techniques to game the search engines!
So with that in mind, let’s look at a few ways to speed up the process of performing proper SEO on your site. SEO rules must be followed carefully, but that doesn’t mean that you need to waste time doing things the hard way. The following five hacks will cut back the amount of time you have to spend on SEO while simultaneously improving your natural search performance:
Hack 1: Get keyword ideas from your internal search data. When people search inside your site using your search bar, they’re doing so because the content they’re looking for isn’t immediately apparent. By tracking these searches, you’ve got a supply of fresh new keywords that you know your customers interests will seek. Building content around them automatically pays off in terms of SEO, as you’re helping to satisfy both visitors and the search engines.
Related: Your SEO Checklist: 4 Steps to Optimizing Your Website
The analytics programs of some sites will automatically return this data, but if you have a Wordpress site that doesn’t, take a look at the Search Meter plugin. It’s free to install and will automatically help you uncover the most popular search terms from within your very own website.
Hack 2: Find keyword suggestions using the Google Adwords Keyword Planner. Since most Google Analytics data has turned into “not provided,” you’ve got to get a bit more clever when it comes to getting keyword information from the search giant.

Log into the new Google Adwords Keyword Planner and select the “Search for keyword and ad group ideas” option. Then, enter your site’s URL into the “Your landing page” field, set the targeting option to your country and run your search. The “Keyword ideas” tab that appears will give you a series of phrases Google believes related to your site. Powerful options to target with onsite SEO and content campaigns if you aren’t already.
Hack 3: Add Google Authorship code to your site’s header. There are a few different ways that you can set up and claim Google Authorship (which you really should do for SEO purposes), but the easiest has to be the following:
If you have a Wordpress site, don’t worry about plugins or email confirmations. Instead, just plug the following code into the header.php file of your site (making sure to replace the profile link with your code):
Related: 5 SEO Trends Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know for 2014
Doing so ensures that your profile code will be propagated to all pages of your site – right where Google can find it and give you credit for your efforts.
Hack 4: Submit entire domains to the Disavow Links tool. When the Disavow Links tool first came out, SEOs were super cautious about submitting individual links only. Indeed, it made sense to be cautious before it was known exactly what impact the tool would have on a site’s performance. If the tool immediately devalued any links submitted, cutting off an entire domain could have an unnecessarily widespread impact -- taking down useful links, as well as bad.
However, in a June 2013 video, Matt Cutts, Google’s head of webspam, made it clear that webmasters didn’t need to be too picky about the links they submitted using the tool. Instead of offering individual links, Cutts recommended providing entire URLs -- saving tons of time for formerly nitpicky SEOs.
If a backlink analysis of your site’s inbound links reveals a few negative issues, don’t worry about being selective in your disavowal request. Submitting entire domains is a good SEO practice, and it’s a good time-saver as well.
Hack 5: Combine Javascript tags with Google Tag Manager. Google Analytics, Twitter and Google+ are just a few of the sites that request to install JavaScript code on your site to power certain functionalities. But unfortunately, every one of these snippets that you install slows down your site -- and it’s well-known that slow sites are bad for SEO.
To save the time of requiring your site to fire each snippet individually, take a look at Google’s free Tag Manager tool. Simply enter your code pieces into the tool’s tag generator and you’ll be provided with a site-wide tag that will fire each JavaScript file according to the rules you specify. Once this tag is installed on your site, you’ll see load times decrease immediately compared to your initial on-page configuration.
Related: Simplify Your SEO Program With These 5 Strategies

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5 Dead Simple SEO Hacks to Save You Time | Entrepreneur.com

Texas Attorney General Still Seeks RadioShack Gift Card Justice

(Matthew Hunt)

RadioShack still says that they can’t identify the purchasers or the holders of the estimated $46 million worth of gift cards that are still out there for the chain. While there are still RadioShack stores, those are owned by a different company and won’t accept the old gift cards. The Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton, wants to make sure that gift card holders know that the Shack owes them money.

The AG now estimates that there’s 2.9 million unredeemed RadioShack gift cards out there, worth an estimated $46 million. That’s a lot of money: remember that the RadioShack brand, domain names, and intellectual property sold for only $26 million.

RadioShack is fine with letting gift card holders file a claim as creditors in the bankruptcy and get in line behind the creditors that kept the electronics retailer afloat in its last few years.

The request that the AG has made is pretty simple: they want RadioShack to notify people who have or
who might have purchased RadioShack gift cards about the bankruptcy proceedings. Or, in lawyer-talk:

Due process requires that these gift card purchasers are entitled to actual notice of
the confirmation proceedings so that they receive all required information and are given a
reasonable time for a response in order to meaningfully participate in the confirmation process in
this case.

Some of the missing gift card holders may have lost or destroyed those cards, and they’re now unable to claim them, which would make that cash part of the interest-earning funds of the respective state attorneys general. We don’t doubt that the AG’s office wants to make sure that RadioShack makes every effort to get money back to consumers before their lenders, but remember that AGs benefit from this arrangement.

STATE OF TEXAS’S MOTION FOR ENTRY OF AN ORDER COMPELLING THE DEBTORS TO PROVIDE ACTUAL NOTICE TO KNOWN CONSUMER PURCHASERS OF UNREDEEMED GIFT CARDS [Texas Attorney General]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist