AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
In a victory for the rights of Village People everywhere, Victor Willis, who was the "cop" character, lead singer and co-writer for the flashy 1970s disco group, has won an important copyright case, reclaiming ownership in the songs YMCA, In the Navy, and 31 other Village People classics. It's a court ruling "with significant implications for the music industry," explains ArtsBeat: "Early last year, Mr. Willis invoked a provision of copyright law called 'termination rights,' which gives recording artists and songwriters the ability to reacquire and administer their work themselves after 35 years have elapsed. " This first such case is good news for all kinds of artists. "Over time it's expected to affect the rights to songs by Dylan, Springsteen, Tom Petty, Billy Joel and others," HuffPo notes. "Good for him and probably good for all of us," says Threedonia. "This move by large entities to corral and monopolize artistic content is troublesome." "This is precisely the result that many record labels have feared: that a musician could recover the copyright interest in his songs," adds Jonathan Pink. "Yikes. Not because of what this means to the labels, but what it means to me! Now these songs will be in my head all day! Ugggg. I blame U.S. District Judge Barry T. Moskowitz."
Some old-school entertainment is just 2 good 2 B 4-Gotten. Bethesda Softworks is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the pioneering PC game Wolfenstein 3D by making it playable for free on the Web. Says Mashable: "Wolfenstein 3D, which can be played here, is considered one of the earliest first-person shooters, and the game that made the genre popular on PC...Expect work productivity to drop today." "This is the game that started it all," says AppNewser, "and it is widely credited as being the ancestor or godfather to RPG games as diverse as HalfLife, Portal, and World of Warcraft." Geek.com calls it "one of the most important and memorable PC games of all time ... it changed the way many of us thought about video games, video game violence, and totally insane boss fights ... It's bloody, not at all safe for work, and quite difficult, but it's a foundational video game experience. Pro tip: Z is strafe."
Back in the modern world, the Hoodie as a statement beyond fashion has again reared its hooded head. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wore a hoodie instead of a suit while pitching his company's zillion-dollar IPO to investment bankers. Analyst Michael Pachter told Bloomberg: "He's actually showing investors he doesn't care that much ... I think that's a mark of immaturity. I think that he has to realize he's bringing investors in as a new constituency right now, and I think he's got to show them the respect that they deserve because he's asking them for their money." Backlash, anyone? Business Insider says the tech world immediately began "turning Pachter into a punching bag ... It was the tech world versus the banking world." Kara Swisher of All Things D tweeted that the analyst is a "doofus." "This is what happens when you take people from outside of tech and collide them with topics that they don't understand, in this case, Mark Zuckerberg's wardrobe," says The Next Web. Pachter defended his fashion advice for Zuck and said he's not anti-hoodie, noting that there's a photo of himself wearing a hoodie at the gaming blog Kotaku. Om Malik blogs that the real problem isn't that the hoodie makes a statement, it's simply "a fashion abomination...The hoodie madness has spread so wide and so far that even respectable designers such as Ted Baker are selling their own spin on the hoodie. Question: Will a Yahoo patent on Hoodies mysteriously emerge and stop Zuck from being a hoodie-maven?"
In a debate over fashion between tech guys, there really are no winners. But the Facebook IPO is sure to make it all good for those lucky investors who can see beyond the hoodie. One stock analyst has predicted via CNET that that "although Facebook is expected to go public in the next few weeks between $28 and $35 a share, the stock could hit $46 within the next 12 months....Arvind Bhatia bases his bullish opinion of Facebook's shares on a host of factors, including his contention that the company's monthly active users will grow from about 900 million right now to more than 1.5 billion in 2016." Adweek delivers the top 10 things to know about the Facebook IPO, including "Facebook and Google will end up in some kind of death match" (#9) and "Zuckerberg will continue to wear hoodies to all major press events and executive board meetings" (#5). VentureBeat says the company still faces the challenge of "turning hype into trust." At Deal Journal, MarketWatch's Dave Callaway suggests "global economic instability could pose a substantive challenge to Facebook's IPO." Want way more info about the Facebook IPO than you are prepared to care about? Former disgraced tech stock analyst Henry Blodget has a long story at his Business Insider about "How Goldman Sachs blew the Facebook IPO." It ends with a detailed disclaimer citing an immense list of his conflicts of interest in covering Facebook (and likely many other tech topics) and ends with the line "So, basically, I'm conflicted out the wazoo." Now you tell us, Henry! The Ape Con Myth seems to have obtained the Facebook IPO roadshow presentation, and like Wolfenstein 3D, you can play it on the Web for free. Ape Con says: "If you can watch all 30 minutes and 59 seconds and still want a share of Facebook ... go for it."
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