210875
submission
THESuperShawn writes:
The Universal Music Group of Vivendi, the world's biggest music corporation, last week notified Apple that it will not renew its annual contract to sell music through iTunes, according to executives briefed on the issue who asked for anonymity because negotiations between the companies are confidential. Universal's roster of artists includes stars like U2, Akon and Amy Winehouse.
Representatives for Universal and Apple declined to comment. The move, which comes after a standoff in negotiations, is likely to be regarded in the music industry as a boiling over of the long-simmering tensions between Mr. Jobs and the major record labels. With the shift, Universal appears to be aiming to regain a bit of leverage — although at the risk of provoking a showdown with Mr. Jobs.
This move could be as much of a blow to Universal as to Apple- 5 percent of Universal's worldwide revenue in the first quarter, or more than $200 million, came from iTunes sales.
184061
submission
THESuperShawn writes:
(Paraphrased from http://www.firemeg.com/2007/05/july-9th-genocide-b egins-how-ebay-inc.html)"A recent Auctionbytes article (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y07/m05/i21/s 01) about a new update to the eBay User Agreement seems to make eBay look a lot more like Big Brother, if not a full blown communist regime where your thoughts belong to the "community" and where those with bad thoughts may be disappeared. The changes in question went into effect immediately for new members and will be enforced site-wide starting on July 9th, 2007. Most notable of these changes is that eBay seems to have given itself autonomy to strike down anyone they see fit, and use any and all copyrighted material that members post on the site, without permission or royalties.
In the user agreement additions there is a section entitled "Abusing eBay." The section begins like something out of Orwell's 1984, "eBay and the Community work together to keep the Sites working properly and the Community safe. Please report problems, offensive content, and policy violations to us." Seems to be a call to arms for the collective community gestapo to quash anything from listing violations to dissent among users, and of course for the betterment of the community with no financial incentives for users to do the work that many feel should be done by Trust & Safety. The second paragraph goes on to describe the VERO program designed to keep members from using intellectual property that has been copyrighted previously by third parties.
The "Abusing eBay" section then turns an even more diabolical shade of Big Brother in the last paragraph which reads: Without limiting other remedies, we may limit, suspend, or terminate our service and user accounts, prohibit access to our website, delay or remove hosted content, and take technical and legal steps to keep users off the Sites if we think that they are creating problems, possible legal liabilities, or acting inconsistently with the letter or spirit of our policies. We also reserve the right to cancel unconfirmed accounts or accounts that have been inactive for a long time."
Has eBay finally jumped the shark? Is their a better auction service around the corner ready to embrace scorned eBay users? Or have the scammers won (http://www.ebaymotorssucks.com/ebayhacks/?N=A) and eBay will continue to remove negative posts/NARU users that complain (http://www.ebaymotorssucks.com/boardsnippets.htm) , and allow scammers to sell "their wife exposed" (http://www.ebaymotorssucks.com/)?
72180
submission
THESuperShawn writes:
While Apple has previously stated that Steve Jobs had no knowledge of any stock wrongdoing, it looks like the US Government wants to take a look anyway.
"Federal authorities are investigating a backdated stock-option grant awarded to Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs that carried a false October 2001 date, the Wall Street Journal said on Friday."
"Apple said last month that a stock options grant for Jobs was improperly recorded as being approved at a special board meeting on October 19, 2001. "Such a special board meeting did not occur," Apple said in a filing on December 29.
The false dating increased the value of the grant of 7.5 million options to Jobs, and Apple said it had to take a $20 million charge as a result. "
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?typ e=businessNews&storyid=2007-01-12T193908Z_01_N1220 3336_RTRUKOC_0_US-APPLE-OPTIONS.xml&src=rss&rpc=23
