for 20190228
1970s-era musicians sue Sony, UMG to reclaim song rights
NEW YORK (Reuters) - David Johansen, John Waite and other prominent 1970s musicians filed lawsuits on Tuesday accusing Sony Music Entertainment Inc and UMG Recordings Inc of improperly refusing to let them reclaim rights to songs they had long ago signed away.
The proposed class actions filed in Manhattan federal court said U.S. copyright law gives songwriters who bargained away their works on unfavorable terms a “second chance” to reclaim their rights by filing termination notices after 35 years.
But they said Sony and UMG have “routinely and systematically” ignored hundreds of notices, mainly because they deemed the songs “works made for hire” under their recording contracts and therefore not subject to being reclaimed.
The named plaintiffs in the Sony case are Johansen, formerly of the New York Dolls and who as Buster Poindexter recorded “Hot Hot Hot;” John Lyon, who performs as Southside Johnny; and Paul Collins, known for the Paul Collins Beat.
Plaintiffs suing UMG, a unit of France’s Vivendi SA, include Waite, formerly of The Babys and later known for his 1984 hit “Missing You;” and Joe Ely, a guitarist who has performed with The Clash, Bruce Springsteen and others.
Sony and UMG did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The plaintiffs are represented by the law firm Blank Rome and by Evan Cohen, a Los Angeles lawyer.
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“We represent well over 100 artists from the late ‘70s and early ‘80s who want to own their U.S. copyrights, but are being stonewalled by Sony and Universal after sending notices,” Cohen said in an interview. “In many cases, we are talking about artists who have never received royalties from the recordings.”
Both lawsuits cover recording artists who served termination notices effective Jan. 1, 2013 or later.
They seek injunctions requiring that the notices be honored, monetary damages and other remedies.
(Question) What is the meaning of "who served termination notices"?
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(Question) In the 2nd paragraph, does "contrast with" mean "not follow" "not conform to"?
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Facebook may bum us out, but we'll pay for it anyway
Bloomberg 2019年2月
Would you be better off without Facebook? Would society benefit, too?
A team of economists, led by Hunt Allcott of New York University, has just produced the most impressive research to date on these questions.
In general, the researchers' findings are not good news for Facebook audits users. Getting off the platform appears to increase people's well-beings and significantly decrease political polarization.
Allcott and his coauthors began by asking 2,884 Facebook users, in November 2018, how much money they would demand to deactivate their accounts for a period of four weeks, ending just after the midterm elections.
To make their experiment manageable, the researchers focused on about 60 percent of users who said that they would be willing to deactivate their accounts for under $102.
The researchers divided those users into two groups. The Treatment group was paid to deactivate. The Control group was not. Members of both groups were asked a battery, of questions, exploring how getting off Facebook affected their lives.
The most striking finding is that even in that short period, those who deactivated their accounts seemed to enjoy their lives more, as a result. In response to survey questions, they showed decreases in depression and anxiety. They also showed improvements in both' happiness and life satisfaction.
Why is that? The researchers don't have an answer to that question, but they do show that deactivating Facebook gave people a nice gift: about 60 minutes per day on average. Those who got off the platform spent that time with friends and family, and also watching television alone. Interestingly, they did not spend more time online (which means that contrary to what you might expect, they did not replace Facebook with other social media platforms, such as Instagram).
Getting off Facebook also led people to pay less attention to politics. Those in the Treatment group were less likely to give the right answers to questions about recent news events. They were also less likely to say that they followed political news.
Perhaps as a result deactivating Facebook led to a major decrease in political polarization. On political questions, Democrats and Republicans in the Treatment group disagreed less sharply than, did those in the Control group. (This is not because the groups were different: members of both groups, selected randomly, were equally willing to give up use of Facebook for the right amount of money.) It is reasonable to speculate that while people learn about politics, on their Facebook page, what they see is skewed in the direction they prefer which leads to greater polarization.
At this point, you might be thinking that these findings are absolutely terrible for Facebook. Indeed, those in the Treatment group reported, that they were planning to use the platform less in the future and after the experiment ended, they were doing exactly that.
But here's the rub. After one month without Facebook, the median amount that users would demand to deactivate their account for another month, was still pretty high: $.87. The United States has 172 million Facebook users. Assuming that the median user demands $87 to give up use of the platform for a month, a little multiplication suggests that the platform is providing Americans with benefits: If each user gets the equivalent of $87 in benefits per months, the total amount is in the hundreds of billions of annually.
With that finding in mind, Allcott and his coauthors oiler a strong conclusion, one that should provide a lot of comfort to Facebook executives. The researchers insist that on balance, Facebook produces "enormous flows of consumer surplus," in the form of those hundreds of billions of dollars in benefits, for which users pay nothing at all (at least not in monetary terms), Maybe that’s right but maybe not.
Recall that those who deactivated their accounts reported that they were better off along multiple dimensions-happier, more satisfied with their lives, less anxious, less depressed. So here's a real paradox; Facebook users are willing to give up a significant sum of money, each month to make themselves more miserable. To resolve the paradox, consider two possibilities. The first is that the important measure -the gold standard- is people's actual experience.
When people say that they would demand $S7 to give up use, of Facebook for a months they are making a big, mistake. The monetary figure might reflect a simple habit (maybe people are just used to having Facebook. in their lives) or a prevailing social norm, or even a kind of addiction.
The second possibility is that survey answers about personal well-being - including everything that people really care about.
For example, Allcott and his coauthors show that Facebook users know more about politics. Those who follow politics might become more anxious and depressed ― but a lot of people still follow politics. They don’t follow politics to get happy. They Follow politics because they are curious, and because they think that's what good citizens do.
Similarly, Facebook users might want to know what their friends are doing and thinking because that's good to know, whether or not that knowledge makes them happier. Both of these possibilities undoubtedly capture part of the picture. But let's not lose sight of the most striking implication of the new research: Voluntary use of Facebook (and probably Twitter as well) is making a lot of people stressed and sad. For many of us, deactivating might well turn out to be a gift that keeps on giving.
(質問)
Does Facebook require the users to pay some money to deactivate their accounts?
I cannot understand the paragraph starting from "But here’s the rub." Many Americans would like to deactivate their account for $87. If so, I cannot understand "if each user gets~".
I cannot understand the paragraph starting from "The first is that ~"
Does “volunary use” mean “use for free”?
