July 2011

Very interesting comments by former EMI Chief Operating Officer of New Music and President of Digital Business, Douglas C Merrill.

Delivering his keynote address at this week’s annual CA Expo in Sydney, former Google CIO Douglas C Merrill added to the growing belief that punishing and demonizing file-sharers is a bad idea. Merrill, who after his Google stint joined EMI records, revealed that his profiling research at the label found that LimeWire pirates were iTunes’ biggest customers.

Yesterday, during his keynote speech at the CA Expo in Sydney, former Google boss Douglas C Merrill said that companies stuck in the past risk becoming irrelevant. He also had some very interesting things to say about pirates.

Merrill, who was Chief Information Officer and Vice President of Engineering at Google, left the search giant in 2008 after being poached by EMI, a key member label of the RIAA.

At EMI he took up the impressive position of Chief Operating Officer of New Music and President of Digital Business, despite admitting this week that he knew the music industry was “collapsing”.

“The RIAA said it isn’t that we are making bad music, but the ‘dirty file sharing guys’ are the problem,” he said during his speech as quoted by ComputerWorld.

“Going to sue customers for file sharing is like trying to sell soap by throwing dirt on your customers.”

But those “dirty file-sharing guys” had an even dirtier secret. During his stint at EMI, Merrill profiled the behavior of LimeWire users and discovered something rather interesting. Those same file-sharing “thieves” were also iTunes’ biggest spenders.

“That’s not theft, that’s try-before-you-buy marketing and we weren’t even paying for it… so it makes sense to sue them,” Merrill said, while undoubtedly rolling his eyes.

That same “try-before-you-buy” discovery was echoed in another study we reported on last week which found that users of pirate sites, including the recently-busted Kino.to, buy more DVDs, visit the cinema more often and on average spend more at the box office than their ‘honest’ counterparts.

When he was hired by EMI in 2008 he said this:

“For example, there’s a set of data that shows that file sharing is actually good for artists. Not bad for artists. So maybe we shouldn’t be stopping it all the time. I don’t know,” Merrill said.

“Obviously, there is piracy that is quite destructive but again I think the data shows that in some cases file sharing might be okay. What we need to do is understand when is it good, when it is not good…Suing fans doesn’t feel like a winning strategy,” he concluded.

Not really surprising then that EMI have given him the arse less than a year later.

Oh dear looks like Labour has a problem. Ok sure, they have LOADS of problems, but this isn’t one they need.

Cactus Kate has a guest post from David Seymour, Martyn Bradbury will be upset for sure, which just makes the post simply awesome.

Welfare in New Zealand should include jury-like boards that would involve ordinary private citizens in deciding recipients’ eligibility (or not) for welfare.

My comment on that meritorious suggestion is that only NET tax payers should be on the Welfare Jury Boards. They may need police protection and a system similar to the witness protection programme to protect them from the feral vagaries of the heaving, pathetic underclass.

You are a tough girl from the ‘naki who discovered that trading on your ethnicity got you places, especially in the modern Labour Party. This caused some consternation in your ethnic community as no one actually knew who you were, and were quite surprised at your selection, even though you had done some stellar work managing equity at university.

Forging ahead talking little notice of the doubters, you managed to secure the selection in the nominally safe Labour seat of Waitakere, despite not being part of the the gaggle or self serving. A triumph for someone who is not actually a proper westie, and is competing with someone who is a westie right down to her tart cart.

You are “more down to Earth, more authentic, more genuine” than your opponent, despite not having a tart cart. You may not have hunted pigs before entering politics, but you are “more closely connected” than your pig hunting, tart cart driving opponent.

Yet the polls are not favourable. This red seat that is so rightfully yours after a bloody and brutal selection battle is going to stick with the hated Tory sell out, whose tart cart and pig hunting masks the fact she is taking money off hard working beneficiaries who deserve far better for the hard work they do.

And looking at the polls you see you may end up looking at the situations vacant column, at a time where there is a great shortage of equity needing to be managed as the Tory scum have cut funds for equity.

So you look at your party and think this old white guy who is not very popular is not being very equitable to people like you who will lose your seat if he keeps being so useless, and you become another of the most important number in a coup, a “one”.

Hon Dr Lockwood Smith
Speaker of the House of Representatives

By blog and email

Re: Parliamentary Services Funded Travel being used for Party Business

Dear Dr Smith,

Could you please clarify the rules around the use of Parliamentary Services funded travel where MPs are predominantly travelling on party business.

The example I have in mind is MPs travelling for Party conferences or conventions.

In the event that MPs are breaking the rules around the use of parliamentary services funding to attend party business could you please inform me what steps you will be taking to recover the costs from those who have breached the rules?

Should you choose not to recover these costs could you please inform me what steps I can personally take to recover these funds on behalf of the New Zealand tax payer.

Yours faithfully

Cameron Slater
Whaleoil

So it turns out that Len Brown has lied, again.

Bernard has been using the LGOIMA to good effect and originally thought that an email trail he sought about Len Brown’s expensive rates newsletter cost the ratepayers $200,000 when he could have simply popped a note in with the next rates bills when they go out.

But it turns out that the $200,000 quoted wasn’t true and now Len Brown’s extensive ratepayer funded communications team is breaking the first rule of politics….they are explaining.

And in explaining they are losing.

The Auckland Council has confessed that the cost of a message from Mayor Len Brown to ratepayers was $376,774 – not the $200,000 quoted in a council email.

About 500,000 copies of the glossy flyer were sent to every ratepayer, despite concerns from one of Mr Brown’s senior advisers that there were cheaper and more effective ways to communicate a message on rates.

The flyer included a letter from the mayor praising the council for making cost savings in hard times to keep the rates increase down to 3.94 per cent.

Mr Brown did not tell ratepayers the council had set aside $516,000 for an information campaign about the new rating system, of which $376,774 was spent on producing, printing and posting out the flyer.

I just bet “Hutch” got a nice little earner un-tendered too.

The spin-weasels first of all went for cover then they had to admit they tried a cover-up. Bad look. Lying by ommission is still lying.

On Wednesday, Mr Brown’s office and the council media unit refused to give a breakdown of the cost of the flyer after the Herald obtained, under the Official Information Act, a council email putting it at $200,000.

After another request yesterday, the Herald was given the true cost.

An email trail showed Mr Brown’s chief press secretary, Glyn Jones, and senior political adviser Conor Roberts were keen on the flyer after council officials referred it to the mayor’s office.

Another senior mayoral adviser, former Papakura District Council chief executive Theresa Stratton, agreed it was a good idea but “quite an expensive exercise”.

She said it would be much cheaper if it were included in next month’s first rates mailout.

Yesterday, Mr Brown said he was not told of Ms Stratton’s concerns about the flyer’s cost and effectiveness.

Not good enough Lenny, they are your team and they tried to blow smoke up a journalist’s ass. Silly, silly stuff from the spin weasels. Ultimately though they were lying on Len Brown’s behalf so the reality is that it is Len Brown lying, yet again.

Rod Drury tells Trevor Mallard he has donated to the next leader of Labour already, they are in caucus already and also that he isn’t in the loop…how embarrassing.

Looks like another SMOG for the crippled campaign manager.

I like Alan Jones, well, let me clarify that, I didn’t like him when he was the Wallabies coach. He is being attacked for telling the truth about Climate Change.

This is how he dealt with the tossers that are complaining about his statements:

Talkback radio host Alan Jones has told political group GetUp to “get stuffed” as it pursues a complaint against him with the broadcasting watchdog.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has been asked to investigate comments about man-made carbon dioxide that Jones allegedly made in March while broadcasting his popular morning program on Sydney’s 2GB station.

GetUp said it complained to ACMA because Jones said human beings produce 0.001 per cent of carbon dioxide in the air.

Jones today denied ever having made the comment and said the complaint was politically motivated.

“I never said that at all,” he said.

LISTEN: what Jones said

GetUp called for Jones to issue an on-air correction of the alleged statement.

“We’d certainly like to see Mr Jones correct this incorrect statement,” spokesman Paul Mackay said.

Jones responded: “Tell them to get stuffed.

“Who are Getup? What credibility do these people have? Nil.

“Other than they’ve backed the Labor Party.”

Oh dear Lord, is he even still a man?

He was photographed looking noticeably slimmer, more muscle-bound and decidedly tanned on the set of Gossip Girl in New York.

Sporting a tight blue t-shirt, dark glasses and a chic new hairdo, he was almost unrecognisable from his former incarnation as a beefty, louty, knockabout bloke from Down Under.

During his years as a famous Aussie cricketer, Warne had declined to take much of an interest in his physique or appearance, except for the odd foray into blond hair dye and hair “renewal”. If he grew slightly overweight thanks to too much beer and too many meat pies, it didn’t seem to worry him.

But it seems those days are over.

Since he met and started dating Hurley, he has morphed into an altogether more sophisticated creature.

Gone is the bad dye job and spiky hair. Gone is the pot belly. Gone are the trainers and high-street tracksuits.

These days Warne seems to be styling himself, or being styled, on a cross between James Bond and a Ken doll.

Thanks to the attentions of Hurley he says that he has lost 22lb and feels better than he has in years. He appears to have had his eyebrows reshaped and has even admitted to using moisturising cream, defiantly proclaiming: “Yes, I’m still a man”.

No Warnie, you aren’t….you’re G.A.Y.

Motella back in October last year did a post about what he thought was the “nice to have” Youth Transition Service that in his opinion “are enabling and encouraging a swelling underclass believe that they are special by not being arsed to front up at school“.

It looks like this post has now been discovered by a Youth Transition Service staff member doing a Google vanity search and a link to the post appears to have been emailed to other YTS offices throughout the country.

From the patsy comments made on the post this morning, the YTS folk are earnestly qualifying their existence by adding some of their hand-picked unique perspectives.

I have to wonder though if Youth Transition Services isn’t just a fancy title for puberty?