Utility Wants To Charge Solar Panel Users For Not Using Their Energy

from the that's-what's-called-chutzpah dept

There are banks that have worked out ways to charge you both for using and for not using your account enough, but hearing about Midwest utility Xcel Energy trying to justify its reasoning for charging homes with solar panels for not using their services is just mindbogglingly ridiculous:

"We just don't think it's fair that customers that don't have solar panels on their homes should subsidize these solar panel customers any further."

No, that doesn't make any sense. After all, isn't the whole point of those with solar panels being that they don't need much (if any) energy from the utility? I know in many places, the local utility will actually buy excess solar energy from home owners. But, here we are again with "entitlement society" at work. The idea, via Xcel, is that it's somehow owed its fees -- and if people are willing to go with an alternative, then they need to keep paying up anyway.

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RCN Increases Rates, Says You'll Have To Pay A Fee To Downgrade

from the now-that's-just-nasty dept

We've seen all sorts of nasty fees and sneaky tricks by broadband companies to try to get you to pay more, but Broadband Reports highlights how RCN not only raised its rates, but then told customers it would cost them a "$5 downgrade fee" to switch their plan to a less costly option in response to the higher rates. And there are people out there who still wonder why so many subscribers hate their broadband providers?

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PRS Threatens Woman For Playing Radio To Her Horses Without Paying A Licensing Fee

from the this-is-called-extortion dept

When I was in the UK recently, I was surprised to hear just how much most folks hate PRS -- the collections society in charge of getting various businesses to pay for playing music. PRS is also the group that has caused music videos to be pulled from YouTube after demanding much more money than was economically feasible. But, where PRS really shines is in threatening tons of small businesses. Over the years, we've had stories on PRS threatening car repair shops, because mechanics in the garage were playing their radios loud enough that customers in the waiting room could hear them. That's a public performance, according to PRS. Then they went after a police station because some cops were listening to radios. Then they went after a children's charity for singing Christmas carols without paying up. The group has even been known to call up small businesses and if they hear music in the background, demand payment, including one case involving a guy working at home with his dog. Apparently, that constitutes a "public performance."

The latest (sent in by a few folks) is that PRS has now threatened a woman who plays classical music to her horses in her stable to keep them calm. She had been turning on the local classical music station, saying that it helped keep the horse calm -- but PRS is demanding £99 if she wants to keep providing such a "public performance." And it's not just a one-off. Apparently a bunch of stables have been receiving such calls.

Obviously, this is not a case of random excessive attempts by PRS to squeeze more money out of people. It's become systematic. The group seems to believe that playing music in almost any situation now constitutes a public performance and requires a licensing fee. You just know they're salivating over the opportunity to go after people playing music in their cars with the windows down.

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Recording Industry Lobbying Group Pushes Congress To Tax Radio Stations More

from the and-even-screws-that-up dept

MusicFIRST, a recording industry lobbying group that already has some controversy surrounding it due to contributions from groups not allowed to be involved in lobbying, is continuing to push forward with its campaign to claim that radio is a kind of piracy and demanding legislation that forces radio stations to pay extra to play music. For most of the history of radio, radio stations have paid songwriters and publishers royalties for playing music on the radio, but they didn't pay the musicians (really: the record labels). In fact, the money often (illegally) went in the other direction, with the labels paying the radio stations to play certain artists to help promote them.

However, these days, with the recording industry unable to adapt to the changing marketplace, they've taken to demanding that others (individuals, ISPs, video games, Apple, webcasters, etc...) simply give them money instead. Their latest target, of course, is radio stations. It started with that silly claim that radio is a form of piracy -- then advanced to a bill, being introduced by a Congressional Rep, John Conyers (whose last campaign was heavily funded by those connected to the labels and this lobbying group), to force radio stations to pay the record labels as well.

MusicFIRST's latest effort was to drag its dog and pony show to Congress, where it paraded a bunch of musicians in front of Congresscritters to whine about how unfair it was that radio stations helped promote their music without paying them. Of course, it looks like MusicFIRST should have talked to the musicians a bit more carefully first. One of the musicians they trotted out, Matt Maher, less than 24 hours before going before Congress, noted on his Twitter account how such royalties could hurt radio stations and worried that it would cause some stations to shut down. Apparently, someone went a bit off the reservation and made exactly the opposite point that MusicFIRST wanted him to make....

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Maybe Airlines Should Take A Page From Telcos: Pretend Extra Fees Are From The Government

from the oxygen-fee-anyone? dept

For years, we've pointed out how various telcos get away with adding extra fees to increase the price of service without technically "increasing the price." The sneakiest of these add on those fees with names that make them sound like they're required by the government -- even though they rarely are. A few times, we've asked how those sorts of fees might be applied to other businesses. Of course, we did so as a joke, using it to show how ridiculous some of those fees really were. However, it appears that perhaps it wasn't such a joke. Reading this NY Times article about all the new fees that airlines are charging passengers, it has to remind you of the sorts of fees seen on your telco bills lately. As far as I know, I haven't seen any airlines disguising fees as gov't taxes yet -- though it may just be a matter of time. Of course, the airlines are doing their best to ignore the criticism of things like charging $7 for a pillow or $2 for some water -- but as political cartoonists are noticing, it may not be long before people expect to be charged for oxygen masks or use of the bathroom.

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Research Journals Make It As Difficult As Possible To Openly Publish Gov't Funded Research

from the bad-news-for-everyone dept

I recently got into a conversation with an academic, who had to jump through some ridiculous hoops to get a paper published. Apparently, part of the experiment had been published elsewhere, and even though it was in a somewhat different context, a journal that was interested in publishing a different paper wouldn't touch it because an editor there was afraid of the copyright issues from the first publisher. So, unless the professor was willing to do an entirely new experiment to create new (the same) results, it wouldn't publish. This, of course, seems to go against everything that academia should be about: which is the open sharing of research results and ideas to further the course of knowledge. But, of course, thanks to copyright, that's rarely what happens.

Witness this bizarre story, relayed by William Patry, about the American Psychological Association's assault on a Congressional requirement that any NIH-funded research get published openly a year after its published in a journal. Let's be entirely clear here: we're talking about publicly (tax-payer) funded research that gets published in a journal. The journal does not pay for the research at all. The research is paid for by the NIH. Much of the salaries of the academics involved are often paid for by public institutions as well. On top of that, the journals do not reimburse the academic for publishing the research. The journals also do not reimburse the "peers" who peer review the research. In other words, these journals contribute very little to the publication, and get tremendous benefits for free (often at the expense of taxpayers). And, then, of course, the journals claim copyright over the papers and charge insane fees to subscribe to the journals that publish them.

Recently, Congress realized this was a problem, and ordered that all NIH-funded research (and that's hardly peanuts: the NIH funds nearly $30 billion in research per year) be published online in the PubMed Central archive, a year after publication in a journal. This still granted the journals plenty of time to get a return on whatever little "investment" they put into the publication. Most university libraries would still pay the exorbitant fees for the journal, but this tax-payer funded research would then be available to others after one year for free.

The American Psychological Association had other ideas, however. While it's not disobeying the rule, it is taking a rather draconian approach to it. It's decided that it will charge the institution the academic comes from $2,500 for "depositing" the paper with PubMed. It will not allow the researchers to submit the paper themselves (and avoid the fee). It also will not let the researcher submit the paper to any other open research publication and (of course) will not let the author retain the copyright on the publications. While it appears that the APA is rethinking some of this policy thanks to some of the outcry, it shows yet another old school academic journal clinging to not just an outdated business model, but one that actively stifles academic sharing of research and cross-pollination of ideas.

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Fewer Amenities When You Fly... But Instead You'll Get A Lot More Ads!

from the can't-wait! dept

Have you flown lately? It's becoming less and less enjoyable by the day, it seems. Many airlines are dumping features, adding fees and making sure customer service is about as frustrating as possible. On top of all that, it appears that airlines are so focused on cost cutting that they're looking to do whatever possible to shave the slightest bit of weight from each flight (fewer passengers would be one suggestion) including one airline that discovered removing seatback magazines saved thousands of dollars by making the airplane lighter (yes, seriously).

So, what do you have to look forward to on flights these days? Well, advertisements! There's a new startup that is promising to put contextual ads everywhere from your boarding pass to the check-in terminals and (we're sure) to the seatbacks in front of you on the plane. Now, of course, this idea isn't entirely new. Over in Europe discount airlines have been offering up cheap fares while making it up with all sorts of other fees and services. But, then again, no one's talking about cheap fares in the US either. In the meantime, if they're looking for ideas, I still think the flying casino may be the best idea yet. Get people to simply gamble away their money while flying across the country. However, until that comes to pass, expect worse service, fewer amenities, more fees... and tons of advertising.

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Recording Industry Calls Radio 'A Kind Of Piracy'

from the and-mocks-broadcasters dept

It would appear that the recording industry now likes to call any sort of business model it doesn't like "piracy." At least that's the only explanation I can come up with in its latest battle, where it has referred to traditional radio as "a form of piracy." It's almost too bizarre to be true, and that's before we even explain how this involves a (literal) can of herring.

It's difficult to pick a side to cheer for in a dispute between the RIAA and the NAB -- as we're talking about two organizations with a history of saying the most outrageously incorrect things in misguided attempts to "protect" the industries they represent (which almost always ends up backfiring and hurting the industry). However, in the latest battle between the two, it seems pretty clear that it's the RIAA that's being more ridiculous. This is the latest skirmish in the battle that the RIAA started last year, in trying to get radio stations to pay royalties to musicians. If you're not familiar with the details, as it stands now, radio stations have to pay royalties only to songwriters and publishers for the music they play. The musicians themselves don't get royalties, with the (very reasonable) explanation that having songs on the radio acts as a strong promotion for the musicians. This explanation is supported by the history of radio, in which "payola" has almost always played a large role. The record labels have always paid the radio stations to play their bands -- a rather overt admission that radio helps promote new artists.

But with the recording industry confused and struggling to adopt new business models, it wants to force radio stations to pay it, rather than the other way around. What's funny is that, normally, it's the party that has more leverage that gets to demand payment. Yet, here we have a case where it's the weakest party demanding payment because it's so weak. Despite all those years of payola as proof that radio is a promotional vehicle, the RIAA actually tried to put out a totally bogus study claiming that radio play decreased the demand for recorded music. Apparently, that wasn't convincing enough, so now it's claiming that radio is actually a "form of piracy."

To make this even more ridiculous, this group called musicFirst, representing the recording industry, sent the NAB a can of herring (yes, an actual can of herring), a dictionary and some free songs in an attempt to mock the group. The herring was supposed to suggest that the radio stations' argument is a "red herring" (very clever, guys). The dictionary was so that the NAB could supposedly understand the difference between "fees" and "taxes" -- since the NAB refers to the move to get radio stations to pay musicians as a "tax," while the RIAA would prefer to think of it as a "fee." As for the digital songs, they were all mocking titles: "Take the Money and Run" by the Steve Miller Band; "Pay me My Money Down" by Bruce Springsteen; "Back In the U.S.S.R" by Paul McCartney and "A Change Would Do You Good" by Sheryl Crow.

Of course, the recording industry is wrong on just about all of this. The idea that radio is a form of piracy is simply laughable. We've already pointed to the industry's own proof (payola) that radio helps promote artists. As for the definitional difference between fees and taxes, fees are agreed upon between two parties. A tax is a fee required by the government. Since the recording industry is asking the government to set this new rule, it would seem that the NAB is correct again that this would represent a tax, rather than a fee.

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Can Dropping Fees Revitalize eBay?

from the time-to-reinvent dept

Over the past few months, more and more people have been noticing that eBay seems to have stagnated. Sure, it's been making plenty of money and still gets a ton of traffic, but it's not growing as fast as people would like, and there are numerous signs that it's starting to plateau. With Meg Whitman stepping down and John Donahue stepping up to the CEO position, the company has now announced lower fees and "tightened" seller standards to try to cut down on the rampant fraud that has managed to scare off many potential eBay buyers. Amusingly, this lowered fee comes just a day after new research hyped up how much eBay was saving people. The researchers behind the report suggested that, if the economy does go into a real recession, eBay should benefit as people switch to eBay searching for bargains. If that were truly the case, though, then it would seem eBay wouldn't have to be cutting fees.

The real problem may simply be that eBay is too constrained by its own success. It's attempts at branching out with things like Skype and StumbleUpon certainly haven't done much to help eBay, as the eagerly prayed-for synergies turned out to not exist. eBay's own attempts at revitalizing its core business have been equally pointless. So, it seems like something of a desperation play to lower fees, but it's difficult to see it having much of an impact. Certainly, it will make eBay sellers happier, but the transaction fees aren't the barrier eBay is facing in staying relevant. In fact, eBay itself should know this. When Yahoo tried to compete with eBay, it's key selling point was lower transaction costs for sellers, and that didn't do much to attract users.

eBay finds itself in a tough position. If it changes anything in its core business too drastically, it risks alienating those who helped bring the company to its current position. But, not changing will continue the stagnation process and certainly make the hole it needs to dig itself out of that much deeper. In figuring out a new path, it may want to take a few lessons from Amazon, which has been successfully reinventing itself from the inside with its web services offerings, while still striving to keep its core userbase satisfied. Amazon recognized that it could expand into a non-competing business that leveraged its strengths. While some might say that's what eBay tried to do with Skype, that was an acquisition, rather than a ground up offering, and it's still never been clearly explained what synergies there are between the two. In contrast, Amazon's web services offering clearly builds on its experience managing large scale backend operations, as well as its ability to handle a massive number of transactions. eBay probably should be trying to become the "Kinkos" of the web -- a small business's ideal partner -- but has yet to figure out how to do so.

Update: As noted in the comments and elsewhere, this isn't so much a cut in rates as a change in rates. For many sellers, the fees will actually be higher.

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Hiding Cell Phone Taxes Doesn't Make Them Go Away

from the hidden-taxes dept

The Supreme Court has declined to hear a case regarding whether cell phone companies should be allowed to list taxes as separate line items on customer bills. Apparently, certain state governments have begun passing laws prohibiting companies from listing taxes as separate line-items on customer bills, requiring them instead to build those costs into the base prices they charge consumers. Cell phone companies argue that this makes it impossible for them to establish uniform nationwide pricing because they have to adjust the prices in each state to reflect the varying tax burden. This seems to me to be a pretty clear-cut effort by state governments to avoid scrutiny of the taxes they impose. Voters ultimately end up paying these costs whether they're listed separately on the bill or not, so this seems like little more than an attempt by state legislators to avoid accountability. Taxpayers have every right to know what fraction of their bills are going to the government. With the Supreme Court declining to weigh in on the issue, the issue has gone back to the FCC for further consideration. I hope they'll continue to push for greater transparency. Of course, it should be noted that the companies hands aren't totally clean here. While phone companies should be allowed to list extra fees when they're actually required to hand the money over to the government, we've noted before that they shouldn't be allowed to label as "fees" money they're planning to keep for themselves.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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How Much Do You Pay A Year In Sneaky Fees?

from the more-than-you-might-think dept

For years, we've discussed how silly it is when some firms like telcos and cable companies try to hide extra charges in unnecessary fees, often pretending that those fees are required by the government (they rarely are). Usually, it's just a scam so that companies can claim a lower price in advertisements or hide rate increases. But have you ever looked at just how much those fees really cost you? According to a recent report, the average is just under $1,000/year, which is pretty impressive when you think about it. Add it all up, and companies are making about $45 billion in hidden fees each year. And, as Broadband Reports notes in the link above, we've yet to see any government step forward and note that most of these fees seem to be false advertising when they're really used to charge you more than an advertised rate.

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Sprint Takes Away 3 Unnecessary Fees, Replaces Them With 2 New Unnecessary Fees

from the fee-fee-fee-fee dept

Mobile operators have a long history of trying to hide price increases by adding official looking, but totally unnecessary fees to customer bills. The fees usually have quasi-governmental names to them, such as "Federal Programs Cost Recovery," which makes many customers (falsely) believe that these are actually taxes required by the government. Instead, they're simply a way for the operators to squeeze more money out of you while claiming to keep the price low. There's been something of a crackdown on these fees lately, and Sprint has decided to throw in the towel... sorta. It's getting rid of three of the fees, but replacing them with two other fees, just to make things even more confusing. Again, it doesn't appear that either fee is required, but rather they act as a way to hide a price increase while being able to publicly market a lower price.

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