Posts by Russell Brown
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: Judicial caprice is no way to…, in reply to David Tong,
I’d also say that the original post wrongly tilted at judicial discretion, which I think is an utterly essential component of sentencing. I
The post says the opposite. It was the judge who claimed to have no discretion – the examples I provided were intended to demonstrate that was plainly untrue.
But … I think we’ve reached the point with this 40 year-old law where police, prosecutorial and judicial discretion are no longer adequate. The law itself needs to change.
The Law Commission and two Parliamentary select committee inquiries say so too.
-
Hard News: Judicial caprice is no way to…, in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
She was, after all, as RB notes, only asking for the same sentence as the Crown had asked for Neil Philips of Kerikeri, who the judge then sentenced to 12 months home detention.
To be fair, even Philips' lawyer was realistic about jail time. Van Gaalen seems a significantly different case.
-
Here’s one from last week in the Ashburton District Court.
A couple caught with a fairly sophisticated indoor grow and 6kg of weed and … discharged.
There were unusual circumstances – the couple were Israelis who already planned to leave the country – but it further underlines what complete bullshit Judge McDonald’s hand-wringing was.
-
Hard News: Friday Music: Not just…, in reply to 81stcolumn,
Man, this part from Byrne's NYT essay:
It gets worse. One industry source told me that the major labels assigned the income they got from streaming services on a seemingly arbitrary basis to the artists in their catalog. Here’s a hypothetical example: Let’s say in January Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” accounted for 5 percent of the total revenue that Spotify paid to Universal Music for its catalog. Universal is not obligated to take the gross revenue it received and assign that same 5 percent to Sam Smith’s account. They might give him 3 percent — or 10 percent. What’s to stop them?
The labels also get money from three other sources, all of which are hidden from artists: They get advances from the streaming services, catalog service payments for old songs and equity in the streaming services themselves.
-
Hard News: Friday Music: Not just…, in reply to Ken Double,
Er, that would be me. It’s actually one of the pleasures of the job believe it or not.
I can believe it. Back in the Media7 days, we actually had budget for theme music – and I swiftly and firmly assured everyone else that I’d be handling that. We were able to pay Sean for the original and Disasteradio for a rework of that. The big thrill was commissioning Lawrence Arabia to write and perform us a song for an end-of-season show.
Time was no respectable musician would have been seen dead associating with advertising but it’s a different world now.
It’s funny, isn’t it? It’s not like even their peers or fans look sideways either.
They also get a pleasing kind of anonymity that allows them to drop their guard musically.
Nicely put.
By the way, there’s a lot of ire directed at streaming but I think two things should be remembered. 1) It works for listeners. 2) If we’re pointing the finger about lack of income, don’t assume it’s Spotify. The record companies are right in there with their snouts in the trough and they’re not revealing anything about their agreements or payment structures. David Byrne is onto this and I hope he gets some results.
Yes, the smartest thing Spotify did was cutting the major labels in on the action.
-
Speaker: The CERA transition that no one…, in reply to Joe Wylie,
As some may recall, Cliff’s ‘empathy’ appeared to fail him when he presided over the shameful post-quake scapegoating of a young disabled man.
When I saw that, it brought back the anger I felt all over again.
-
Hard News: Media Take Takes a Break, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
One interesting point on which both Ant and Tom agreed was that the video-on-demand market is undeveloped in New Zealand. In larger markets, it's already a key element of distribution.
-
This column by the economics editor of the Melbourne Age is very, very good.
But even considering the idea makes plain how debauched the whole concept of trade agreements has become. In the past trade agreements were unambiguously good for the citizens of the nations involved. They cut prices. This one puts them up. The US is using to try to keep medicines expensive and the cost of taking on US corporations high. In Canada the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly is using an ISDS clause in the North American agreement to sue the government for failing to grant it two patents knocked back on the grounds that they weren't sufficiently innovative. Eli Lilly wants $500 million.
Somehow, trade agreements morphed from pacts designed to cut trade barriers to pacts designed to erect them. Negotiators who had previously worked to advance free trade started working to advance the interests of US corporations.
-
Hard News: Friday Music: Not just…, in reply to Alan Perrott,
ha Jackson, I saw the pic and thought, “cor, looks just like mine.’’
I recognised it immediately!
-
Hard News: Friday Music: Not just…, in reply to Joe Wylie,
BTW that Fugs album at the right hand front has a nice Matthew Arnold track.
That is some serious hippy shit.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 296 297 298 299 300 … 2279 Older→ First