Beastie Boys In Copyright Infringement Tussle With GoldieBlox Over Use Of “Girls” Parody In Ad

It seems like you couldn’t go on Facebook or Twitter this week without seeing at least eleventy billion posts sharing a new ad from GoldieBlox, a company that makes toys and games aimed at getting girls interested in science, engineering and tech stuff. It’s a fun video, with a Rube Goldberg-esque “set’em up and watch’em” fall bit and a reworked parody of “Girls” by the Beastie Boys. But the company is now suing the band over what it sees as its right to use the song, something the Boys are not cool with at all.

Last Thursday GoldieBlox filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in California, claiming the band was threatening copyright infringement, but that the toy makers have the right to use the music in its now viral video. GoldieBlox says it “created its parody video specifically to comment on the Beastie Boys song, and to further the company’s goal to break down gender stereotypes.”

It should be fair use, argues GoldieBlox, as the ad“has been recognized by the press and the public as a parody and criticism of the original song.”

The lyrics to the original Beastie Boys song “Girls” off the album License to Ill are changed from: “Girls to do the dishes/Girls to clean up my room/Girls to do the laundry/Girls and in the bathroom” to reflect that goal: “Girls build a spaceship/Girls code the new app/Girls that grow up knowing/That they can engineer that.”

But according to an open letter from the Beastie Boys, which is quoted on the New York Times’ Arts Beat blog, the band had no choice but to respond in light of its policy to never allow Beastie Boys music in ads. And while it’s great that GoldieBlox wants to empower girls, when you get right down to it the company is still trying to sell something.

The full open letter from the Beastie Boys reads:

Like many of the millions of people who have seen your toy commercial “GoldieBlox, Rube Goldberg & the Beastie Boys,” we were very impressed by the creativity and the message behind your ad.

We strongly support empowering young girls, breaking down gender stereotypes and igniting a passion for technology and engineering.

As creative as it is, make no mistake, your video is an advertisement that is designed to sell a product, and long ago, we made a conscious decision not to permit our music and/or name to be used in product ads.

When we tried to simply ask how and why our song “Girls” had been used in your ad without our permission, YOU sued US.

What do you think?

Beastie Boys Fight Online Video Parody of ‘Girls’ [New York Times Arts Beat]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

FDA Orders Halt To Marketing Of 23andMe DIY Genetic Test Kits

The FDA says that 23andMe’s statements that it can be used for disease diagnosis make it a regulated medical device.

Alleging that the makers of the popular, Google-backed 23andMe at-home genetic testing kit are violating federal law by marketing the product for things like disease diagnosis without regulatory clearance, the FDA has ordered an immediate halt to sales of the kits.

In a letter to Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe CEO and wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, the FDA claims the marketing of the 23andMe Saliva Collection Kit and Personal Genome Service is currently in violation of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

According to the agency, the kit falls under the heading of a regulated medical device under section 201(h) of the FD&C Act, as it is “intended for use in the diagnosis of disease or other conditions, or in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, in man or other animals.”

The FDA calls out examples from the 23andMe website which state that the kit can be used to provide reports on “254 diseases and conditions,” that it can diagnose whether the user has carrier status for some diseases and conditions, indicate “health risks,” and “drug response” for these conditions. The agency takes particular issue with the claim that the kit is a “first step in prevention” that enables users to “take steps toward mitigating serious diseases” like diabetes, coronary heart disease, and breast cancer.

Here are some of the claims made on the 23andMe website that the FDA takes issue with.

In the letter, the FDA states that it has repeatedly told 23andMe that the device requires premarket approval in order make a number of the claims in its marketing.

From the letter:

“Some of the uses for which PGS is intended are particularly concerning, such as assessments for BRCA-related genetic risk and drug responses (e.g., warfarin sensitivity, clopidogrel response, and 5-fluorouracil toxicity) because of the potential health consequences that could result from false positive or false negative assessments for high-risk indications such as these. For instance, if the BRCA-related risk assessment for breast or ovarian cancer reports a false positive, it could lead a patient to undergo prophylactic surgery, chemoprevention, intensive screening, or other morbidity-inducing actions, while a false negative could result in a failure to recognize an actual risk that may exist.”

The FDA states that 23andMe did submit applications in 2012 for the agency’s least-harsh medical device review process, but the agency claims that the company failed to provide information subsequently requested by FDA, and thus the applications were considered withdrawn earlier this year.

“To date, 23andMe has failed to provide adequate information to support a determination that the PGS is substantially equivalent to a legally marketed predicate for any of the uses for which you are marketing it,” reads the letter.

The agency says it has been trying to work with 23andMe since 2009 and that it has previously proposed changes to the kit’s labeling that “could mitigate risks and render certain intended uses appropriate for de novo classification.” The FDA also claims that it has provided the company with just about all the feedback and information it would need to bring the product into compliance.

“However, even after these many interactions with 23andMe, we still do not have any assurance that the firm has analytically or clinically validated the PGS for its intended uses, which have expanded from the uses that the firm identified in its submissions,” writes the agency.

The letter, dated Nov. 22, calls for the company to “immediately discontinue marketing the PGS until such time as it receives FDA marketing authorization for the device.”

“We recognize that we have not met the FDA’s expectations regarding timeline and communication regarding our submission,” a rep for the company tells Bloomberg. “Our relationship with the FDA is extremely important to us and we are committed to fully engaging with them to address their concerns.”

As of right now, the 23andMe website still contains the marketing language and statements mentioned in the FDA letter. While the agency called for the immediate halt to marketing of the product, it also gives the company 15 days to tell the FDA what steps it has taken to remedy the problems.

23andMe and others in the DIY genetic test kit business have been under fire from lawmakers and regulators for years, who have been concerned about the potential for errors and mix-ups that could possibly lead users to seek the wrong treatments.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

We’d Love To See The Electric Bill For Home Decked Out With 500,000 Christmas Lights

(frankieleon)

When you’re the former Guinness Book of World Records title holder for the most Christmas lights strung on a home, there is no way you can slack off when it comes time to reclaim your title. That being said, we’re pretty interested in taking a peek at the electric bill for an Australian family that’s made a comeback from last year’s defeat with more than half a million Christmas lights on display for 2013.

An official from Guinness World Records confirmed today that the Canberra family once again snagged the record for Christmas lights on a residential property with 502,165 blinking, twinkling and otherwise sparkling lights, reports the Associated Press.

The family is coming off a jolly defeat last year when a family in New York lit up the night with 346,283 lights on their home. The contenders from Down Under first snagged the title in 2001 with 331,038 lights, but now you’ve got to go even bigger to win.

For those who love ogling the sight of so many lights, the home will be open to the public on weekend to raise money for charity.

David Richards — husband of Janean and father of Aidan, 13, Caitlin, 10, and Madelyn, 6 — said most of his neighbors supported the display. But some hadn’t spoken to him since the last record was set.

“I have always loved Christmas. Having the Christmas lights with the community coming in and sharing it is a time when you get to know people you probably should know better, I guess,” said the father, adding that his neighbors support the family but some of them hadn’t spoken to him since the last record was set.

And as for that electric bill, well, it won’t steal the Christmas meal from the family’s mouths: A local power company is actually going to donate around 2,500 Australian dollars to cover the cost for a month.

Aussie house sets record with 500,000 Christmas lights [Associated Press]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Singing McDonald’s Employee Is Apparently Not Annoying To Customers

While that Australia in McDonald’s is blaring opera music to drive pesky teens out of the parking lot, an employee at a McD’s in Ohio is apparently having the opposite effect on customers with her operatic renditions of songs like “God Bless America.”

The Akron Beacon Journal has the story of a local McDonald’s worker who seems to be taking the McResource “sing away stress” suggestion to the extreme, belting out tunes for customers during her 5-year tenure at the eatery.

“God has blessed me all of my life. There were three times when I almost died, and each time God pulled me through,” the 71-year-old tells the Beacon Journal. “The first was when I was 5 and living with an abusive foster family… Because nobody believed me, I stepped in front of a semi and waited for it to run over me. But it didn’t happen. The woman next door who was the mother of my foster mother called my dad and I went to live with another family… who were really an awesome match.”

She says she does most of her singing while working in the back of the restaurant so as to not interfere with customers’ conversations, but some of the regulars say they like it when the part-time employee takes her one-woman show to the seating area.

“She’s a real nice lady. She comes in every day and sings to us,” says one customer. “Everybody knows her in here, and they always ask her to sing because she’s such a good singer, she sounds like a professional.”

You can judge for yourself on the Beacon Journal website, which has video capturing the singing burger-slinger in action.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Male Reader Shocked To Learn That Vanity Sizing Exists

Reader Ben was shopping at Aeropostale when he noticed a guide to the chain’s new women’s sizing hanging on the wall. He snapped a picture of it and sent it to us. “I wouldn’t say this is exactly deception, I think Aeropostale has found a rather creative way to try to sell more clothes,” he writes. Whether adjusting sizes is or isn’t deceptive is a matter for fashion industry debate, but what Aeropostale is doing isn’t creative or new.

Vanity sizing is the theory that companies intentionally put smaller sizes on larger garments, figuring that a customer who normally wears a size 12 will gather an armful of dresses at your store if she discovers that she wears a size 8 there. There’s scientific evidence that shows this is true: being able to fit in a smaller numerical size than expected boosts our self-esteem.

“IMO, they’re trying to make women feel better about their size, hoping this will encourage them to buy,” Ben observes, causing every person with experience shopping for women’s clothing who is reading this post to fall out of their chairs laughing.

While it’s comforting to think that this is the only reason why the numbers on women’s sizes have crept up over the decades, the truth is more complicated. If Americans’ waistbands weren’t expanding in the aggregate, there would be no need to adjust sizes.

In a controversial article, The myth of vanity sizing, patternmaker Kathleen Fasanella argues that intentional vanity sizing as consumers imagine it doesn’t exist, but instead size numbers are creeping down because people as a whole are getting larger. It’s because different companies scale their products differently according to their markets, and any change in sizes between brands and over time is because of this chaos.

Not that men are immune. Writing for Equire a few years ago, Abe Sauer discovered that there’s a huge variation between pants that are supposed to be the same size. The same measurement-baed size!

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Mywebroom: un cuarto virtual con tus sitios web favoritos

via Educación tecnológica http://villaves56.blogspot.com/2013/11/mywebroom-un-cuarto-virtual-con-tus.html www.bscformacion.com

Deli Owner Accused Of Telling Man He’d Only Won $1,000 In Lottery Instead Of $1M

(Reuben Whitehouse)

Wherever there’s money to be handed out, there will always be those sharks swimming around just waiting to take what isn’t rightfully theirs. That’s why it’s a good idea to have someone around to help when you win the lottery, in case someone’s waiting to chow down on your bounty. Police say one deli owner and his son tried to snag $999,000 from a lottery winner who’d won $1 million by telling him he only scored $1,000.

According to the cops, the man who brought in the $10 “Unwrap the Cash” scratch-off ticket spoke Spanish and wasn’t so great at English, reports the New York Daily News.

When he presented the deli guys with his ticket last week at the store, officials say they didn’t tell him to go to a State Lottery office to collect his winnings, but instead allegedly said something like, “Oh you just won a grand, here’s the cash,” right out of the register.

Something smelled fishy to our lucky winner, so he went back the next day to the deli and pushed the matter further.

“Okay, I will pay you $10,000 as long as you don’t involve the police,” the deli’s owner allegedly said, while his son chimed in to agree that he’d only won that amount.

The hero of our story knew he had money waiting for him so he called the police, who confirmed that he was indeed, a millionaire, then arrested the owner and his son and charged them with second-degree grand larceny.

Long Island deli owner, son tried to scam customer out of $1 million lottery ticket [New York Daily News]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Comcast Wants To Be Hated Even More, Adding $1.50 ‘Broadcast TV Fee’

(honeylamb)

In a move that is both hypocritical and underhanded, Comcast is reportedly adding a $1.50/month “Broadcast TV Fee” to some customers’ bills in 2014, pretty much putting a lock on the cable giant’s appearance in the next Worst Company In America tournament.

Let’s first look at the underhanded aspect of this nonsense fee. As anyone could have predicted by all the very public spats between broadcasters and cable operators in recent years, cable bills were destined to keep going up. And the $1.50 fee will indeed increase the amount billed to Comcast customers each month. But since this is a fee tacked on above the bill, the company may still be able to advertise the monthly rate without the fee. So this is an attempt to jack up your bill without being transparent about the total costs to potential subscribers.

Others, like AT&T and Charter have similar tack-on fees, but unlike those companies, which have not benefitted in any way from increased retransmission fees charged by broadcasters, Comcast also happens to own NBC. Thus, isn’t it a bit hypocritical for Kabletown to be involved in finger-pointing that targets broadcasters as the cause of the problem? And how much of that fee is going to NBC?

Comcast Rate Hikes Expand, Adds New ‘Broadcast TV’ Fee [DSLreports.com]

Comcast’s 2014 Rates Will Include A $1.50 “Broadcast TV Fee” [Deadline.com]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Black Friday Shoppers Set Up Camp At Best Buys Nationwide

For some people, the weekend before Thanksgiving means house-cleaning and checking their grocery list for the big feast on Thursday. For others, it means setting up a tent in front of Best Buy and settling in for the rest of the week. For these people, at least, Best Buy opening at 6 P.M. on Thanksgiving Day is good news.

Not because they’re going to rush home to eat some turkey, of course. Don’t be silly. The early opening frees them up to shop elsewhere.

In Tampa, Florida, one family has made an annual tradition of camping out at Best Buy every year. Why Best Buy? “I have three kids of my own, my brothers and sisters have kids there’s always something here to buy, new electronics come out every year,” one camper explained to a local cable news channel.

Many of the people camping out this early are doing so because they enjoy suburban pioneering or to spend time with friends or family, and they don’t have their eye on any items. Yet. “I have plenty of time to look at the flyer,” one camper in Ohio told USA Today.

One Wisconsin family makes an annual tradition of the pre-Thanksgiving campout. “That first year on the lawn chair, no, I just thought my daughter’s crazy and I’m crazy for listening,” one woman told a local TV news station. “Now… we get excited probably in September.”

Single-minded focus on the prize was the only thing we had to compliment these early shoppers on! Without that, what do we have?

Shoppers already lining up for Black Friday deals [USA Today]

Black Friday’s hard core shoppers again set up camp early [Bay News 9]

Trio reunites for Black Friday camp out one week in advance [58 News]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Mall Restaurants Open On Thanksgiving Because Someone’s Got To Feed The Hungry Shoppers

(Mandy_Jansen)

There’s nothing worse than a rumble in your stomach while you’re trying to focus on the hard task of shopping Black Friday or Thanksgiving sales. Maybe you left that plate of turkey and stuffing to get cold and congealed on the table in favor of scoring the best deals. Since many mall stores will be open on earlier on Thanksgiving this year, so will plenty of food court restaurants.

It isn’t just shoppers who need sustenance to survive the holiday shopping bonanza, but the workers who have to be on the job while the mall or store is crowded. And because many restaurants inside malls have a requirement to be open when the mall is, some eateries don’t have a choice.

CNBC says the earlier hours can boost volume at some stores, which in turn can give sales a shove upward as well.

“We saw that sales went up—volume on Black Friday was up 9.04 percent,” Bill Dunn, the pretzel chain’s president and chief operating officer tells CNBC.com. “When I look at the analytics, I find that it’s incremental growth.”

Around 38 million people are expected to dine and dash off to shop some more, according to a recent National Restaurant Association survey, which is a six million person increase from 32 million who planned to eat out on Black Friday in 2011.

It won’t be all bad for workers — for example, Auntie Anne’s and Cinnabon will offer employees higher wages and catered meals for workers who have to be on the clock on Thanksgiving.

And anyone who has to work anywhere on Black Friday can drop in to Seattle’s Best Coffee and receive a free coffee for their hard work.

Because these restaurants don’t have door-buster sales or other big promos to draw shoppers in, some franchisees aren’t too please about opening early but will do so because there’s money to be made.

“It should be a day for family—that’s my feeling, but I also have to pay bills,” one Cinnabon franchisee says. “My rent doesn’t change, and [my employees] have to pay bills too.”

Restaurants target Thanksgiving shoppers…will they bite? [CNBC.com]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist