Binded - Unwanted S&M For Artists & Creatives

There are plenty of ways to gag and bind your time, creativity, and intellectual property. The latest one, Binded (a rebranding of a company called Blockai) is a startup offering up worthless "certificates" - selling snake oil to the creative masses.

On their website they proffer "we give you a copyright certificate as proof which can help protect you against copyright infringement." Unfortunately, they should be saying "might" or "may", and even then, that's not true. In a March 14, 2016 TechCrunch interview (here), when the CEO is asked if there is any legal benefit to their "Blockai Certificate", the CEO responds �we believe that a record created on the blockchain using Blockai would serve as sufficient evidence in a court of law.�

Wrong.

U.S. Copyright is governed by federal law, and the only "copyright certificate" that has any standing in a U.S. court is one from the United States Copyright Office.  These "Blockai certificate" offerings are as worthless as the myth of the "poor mans copyright", whereby you mail yourself a copy of your work, trying to use the postal cancellation date as proof of the date created and that you own it - the theory being that you open the envelope in court for the first time. This myth has been busted by so many reputable publications and entities, that the copyright office even addresses it here, writing "There is no provision in the copyright law regarding any such type of protection, and it is not a substitute for registration."

During their launch last year, Fstoppers ran an article (here), where the author offered false hope,  writing "it adds another layer of protection for the creator". Let's be crystal clear here, Blockai offers no additional protections for the creator. A creator would have more protection wearing a torn prophylactic.

The snake oil being sold on their website is described as "copyright made simple" then "the easy way to protect your images, free forever."  

While this video, a pitch to TechCrunch from a year ago,  reveals something very different. They are charging between $0.25 and $0.50 per image you want to register.  And, you can't make this stuff up - their still frame for the video pitch is rainbows and a unicorn - as mythical as the protections they are saying they give you. Consider that a $65 official registration with the U.S. Copyright Office allows you to register an unlimited number of images in one single registration, whereas $65 will get you just 260 images registered with Blockai.

Their Terms of Service state they are "A web application that allows a user to claim copyright ownership of an image they created."  What they are doing does not protect your images, let alone, forever. In fact, what it does, is create a false sense of hope that the creator is doing something that does protect them.  The Vimeo co-founder  Zach Klein is quoted on their website as saying "finally, copyrighting is simple and fair." A photographer is quoted as saying "Binded makes it simple to manage my copyrights." These are quoted, obviously, as the opinions of these people, so they can say whatever they want, even when it's blatantly inaccurate. The Vimeo co-founder suggests Binded is "copyrighting", which it is not.

Further, it should be noted that this isn't the first time Klein has been criticized for being a part of a "scam", Gawker wrote here in 2013 about him pitching, in Tom Sawyer-esque fashion, for people to pay to help make him a bathhouse in the woods of upstate New York. With Klein having been named to the advisors board for one of the founder's other ventures, Quickcoin, I'm not sure I'd consider his endorsement exactly unbiased. It certainly is not accurate.

This isn't the first foray into delusion for the mouthpiece of Blockai. The founder of Blockai and Binded, Nathan Lands co-founded a service in 2014 when he was 29 called Quickcoin, billed in this article as "Bitcoin so simple, even Mom can use it", and was conceived "over noodles at Ramen Underground". In this Recode article about it, he throws a Bitcoin fair wearing "a lush gray velvet smoking jacket" with Lands quoted as saying "we�re trying to make bitcoin available to the average consumer" and then "Listen, I�m a capitalist. I like money a lot. And bitcoin means different things to everyone, but you can still derive a lot of value from bitcoin, a lot of value." Yet, some two years later, they've not raised more than their original $50k, and their website is down. To use industry-speak, it seems they burned through their funding and ran out of runway.

So, what do you do when you've burned through your funding? Move on to another ill-conceived idea, this time, trying to dupe artists and creators.  After getting just over $500k a year ago, 5 days ago on May 24th they received just under $1M, for a total of $1.5M in funding, according to Crunchbase here.

The most telling and accurate statement on the entire Binded website is in their TOS, where they write "3.2. Website Accuracy. Although we intend to provide accurate and timely information on the Binded Site, the Binded Site (including, without limitation, the Content) may not always be entirely accurate, complete or current...Accordingly, you should verify all information before relying on it, and all decisions based on information contained on the Binded Site are your sole responsibility and we shall have no liability for such decisions."

And there you have it. They can sell whatever scam they want dressed up with rainbows and unicorns, but you're on your own when that scam screws you over and you're left gagged and "binded" to your bedposts by their false promises.  What they should be collecting when you register for their services is your safeword.

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$1.2M Copyright Claim Awarded for Infringement of Photos

A common refrain by photographers who make excuses for not registering their work with the copyright office is that they�re not that valuable, or that no one would want to steal them.

On May 11th, in Baltimore Maryland, a jury awarded the copyright owner $900,000 in actual damages and $300,000 in statutory damages for 133 total infringements of 24 different images, of plants, in Under A Food Plant Company v. Exterior Design Inc.  The case is BPG-15-871, before the US District Court for the District of Maryland.

At issue was a a series of photographs of a product line that were stolen and used to market and sell a competing product line by a competing nursery. While to the un-trained eye the products may have appeared similar, however according to the press release, �Professor Jeffrey Sedlik, a leading expert on visual arts and photography licensing, was called as an expert witness at trial�He confirmed the infringement using a fingerprint-like �feature point analysis� of the photographs and then researched the fair market value for licensing similar images in similar marketing materials.  Professor Sedlik noted that the use of these photographs in competing marketing materials increased the likely cost of a license drastically, thus increasing the damages sustained by Under A Foot Plant, Co.  The size of the jury award suggests that Professor Sedlik�s testimony was critical in demonstrating Under A Foot Plant, Co.�s damages to the jury.�

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Companies don't make investment decisions based on tax rates

If you cut tax rates, will companies invest more ? This is almost a religious belief in a certain party in a certain country in the world. Is it justified  ?

The answer, in my opinion, is mostly No.

Companies make investment decisions based on markets, sales projections, competitive advantage, margin potential, scalability and the like.  These are extremely complex business variables and occupy 90% of the time and effort that goes into a business decision.

The tax line is one of the last lines in the cash flows of an investment proposal. It is certainly important, but hardly a determiner of whether the investment goes ahead or not.

There are a few instances when the tax rate indeed becomes a determining variable in the decision. For example, in India, there have been many instances where the government, in an effort to stimulate an underdeveloped part of the country has allowed zero income tax rates for operations located in those areas. In such a case, the tax rate becomes a determiner of the location of the investment; not the investment per se. Nobody puts up a factory just because the tax rate is zero. They put up a factory because the business opportunity is compelling. Having decided to invest, they may choose to locate it in a low tax zone.

The other instance when a tax rate becomes a determiner of investment is if the tax rate is ridiculously high.  For example if the marginal tax rate is 90%, nobody will invest even if the business opportunity is compelling (M. Melenchon's supporters, are you listening ?). But if you cut the tax rate from 35% to 15% , it's a nice bonus, but it will not add one dollar of investment which otherwise would not have been made.

Further, companies make investments based on a 7 or 9 year time horizon. If one President cuts tax rates this year, what stops the next President from increasing it 3 years from now. So its almost inconceivable that a company which would otherwise have not made the investment, will rush to now make it because of the tax cut.

The argument that a major tax cut on companies, will spur investment growth is mostly flawed. It will however have the following consequences

It will improve corporate profits (for after all tax is a cost) and therefore both the investible surplus and/or dividends in the hands of shareholders. It will increase the wealth in the hands of those who are shareholders. They may spend it which will have a beneficial impact on the economy.

It will correspondingly increase the deficit that the government runs, and therefore the nation's borrowings. That will push the cost of borrowing and inflation.

But will it also increase tax revenues and therefore make the measure revenue neutral. Mostly No. But there is one big exception in the US, which will be the subject matter of the next post.

Fear of Flying

In the normal world of business, companies are supposed to treat their customers with kids gloves. And customers are supposed to be very partial to the brands that they buy. It's all supposed to be a love love relationship .

Not so in the airline industry. Customers absolutely loath airlines. The act of flying is considered by most flyers, especially the regular ones, as next only to root canal surgery.  And airlines (mostly) hate their customers. They are little more than cattle, in their eyes. And everybody associated with the act of flying hates everybody else. The security folk are hated by all. Most airports in the world are glorified cattle pens. And yet the industry is booming. The rash of incidents being reported from the US will simply pass over. The hate hate relationship is alive and kicking and will simply continue thriving.

Why is this so ?  Two reasons primarily, in my view

- One, there is no option but to fly.
- Two,  customers care for nothing else but price. All the talk of wanting service is humbug.

We all moan about how seats have become cramped, food has disappeared altogether, everything costs extra , security lines are impossible, etc etc. And yet , if there was a flight that costed $1, but required you to stand on one leg throughout the flight, we'll cheerfully take it. And therein lies the problem.

Take India and the case of New Delhi . I had the misfortune of flying from there a couple of days ago and hence this post.

There are two domestic terminals in Delhi. One is swank, large, with lots of space, small security lines and can compare favourably with the best in the world. The three airlines that use this as the base are very good, serve complimentary food, are generally on time and don't charge ridiculous extras. The other terminal is a disgrace - crowded worse than a train station, no place to even sit, and  a close approximation of a pig pen. The airlines that are based here charge extra for everything, offer no complimentary food and bus you to the plane worse than a Mumbai local. But this lot are generally cheaper than the other lot by say Rs 500; maybe Rs 1000. Absolutely no prizes for guessing which one the passengers prefer.

We really should stop complaining about how airlines treat us. Until we are prepared to open our wallets a little more.

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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in comments arethose of the comment writers alone and does notreflect or represent the views of Victor Duru