Will your audit damage your business relationship?

Australians fear that audits may damage their business relationships. Do you?

In this case, answer the following question: "Why is my licensee reluctant to allow me to verify its calculations?"

Remember, it's business as usual for big licensees to submit to audits. Transparency, power to renegotiate and recovery of cash are the most common outcomes.

Consider what you and your business partners can learn by reviewing past production, design, distribution, quality control and cost information, etc.

The posts on this blog confer no rights or warranties. The opinions expressed on this site are my own and may not represent those of my firm. © 2009, Cedar Boschan. To request permission to reproduce, please contact boschan@royaltyauditors.com.

Techdirt asks: Why Can't Major Record Labels Provide Accurate Accounting To Bands?

It's not every day that I agree with Mike Masnick on Techdirt:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090619/0323015288.shtml

The posts on this blog confer no rights or warranties. The opinions expressed on this site are my own and may not represent those of my firm. © 2009, Cedar Boschan. To request permission to reproduce, please contact boschan@royaltyauditors.com.

What is "Bad Faith?" Plus, Lindt's 3D Trademark on Chocolate Bunny

Swiss chocolate maker Lindt is trying to enforce in Europe a 3D trademark it registered for a foil-wrapped hollow chocolate Easter bunny with a bell tied around its neck. The competitors it has sued for infringement argue:

1. Lindt acted in "bad faith" by registering a trademark for something (hollow chocolate bunnies) that had been produced since the 1930s (tomorrow a court in Austria will rule on the definition of "bad faith")
2. Hollow chocolate bunnies must be manufactured in the same shape as Lindt's because of function - most other designs will collapse

Regardless of the chocolate, does not the foil, ribbon and bell give the Lindt bunny a distinctive 3D appearance that is not merely "functional?"

Read the Wall Street Journal article and Techdirt's comments, with which I tend to disagree.

Also, how should "bad faith" be defined? Considering an altogether different example, do you think memory IC chip designer Rambus acted properly or in "bad faith" when it registered patents for industry standards while such standards were being set by an industry committee?

The posts on this blog confer no rights or warranties. The opinions expressed on this site are my own and may not represent those of my firm. © 2009, Cedar Boschan. To request permission to reproduce, please contact boschan@royaltyauditors.com.

Station Tacticts Re: Artist Performance Royalty

I support performance royalties for both composition and sound recording works. Meanwhile, radio stations face obsolescence.

Stations Boycott Artists Supporting Performance Royalty?

The posts on this blog confer no rights or warranties. The opinions expressed on this site are my own and may not represent those of my firm. © 2009, Cedar Boschan. To request permission to reproduce, please contact boschan@royaltyauditors.com.

Does Settlement with Publishers Grant Google a Monopoly?

I am familiar with the issue of orphan works as it relates to the music industry, but writers and book publishers have been strangely silent.

Should Uncle Sam approve Google's settlement with book publishers?
See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/technology/companies/10book.html.

What do you think?

The posts on this blog confer no rights or warranties. The opinions expressed on this site are my own and may not represent those of my firm. © 2009, Cedar Boschan. To request permission to reproduce, please contact boschan@royaltyauditors.com.