Intellectual Property and Social Media - Free Essay Example

ABSTRACT: Social media has become an important object for the business. Increasing exposure and traffics are the main two benefits of social media. One of the main reason is no language barrier. Social media platforms help to connect with the customers, increase awareness and boost leads and sales. Social media is an effective key for spreading any information. As the increasing use of visual info graphic on social media trademarks has begun to show more interest in various social media platforms. The purpose of this study is to know about the emerging social media era and how it is affecting the IPR of an individual. This study provides a snapshot of the challenges of intellectual property protection in social media landscape. Rapid advancements in social media are creating challenges for courts, as existing laws were written when social media was not in exist. Keywords: Social media, intellectual property, internet, social media platforms, business, statistics. INTRODUCTION: Social media has made many changes to several areas of human venture. Since it is universal that’s why it has raised great concern to humanity and posed a challenge to intellectual property rights and laws. Intellectual property issues which surrounding copyright law, are issues every business is likely to encounter when engaging with customers via social media. Copying and pasting a picture, song, video, document, GIF, or webpage onto your business’ profile to share through social media is easy. And many social media users are doing it. Sharing original works of authors by others, unless you have clear permission to do so it is an violation of the copyright law and meant to protect, and by extension promote, the creation of original content. And intentionally or unintentionally associating your business, your products, or your service with the trademarks of another can open you to liability for infringement. The business owners are fighting their way to ensure that intellectual property rights are recognized, respected and exploited by the possessors of such rights. This ever expansive authority of intellectual property rights which are embedded in trademarks, copyrights, patents, designs, publicity rights and trade secrets helps to create an authorized ground for the corporate industry to exploit the value of their untouchable assets in an ever increasingly global marketplace. Recently, a compelling intellectual property debate occurred during the Congressional questioning of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on April 10 and 11, 2018. In which Zukerberg commented that every piece of content that the user shares on Facebook , is own by the user, and the user has complete control over who sees it and how it is shared, and can be removed any time. This comment raises several important questions. One of them was â€Å"if a user’s rights in photo or data shared through Facebook depend on Facebook’s disclosures and terms of service, should such disclosures and terms be regulated? If so, how?† Zuckerberg was asked to appear before Congress after news spread of allegations that a University of Cambridge professor obtained data on potentially 87 million Facebook users, including Zuckerberg himself, through a personality quiz and then shared such data with Cambridge Analytica, whose services were retained by. Customers, including the 2016 presidential election campaign for Donald Trump. While Congress debates whether it should regulate the content of written terms of service that govern the relationship between social media sites and consumers— much like they regulate loan documents that govern the relationship between lenders and consumers. What is intellectual property? Intellectual property is a term used to tell the rights which may result from intellectual activities in the industrial, scientific, literary and artistic spheres and includes patents, trademarks, commercial names and designations, industrial designs, geographical indications, copyright and related rights and protection against unfair competition. The two categories of Intellectual property are: Industrial Property: It includes patents for inventions, industrial designs, geographical indications and trademarks. Copyright: It covers literature, films, music, artistic works (e.g., drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures) and architectural design. Rights related to copyright include those of performing artists in their performances, producers of phonograms in their recordings, and broadcasters in their radio and television programs. Intellectual Property Rights: These are like any other property right. They allow creators, or owners, of patents, trademarks or copyrighted works to benefit from their own work or investment in a creation. These rights are outlined in Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which provides for the right to benefit from the protection of moral and material interests resulting from authorship of scientific, literary or artistic productions. There are three intellectual property rights and these are: Patents, Copyright and Trademarks these are the three basics intellectual property rights. Patents: A patent is a right granted for an invention, product or process that provides a new way of doing something, or that gives a new technical solution to a problem. A patent provides patent owners with protection for their inventions. Protection is granted for a limited period, generally 20 years. Trademark: A trademark is a distinctive sign that identifies certain goods or services produced or provided by an individual or a company for the protection. The system helps consumer to identify and purchase a product or service based on whether its specific characteristics and quality – as indicated by its unique trademark – meet their needs. Geographical Indications: A geographical indication is a sign used on products that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation due to that place of origin. Most commonly, a geographical indication consists of the name of the place of origin of the products. Agricultural products have qualities that derive from their place of production and are affected by specific local geographical factors, such as climate and soil. METHODOLOGIES Because of the exposure of social media it has become increasingly important for individuals and businesses to increase their plans to protect their intellectual property by developing a strategy for addressing infringement of IP and other rights that take place on social media websites. There is a wide range of concerns especially due to the fact that by using the social media, not all users distributed original content, not all users remained their selves, but adopted identities of others, used the social media platforms to harass their real world enemies. Data collected by Internet World Stats shows the internet usage of the world population is: Taking into consideration this fact and that today we live in a â€Å"digital† society, the concept of intellectual property, is faced with new legal challenges. The question that arises from this increasing society context is the influence of the social media in everyday life and especially in the protection of intellectual property rights. In today’s world no one can deny the power of the social media, however the issue of controlling this power is rather concerning. With the involvement of the Internet and the social media in our lives it is becoming hard to keep our data safe. This new situation demands the rights holders to ask protection of their intellectual property rights. It is widely known that the value of the intellectual property rights in practice depends on whether the owner of the rights is capable of undertaking necessary measures to prevent others from infringing its rights. IPRs benefit individuals and the society as mentioned by World Intellectual Property Organization includes: The multibillion dollar film, recording, publishing and software industries would not exist without copyright protection. Without the rewards provided by the patent system, researchers and inventors continue to produce better and more efficient products for consumers. Consumers would have no means to buy products or services without reliable, international trademark. Following policies are adopted by the famous social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in order to protect IPR of user: Facebook You will not post content or take any action on Facebook that infringes or violates someone else’s rights or otherwise violates the law. We can remove any content or information you post on Facebook if we believe that it violates this Statement or our policies. We provide you with tools to help you protect your intellectual property rights. To learn more, visit our How to Report Claims of Intellectual Property Infringement page. If we remove your content for infringing someone else’s copyright, and you believe we removed it by mistake, we will provide you with an opportunity to appeal. If you repeatedly infringe other people’s intellectual property rights, we will disable your account when appropriate. † Twitter Twitter respects the intellectual property rights of others and expects users of the Services to do the same. They will respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement that comply with applicable law and are properly provided to us. If you believe that your Content has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, do provide them the following information: 1. A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or a person authorized to act on their behalf. 2. Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed. 3. Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit us to locate the material. 4. Your contact information, including your address, telephone number, and an email address. 5. A statement by you that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. 6. A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and, under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner. 7. Twitter reserve the right to remove Content alleged to be infringing without prior notice, at our sole discretion, and without liability to you. In appropriate circumstances, Twitter will also terminate a user’s account if the user is determined to be a repeat infringer. 8. Twitter’s Terms of service provide that any copyright infringing content will be taken down. Like Facebook, Twitter also has a form to receive and process infringement complaints. For processing a complaint and taking down content, a complainant must prove that he/she owns the content and the content on Twitter is infringing. Accounts of repeat infringers will be terminated. Twitter has separate policies for trademark and character infringements. YouTube 1. YouTube operates a clear copyright policy in relation to any Content that is alleged to infringe the copyright of a third party. Details of that policy can be found here: https://www.youtube.co.uk/t/copyright_notice 2. As part of YouTube’s copyright policy, YouTube will terminate user access to the service if a user has been determined to be a repeat infringer. A repeat infringer is a user who has been notified of infringing activity more than twice.† 3. Like Facebook and Twitter, YouTube also has a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) take down policy for removing copyright infringing content. More than two notifications of infringement will make a user, a repeat infringer on YouTube. Repeat infringement can result in loss of access of account. YouTube also has a complaint form for reporting trademark infringement. A channel that infringes a trademark can be blocked or terminated. While taking down the content, Social Media platforms must consider whether the use falls within the scope of fair use. Content need not be taken down if the use is fair. In a recent case, YouTube did not take down a video even after receiving a complaint from Universal Music stating that the video includes its copyrighted song, â€Å"Let’s Go Crazy.† A child was shown dancing in the song, and YouTube considered it fair use. There are two main reasons for protection of intellectual property rights. The first is to give required expression to the moral and economic rights of creators in their creations and such rights of the public in access to those creations. The second is to promote, as a deliberate act of Government policy, creativity and application of its results and to encourage fair trading which would contribute to economic and social development. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Why are patents necessary? By recognizing the creativity, patents provide rewards to individual for their innovation and marketable invention which in turn enhances the quality of human life. In this era of social media environment which has opened the gates of transparency for every individual, trademarks could be lost and as such, prosecuting its infringement can be challenging if its uniqueness is not highlighted. Trade-marks must be distinctive and must not be confused with the brands or trade-marks of others. If the owner does not take steps to prevent or stop infringements of the trade-mark, the uniqueness of the mark could be lost and the trade-mark could then be open to challenge. Social media can increase the risk to trade-mark owners of losing uniqueness in their marks and therefore potentially risk the trade-mark itself. That is because of the widespread spreading of information through social media and the lack of control trade-mark owners can have over their brands, such that the distinctiveness can be taken away over time. WIPO identifies the essence of trademarks thus: 1. Trademarks promote initiative and enterprise worldwide by rewarding their owners with recognition and financial profit. 2. Trademark protection also hinders the efforts of unfair competitors, such as counterfeiters, to use similar distinctive signs to market inferior or different products or services. 3. The system enables people with skill and enterprise to produce and market goods and services in the fairest possible conditions, thereby facilitating international trade. Trademark protection ensures that the owners of marks have the exclusive right to use them to identify goods or services, or to authorize others to use them in return for payment. The period of protection varies, but a trademark can be renewed indefinitely upon payment of the corresponding fees. Trademark protection is legally enforced by courts that, in most systems, have the authority to stop trademark infringement. CHALLANGES With the arrival of social media, intellectual property issues have been confronted with new and sometimes complex challenges. The social media technologies that encourage the sharing of contents across different communication channels have brought about new difficulties in enforcing copyright, and inspired additional challenges to the basic legal philosophy of copyright. The global entertainment industry in particular has fought diligently against the free use, copying, and distribution of electronic music, videos, and movies. Many businesses in their bid to protect their intellectual property have advocated for the same copyright protection to be extended to new media. There is a wide range of concerns especially due to the fact that by using the social media, not all users distributed original content, not all users remained their selves, but adopted identities of others, used the social media platforms to harass their real world enemies. The large amount of cases that have arisen around the world show that â€Å"user generated content† is not the same thing as â€Å"user created content†. Content exchanged between individuals online is not always â€Å"content generated by a user† but, rather, â€Å"content created by a copyright holder who has not authorized its generation by the user. In other words, its publication in social media is said to constitute a breach of the holder’s copyright. The nature of social media is both a curse and a blessing for rights holders. The blessing is that content that violates rights might be deleted.From social media sites before they have been widely viewed, downloaded or shared.Unwanted questions abound on the Internet. This means that many times one can get materials that one did not subscribe to. There appears to be ‘nowhere to hide’ for many people, in terms of their privacy i.e. privacy intrusion takes place. Intellectual property rights are rights given to people over the creation of their minds. Creators such as authors, artists, inventors, designers, musicians, photographers, producers and directors are entitled to exclusive rights to use and economically exploit their work. These rights must be respected by all. Thus, when one uses another’s work, credit must be given to the owner of such work resulting in intellectual property theft. CONCLUSION While social media channels and social platforms represent an opportunity for collaboration and marketing in a new paradigm of communication, one must be mindful of the potential legal issues that may arise. As long as a forward looking, proactive, and coordinated strategy is taken in regards to potential disclosures, an organization may be able to market to the public via social media while avoiding accidently triggering grace periods and or losses to intellectual property rights.

Project Management The Iron Triangle - 1620 Words

In 21st century’s enormously competitive business surrounding, project management has turned into a key concept to implement and comprehend projects attempted by every one of the organizations. Before being able to understand that the project management triangle or The Iron Triangle is, a definition of project management is necessary. According to Lewis, scheduling, arranging, and controlling of exercises that have been undertaken to meet project targets is defined as project management. The main objectives that need to be satisfied are cost, quality, and time, while parallel not losing control of the scope of the project at the optimum level. (1995, p. 2). According to Lamers, the genuine image for the project management task is the iron triangle which adjusts triangle’s judgment of the project will be achieved by the three corners speaks to the three essential perspectives scope, cost, and time. (2000, p. 327). 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African Americans Influence On Music - 1229 Words

In today’s day and age, it’s easy to hear black culture represented in most hip-hop; that is the dominating music genre that expresses African American views. It’s not so easy to remember where African Americans influence on music al began. Black influence on music today is really unrecognized but it’s important to bring to light just how much African Americans really have contributed to the sound, style, and feel of today’s music. Not just hip-hop or rap, but all kinds of music. There was one particular sound that really changed America and that was Motown. It was one of the most powerful social and cultural changes to happen to the music industry. Motown brought a racially divided country together and touched the hearts of everyone. It all began when songwriter Berry Gordy founded a label, bought a house, and set up a recording studio in the basement in Detroit. One of the many famous bands/artists to be signed by Motown was the Jackson 5. 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Case Study Return On Capital Employed

Question: Discuss about the Return on Capital Employed. Answer: Introduction: Return on capital employed or ROCE is a kind of profitability ratio which measures the efficiency of a particular enterprise to generate revenue from the capital employed by comparing operating revenue to capital employed. ROCE demonstrates how efficiently the assets of the enterprise are performing taking long term financing into consideration. For this reason it is termed as long term profitability ratio. ROCE is based on two major parts such as operating profit and capital employed. The formula of ROCE: Another formula of ROCE are: As per the given question the ROCE of the company has increased from 16.2% in 2015 to 22.7% in 2016. The reasons for such a huge improvement are discussed as follows: Curtailment of cost:- During February when Qantas decided to reduce the cost for the business by $2 billion for next three years many analyst considered that the aim of achieving cost curtailment is not possible by the company. But the company has become successful in achieving the target of cost savings Qantas also moved quickly on the job cuts, with 4000 of the 5000 planned redundancies to be completed by June, in the process saving it hundreds of millions of dollars annually on wages. Lower oil price:- Qantas has chosen to keep the majority of the gains from the lower oil price rather than pass it on to consumers in the form of lower ticket prices. Qantas loyalty program members redeeming their frequent flyer points for tickets will receive a benefit in the form of an average 14 per cent fall in fuel surcharge on some routes, including flights to the US, Asia, South America and South Africa. It has yet to lower the surcharge on routes covered by its partnership with Emirates, including the Middle East, Europe and North Africa. Lower depreciation charges:- Qantas surprised with even lower depreciation charges than expected in the first half as a result of the retirement of ageing Boeing 767 aircraft. In total, it expects depreciation charges of $1.1 billion this financial year, compared with $1.42 billion last year. That means the bigger depreciation benefit was realised in the first half. Less international competition:- The international capacity outlook is also improving, with rivals lowering their growth rate into Australia as a result of the lower dollar. An organization's cost of debt is the effective rate that itpays on all its debts. The debt of a company usually consists ofbonds, debentures, bank loans, term loan etc. Cost of debt forms a part of a company'scapital structure. Cost of debt is usually expressed in percentage in either of two ways: Before tax or after tax. In cases where interest expenses are tax deductible, the after tax approach is generally considered. The after-tax cost of debt is usually lesser than the before-tax (Pratt and Grabowski, 2008) After tax cost ofdebt = (Before tax cost of debt) x(1 Marginal tax rate). As of Jun. 2016, Qantas Airways Ltd's interest expense (positive number) was $210.214655811 Mil. Its total Book Value of Debt (D) is $3945.24117937 Mil. Cost of Debt = 210.214655811 / 3945.24117937 = 5.3283% (Gurufocus,2016). Cost of equity (also known as cost of common stock) is the minimum rate of return which a company must generate in order to convince investors to invest in the company's common stock at its current market price.Cost of equity is estimated using the capital asset pricing model. Cost of equity under the capital asset pricing model:- Cost of Equity = Risk Free Rate + Beta Coefficient Market Risk Premium Cost of Equity = Risk Free Rate + Beta Coefficient (Market Rate of Return Risk Free Rate) The current risk-free rate is 2.48%. Beta is the sensitivity of the expected excess asset returns to the expected excess market returns. Qantas Airways Ltd's beta is 1.07. (Expected Return of the Market - Risk-Free Rate of Return) is also called market premium. Market premium is estimated to be 7.5%. Cost of Equity = 2.48000000% + 1.07 * 7.5% = 10.505% Weighted average cost of capital (WACC) is the minimum average after-tax necessary rate of return, which a company must earn for all of its stake holders such as common stock-holders, preferred stock-holders and debt-holders(Armitage, 2005). WACC = r(E) w(E) + r(D) (1 t) w(D) WACC = E / (E + D)*Cost of Equity +D / (E + D)*Cost of Debt*(1 - Tax Rate) =0.5669*10.505%+0.4331* 5.3283% *(1 - 28.38%) = 7.61% Weighted average cost of capital (WACC) is the minimum average after-tax necessary rate of return which a company must earn for all of its stake holders such as common stock-holders, preferred stock-holders and debt-holders(Armitage, 2005). The return on invested capital (ROIC) is the percentage amount that a company is making for every percentage point over the Cost of Capital| Weighted Average Cost of Capital (Wilkinson, 2013). As per the given situation, the present ROIC before charging tax is 22.7% but after charging tax the ROIC is 15.9%. On the other hand, WACC of the company is 7.61%. The company is earning 8.29% (15.9% - 7.61%) over and above the weighted average cost of capital. The company is earning well enough to meet the requirement of the shareholders. Therefore the ROIC of 15.9% is well acceptable. But the company have to adapt strategies so that it can increase the wealth of the shareholders. Value of the bond (PB) = c/(1+r) + c/(1+r)2 + c/(1+r)3+ ....... + c/(1+r)10 + B/(1+r)10 PE = 5.5/(1+0.08) + 5.5/(1+0.08)2 + 5.5/(1+0.08)3 + 5.5/(1+0.08)4 +.......+ 5.5/(1+0.08)20 + $20/(1+0.08)10 = 5.5 * 0.9259 + 5.5 * 0.8573+ 5.5 * 0.7938 + 5.5 * 0.7350+ 5.5 *0.6806+5.5*0.6301 + 5.5*0.2145 + $20 * 0.2145 = 26.8521 WACC = E / (E + D)*Cost of Equity +D / (E + D)*Cost of Debt*(1 - Tax Rate) + debt/ cost of debt =0.5669*10.505%+0.4331* 5.3283% *(1 - 28.38%) + 5/(1-26.8521) = 7.80% The company has three investment plans that is equity, debt or debenture or newly issued bonds. As a student of finance, I should like to suggest that the company should like to take finance through equity and debentures. Equity shares are the ordinary shares. The holders of these shares are the real owners of the company. They have a voting right in the meetings of holders of the company. They have a control over the working of the company. Equity shareholders are paid dividend after paying it to the preference shareholders. Advantages of Equity Shares: Equity shares do not create any obligation to pay a fixed rate of dividend. Equity shares can be issued without creating any charge over the assets of the company. Disadvantages of Equity Shares: If only equity shares are issued, the company cannot take the advantage of trading on equity. As equity capital cannot be redeemed, there is a danger of over capitalisation. If a company needs funds for extension and development purpose without increasing its share capital, it can borrow from the general public by issuing certificates for a fixed period of time and at a fixed rate of interest. Such a loan certificate is called a debenture. Advantages of debentures Interest on debenture is a tax deductible expenditure and thus it saves income tax. Cost of debenture is relatively lower than preference shares and equity shares. Disadvantages of debentures Redemption of debenture involves a larger amount of cash outflow. Payment of interest on debenture is obligatory and hence it becomes burden if the company incurs loss. Risk can be defined as the change in investors actual return which will may totally different from the investors expected return. Risk involves the chances of losing the whole investment or the part thereof by the investor(Harrison, 2009). Risk can be sub divided into systematic risk and unsystematic risk. Systematic risk refers to the portion of total variability in return caused by factors affecting the prices of all securities. Economic, Political and Sociological changes are sources of systematic risk.The risk arises out of the uncertainty surrounding a particular firm or industry due to factors like labour strike, consumer preference management policies are called Unsystematic risk. Unsystematic risk is also called Diversifiable risk (Francis, 2010). TheExpected Return on a Portfoliois computed as the weighted average of the expected returns on the stocks which comprise the portfolio. The weights reflect the proportion of the portfolio invested in the stocks (Zenwealth, 2016). Risk and return are highly correlated. If an individual takes high risk then that individual will get high return and vice versa. Now as per the given situation, I have own $50000 at the Casino in Canberra. Now, I have an option of buying the shares of Qantam or else i can buy the newly issued bonds, or I can return to the Casino and again start gambling with $50000. Now as the price of the shares are cheapest in the share market I can opt for buying shares of the company with the hope of increasing the share price in future. But the share price may also fall. But as the company has re gained its financial position and started making profit so it will be a wise decision to invest in shares rather than investing it in new issue bonds or reinvesting it in casino for gambling. Referencing: Armitage, S. (2005).The cost of capital. New York: Cambridge University Press. Francis, A. (2010).Risk and Return in Portfolio Investments. [online] MBA Knowledge Base. Available at: https://www.mbaknol.com/investment-management/risk-and-return-in-portfolio-investments/ [Accessed 14 Sep. 2016]. Gurufocus.com. (2016).Qantas Airways Ltd (OTCPK:QUBSF) Intrinsic Value: DCF (FCF Based). [online] Available at: https://www.gurufocus.com/term/Intrinsic+Value+%28DCF%29/OTCPK:QUBSF/Intrinsic-Value-DCF-FCF-Based/Qantas-Airways-Ltd [Accessed 14 Sep. 2016]. Harrison, C. (2009).Risk. New York: Picador. Pratt, S. and Grabowski, R. (2008).Cost of capital. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley Sons. Wilkinson, J. (2013).Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) The Strategic CFO. [online] Strategiccfo.com. Available at: https://strategiccfo.com/return-on-invested-capital-roic/ [Accessed 14 Sep. 2016]. Zenwealth.com. (2016).Portfolio Risk and Return. [online] Available at: https://www.zenwealth.com/businessfinanceonline/RR/Portfolios.html [Accessed 14 Sep. 2016].

Shoehorn Sonata - Distinctively Visual free essay sample

The relationship between our two protagonist Bridie and Sheila is a strained one that leads to fragile results, the viewer understands this through the moments were both of them argue all the time or the cutting sarcastic remarks that are left by Bridie. the irony with the postcards send by sheilas mother raffles bombed. daddy devastated. chin up. mother and the message from the australian prime minister greetings and keep smiling the irony is then proved with the quote from sheila they were skin and bone and covered in boils and theyd just been told to keep smiling! of course this turns out to be immensely funny to the women and they couldnt stop laughing. the terror when bridie and sheila are stranded in the water and they accidentally catch the attention of a japanese ship with its flag raised high like this visual technique is enacted my the projector as it shows a large japanese flag, the blood-red rising sun, which is gradually illuminated as the scene continues (stage directi ons from the playbook). We will write a custom essay sample on Shoehorn Sonata Distinctively Visual or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page he terror is then penetrated by the harsh japanese voices being filtered through the sound system and the older sheila and bridie hold hands giving the look of complete vulnerability as they stand in the spotlight and stare straight ahead as if encompassed by the memory. this allows the audience to see the strength of the bond that these two protagonists share as they relive that which they wish to forget. sometimes even the most horrible of situations have a silver lining this is proven when sheila and bridie play a prank on a guard they refer to as ipstick. Larry, (so named because of his habit of punching women who wore lipstick) with dire consequences they had sown a rusty pin into his loin cloth so that when it came time to bow the pin would stick painfully somewhere into his male anatomy which led to bridie being savagely beaten even so bridie and sheila laughed and still seemed to think that it was the best part of the war. that in turn made their new bond that much stronger and it continued to grow with each event, object, and barrier that crossed their path. he biggest barrier that they ever faced was when bridie got deathly ill and sheila went and sold herself for some tables this visual is knocked into the audiences mind by the shear sincerity that is shared when bridie says she went to the jap. and sold herself to him for some tablets. she was beautiful, kind and brave young woman. she wasnt just my friend.

On the Value of Free Advice

On the Value of Free Advice As a writer I get a steady stream of free advice from individuals who apparently understand my life far better than I. These individuals are mostly strangers, people who contact me Sometimes I get advice And do I heed their advice? Not yet. Probably never. For a writer to heed every little bit of advice she receives, whether from strangers, friends, or even family, is deadly. Writers must learn to eventually heed no advice but that of their own instincts. The marketplace will be the final barometer of how sound those instincts are. And that is the only barometer a writer needs. Martin Seligman, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center, and developer of such concepts as learned helplessness, learned optimism, and authentic happiness, cautions that the only people worth taking advice from are those who have already achieved success in the area in which you aspire to be successful, and who are recognized as experts in their field. To give credence to all the non-experts would be like hiring a carpenter who has never pounded a nail, but has read a few books about how to pound a nail properly, to build your dream house. Or to have your appendix removed As a writer, editor, and writing mentor for the past thirty years, I encourage all my students and clients to adopt this same practice of ignoring the opinions of those who have not demonstrated that they know more about what constitutes good writing than they do. Such proof is not in any way related to the number of advanced degrees the individual holds, but to the success of one’s publications in the marketplace. Back when I was still an aspiring writer, a man I looked up to suggested that my goal of being a writer was unrealistic for someone from the coal fields of rural Pennsylvania. When I wrote my third book, my first literary mystery, I was advised As an aspiring writer, there will always be naysayers eager to deter you. Sometimes they mean well and sometimes they don’t. Does that make a difference in how you should respond? When it comes to free advice, I prefer to remember the words of my very practical father: You get what you pay for. *** Randall Silviss many literary awards include the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, two fellowships from the NEA, a Fulbright Senior Scholar Research Award, and a Doctor of Letters degree bestowed for distinguished literary achievement. His 15th book, the novel Blood Ink, was recently declared a Kindle Scout winner and is available through Amazon. In addition to his novels, screenplays, and essays, he co-hosts a popular weekly podcast at TheWritersHangout.com, and teaches in the Seton Hill University MFA Program. His website can be found at randallsilvis.com. To sign up for Randall’s free monthly newsletter, which includes info about his work and news of interest to writers, send an email to silvisrandall@gmail.com with SUBSCRIBE in the subject box.

Externalities in Business Economics and Oil Industry Essay

Externalities in Business Economics and Oil Industry - Essay Example The demand for oil is unlimited where the supply is limited. Consequently, the demand has continued to exceed the supply (Cashin, 2012, p.48). Externalities in economics refer to effects the consumption of a product or service has to third parties. It is also known as spill-over (Hanson, 1974, p.39). The consumption of oil is known to have externalities in that it causes environmental pollution. The gases emitted by vehicles and from industries are known to be harmful to the environment. The pollution has resulted in diseases to human beings and has caused climatic changes. The changes in climate have had far-reaching impacts on the society by causing droughts which have subjected people to poverty and hunger (Hidden costs of energy, 2010, p.70). The government has a role to play in curbing the externalities resulting from the consumption of oil. First of all the government can compel the huge consumers of oil to try and use green energy that is less harmful to the environment. Moreover, they should place a fee on the large consumers of oil who pollute the environment in order to aid the third parties affected.