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Pepco

Pepco

 


What is Pepco?

 

Pepco stands for Potomac Electric Power Company.  The company provides power to the city of Washington, D.C., as well as communities throughout Maryland.  The company has been at the middle of several lawsuits and controversies in the last couple of years, and consumer reports have bashed the company for poor quality standards. 

 

Satisfaction Rating

 

On June 29, 2011, Business Insider released satisfaction ratings for companies in the United States and described the “19 most hated companies in America.”  Pepco was number 1 for the most hated company in the country. 

 

At the time of the article’s publication, the electric company has a satisfaction rating of 54 out of 100.  Customer dissatisfaction was associated with

high occurrences of outages.  Pepco customers saw 70 percent more outages than customers of other large city electric utility companies, and the power stayed out twice as long compared to other utility companies as well. 

 

Because of the company’s poor services, the “Pepco bill” was passed in March of 2011 and allows the state’s Public Service Commission to make electric provider responsible for quality standards. 

 

The company was criticized again in June of 2012 after straight-line wind storms ripped across Montgomery County in Maryland and other surrounding areas.  The company took up to a week to respond to residents with power outages, and the company charged customers $0.50 if they were without power and their electric meters were not running. 

 

Pepco and Deborah Royster

 

On September 12, 2011, Deborah Royster sued the company because she claimed she was denied a promotion after she alerted her superiors that a female support staff member was sexually harassed by two attorneys.  As a result, the company fired two attorneys in 2009, and one of the attorneys proceeded to sue Pepco.  The company was left to pay over $1 million for attorneys’ fees. 

 

The complaint stated the company used a “secret process” to:

 

·         “create a vacancy and insert an extra level of supervision between Plaintiff General Counsel Deborah M. Royster and her boss the General Counsel”

·         “pass Plaintiff over to promote a less qualified white male to a position that will groom him to be the next General Counsel at Pepco”

 

Royster claimed that there was sexism, racism, and retaliation involved in the company’s decision.  In pursuing the lawsuit, she caused some tension with the Democratic National Committee.  There were claims that she quit her Democratic post, but she claimed she put in a temporary absence because of the demands of her job. 

 

The Democratic National Committee does not allow a member to miss three meetings in a row, but Royster stated she would appeal the removal from the Committee and become re-certified with the D.C. Democratic State Committee within 30 days. 

Bourne Co. Music Publishers

Bourne Co. Music Publishers

 

What is Bourne Co. Music Publishers?

Bourne Co. Music Publishers is located in New York and is one of the largest international music publishers around the world.  They specialize in the publishing of sheet music, and according to the Music Publishers Association of the United States, they hold the following imprints:

 

Schumann Music Co.

Murbo Music Publishing, Inc.

International Music Co.

Goldmine Music Company

Van Heusen Music

Bogat Music

Bourne Co.

Ben Bloom Music Co.

Better Half Music

Beebourne Music Co.

Bach Music Company

A B C Music

 

Lawsuits Involving Bourne Co. Music Publishers

The music publisher has been involved in several cases, and the majority of the cases occurred in the mid to late 1990s.  Some of the cases are described below:

 

Woods v. Bourne 60 F. 3d 978 (2d Cir. 1995)

The case involved rights of the plaintiff, Wood, to terminate a license or transfer under the Copyright Statute, §304.  During the case, heirs of composer Harry Woods wanted to claim royalties that were generated by the use of the song “When the Red, Red, Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin’ Along.” 

 

The plaintiffs claimed that had rights to terminate the rights of Bourne’s interests in the song because they has statutory rights under 17 U.S.C. §304(c).  The defendant, Bourne, claimed they were entitled to all royalties because of post-termination rules during a time in copyright law called an extended renewal term.  In other words, Bourne claimed they could use the song because they developed “derivative works” before the plaintiff’s terminated the license or transfer. 

 

The royalties were generated by use of the song on television programs and movies, radio performances, and sales of the published song material. 

 

The district court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, but Bourne Co. Music Publisher appealed the findings and won the case.  The appeal court found that audio and visual works were allowed to “continue to exploit the underlying work reproduced within them regardless whether the reproduction standing alone qualifies as a derivative work.” 

 

The court did find that the published sheet music was not “substantially different from the underlying work,” and they were ordered to stop exploiting the song through the printed media. 

 

Bourne v. Walt Disney Co., 68 F.3d 621 (2d Cir. 1995)

During the same year, Bourne Co. Music Publishers filed a complaint against the Walt Disney Company for copyright infringement.  Bourne claimed that Disney committed copyright infringement after they sold videocassettes that used Bourne’s published compositions for “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” as well as “Pinocchio.” 

 

Bourne also claimed Disney committed copyright infringement by using compositions in television commercials.  The court sided with Disney as far as copyright infringement with the videos, but the court sided with Bourne about the television commercials. 

 

Bourne Co. Music Publishers has faced criticism from the public community several times as well.  In one case, Bourne demanded payments for copyright fees after a girl ten years of age used the song called “Smile” for an online video used for charity. 

 

Source: https://cip.law.ucla.edu/cases/1990-1999/Pages/woodsbourne.aspx

S Corporation Advantages

S Corporation Advantages

What is an S Corporation?

An S Corporation, based on the United States’ Federal Tax Law, is any corporation that makes a valid election to be taxed specifically under Sub chapter S of Chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code. Because of this filing, the S corporation does not pay any federal income taxes; instead, the corporation’s net profits or losses are divided among and passed down to the company’s shareholders. Following this process, the shareholders must then report the income or losses on their own individual income tax returns; this concept is regarded as single taxation. The S corporation therefore possesses a unique taxation model; the majority of these corporations are fairly small with relatively few shareholders. If the corporation is taxed as a regular corporation it would incur double taxation, where both the corporation’s profits and the shareholder’s dividends will be taxed. 

S Corporation Advantages:

Forming an S Corporation will yield significant benefits in terms of taxation, organization and protection from liability. The S Corporation status offers a number of the same benefits of a partnership formation, particularly in regards to taxation. That being said, while offering such tax benefits, S corporation advantages extend to liability protection—the owners benefit from limited liability protection from creditors. S Corporation advantages also extend to corporate losses, which are typically passed through to the organization’s shareholders. Furthermore, as the owner of an S corporation, the individual has the ability to place losses against income that appears on his or her personal returns.