Wednesday 23 June 2010

Good reason to use Creative Commons Music

Ruling on gym music fees appealed - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Ruling on gym music fees appealed

Updated 1 hour 28 minutes ago

Fitness Australia says it will appeal against a decision to significantly increase the cost of playing music in gyms.

Last month the Australian Copyright Tribunal decided to increase the licence fee for the right to play protected sound recordings in fitness classes.

Gyms had previously been charged 96.8 cents a class, with a cap of $2,654 a year. The increase will see them pay $15 per class.

Fitness Australia's CEO Lauretta Stace says an increase of over 1,500 per cent is simply unaffordable.

Ms Stace says the aim of their appeal is to have the decision overturned.

Monday 21 June 2010

Two Choices for Rates and Cheap Isn’t One of Them

This is a very good article.

Work for free or for full price. Never for cheap.

http://www.drawar.com/articles/two-choices-for-rates-and-cheap-isnt-one-of-them/242/

If you charge too much though they will walk away. You might even feel guilty charging the rate you want for doing the thing that you love, but very few people are in the position that you are in. You bust your ass for a reason and not everyone can do the excellent work that you do so be proud of it and charge a rate you can be proud of. Most companies have no problem paying for quality work and yet most designers have a problem charging for it.

If you do a job for free you can control the expectations of the client. You can tell them what the boundaries are and what they should expect of you. When they aren't paying anything they don't want to overstep those boundaries to piss you off. They are thankful for any work that they can get out of you.

Thursday 10 June 2010

Electric (element) hot water hearers are becoming illegal!

This is an environmental rant -- not a political rant .. :-)

Hunter region -around Newcastle - New South Wales - Australia is doing something pretty drastic.
Electric (element) hot water hearers are becoming illegal! Any new heater has to be a solar or a heat pump type with subsidies of up to AU$1000 to help with the process.
This will reduce by TONS the amount of CO2 produced each year by our region.
Are any other areas going this way ?
Here's a link to Rheem Hot water as an example http://tinyurl.com/4sk6.
Add to that --"As Part Of The New Economic Stimulus Package, The Federal Government Has Removed The Means Test On The Solar Hot Water Rebate.
You can now get $600 for installing a heat pump, or $1000 for installing an on-the-roof system, when replacing an old electric HWS."
This seems to be a better way of stimulating an economy rather than giving money to banks ;-)


Location:Belmont,Australia