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The truth about Coca Cola
Ivy - 15.08.2002 14:19
Coke failed to renew their copyright on a very famous image that appeared on their first soda can in 1961: the 'contour bottle on the Coca-Cola can' image. When Coke failed to renew the 1961 copyright (as they must do after 28 years) Kolody, the suit claims, became the de facto rights holder because he had created a derivative work of the image for his pitch with Simon.
Then, in 1993, Coke resurrected the 'contour bottle' image for their Classic Coke cans and, the suit documents, filed a fraudulent copyright application in order to protect it.
Check  http://www.guerrillanews.com/cocakarma/synop.html
Coca-Karma: The Very Secret Battle of Bob Kolody vs. Coca-Cola (KO)
Introduction: Coca-Karma Synopsis
At the heart of the story is an independent marketing consultant named Bob Kolody who claims he owns the copyright to an image that has been used on Coke Classic cans since 1993. The basic facts of the case are as follows:
Back in 1989, Kolody pitched Simon Marketing (Coke's ad agency) on a game concept that involved a graphic collusion of Coca-Cola and automobile memorabilia. Kolody heard nothing back from Simon but, nine months later, learned that aspects of his campaign were being disseminated through Coke's new Cherry Coke can designs. When Kolody attempted to discuss the matter with Simon's executives he was rebuffed and they claimed to have lost his story-boards.
Even more interesting is that at the same time that Kolody was pitching Simon, Coke failed to renew their copyright on a very famous image that appeared on their first soda can in 1961: the 'contour bottle on the Coca-Cola can' image. When Coke failed to renew the 1961 copyright (as they must do after 28 years) Kolody, the suit claims, became the de facto rights holder because he had created a derivative work of the image for his pitch with Simon.
This was all unbeknownst to Kolody, who was still trying to fight Simon on his infringement suit.
Then, in 1993, Coke resurrected the 'contour bottle' image for their Classic Coke cans and, the suit documents, filed a fraudulent copyright application in order to protect it. This is the legal crux of the case and demands elaboration. A fundamental precept of intellectual property law stipulates that an entity is not allowed to file for a copyright on an image that has already been published and then released into the public domain or adopted by someone else. In the case of the 'contour bottle', Coke either forgot to renew their copyright or did not understand the law. When they re-filed in 1993, the copyright office warned them that to file for a copyright which has already been published is fraud. Coke went ahead and did it regardless.
In 1994 Kolody saw the 'contour bottle' on a Coke Classic Can in a Chicago airport and realized what that Coke had now adopted another of his original concepts. For three years he could not get a lawyer to file his case against Coca-Cola and Simon Marketing.
Finally, in 1997, he got John De Camp - a one-time Nebraska state senator and friend of former CIA-head Bill Colby - to file. But De Camp could not afford to continue on contingency so Kolody was forced to forge on pro se (without legal representation). Kolody learned the law from every conceivable source and fought his case in court against one of the country's top intellectual property lawyers (Jerold Jacover). Using every imaginable legal dirty trick, Coca-Cola's legal team hampered Kolody's case and successfully avoided publicity on what has evolved into a $4 billion lawsuit. Furthermore, Judge Blanche Manning (the judge in this case) refused to compel Coca-Cola to demonstrate that they held the legal registrations of copyright on the contour bottle. When Kolody attained the application independently from the U.S, copyright office, Manning would not allow him introduce the document as new evidence. This was a crushing blow to Kolody who had finally discovered proof that Coke failed to renew its copyright and then filed a fraudulent copyright application to protect themselves.
In 1999, Kolody successfully retained renowned Arkansas federal attorney Dan Ivy to fight his case. As soon as he came onto the scene, Ivy discovered a series of judicial improprieties emanating from the bench. In response, he filed several motions of 'judicial perjury' - a motion that accuses the judge of committing fraud upon the court in her blatantly favorable rulings for Coca-Cola. This is the first time in Chicago judicial history that a lawyer has leveled such a serious charge against a federal judge. But Judge Manning, instead of stepping aside to have her improprieties assessed by an independent Judge, ruled on these charges herself - a practice that defies the principles of Anglo-Saxon law.
What happened next is like a plot from a John Grisham novel. After Judge Manning dismissed Kolody's lawsuit with a summary judgment, Ivy moved the case to the Appellate Court. But, in an apparent effort to censure the crusading attorney for his conduct, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals denied his entrance to the bar, leaving Kolody without an attorney. What makes this even more intriguing is that all eleven Judges of the Appellate met in a rare, closed-door 'en banc' hearing to deny his request and offered no elaboration for their decision. After filing a motion for clarification of their ruling (under the 14th Amendment), Ivy, was denied 'en banc' a second time and given no reason given for the refusal.
There have also been a number of suspicious coincidences surrounding Kolody's case. Most shocking was that Kolody's own local counsel, Daniel Hanley, admitted under questioning to have a sister who was a major media buyer for Coca-Cola in the United States and that he had been feeding her information of Kolody's legal strategy. What's more, an affidavit was filed by famed court reformer Sherman Skolnick (who has had more judges imprisoned and disbarred for judicial misconduct than any other person in U.S. history) that ties Judge Manning to major Chicago underworld figure William F. Cellini and asserts that her Judgeship was bought through a corrupt system of dealings. Both of these charges were made in a heated court hearing that saw a group of six armed police officers enter the courtroom. To date, Hanley has not been sanctioned for his admission and neither Judge Manning nor Bill Cellini have refuted the claims made in Skolnick's affidavit.
Interesting, too, is that Coke has disregarded the case in their SEC filings. Initially this may sound innocuous, but not when you remember that Coke's entire business is the sale of their syrup formula and licensing of their logo to bottlers. This means that the bottlers have been paying license fees to a fraudulent copyright owner for seven years. Combine this with the fact that tensions between bottlers and Coke reached an all-time high last year when Coke was accused, in a major lawsuit, of dumping syrup on their bottlers in order to bolster a sagging fourth quarter earnings report.
The case is currently being appealed to Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens (supervisor of the 7th Circuit) under a special application for 'chamber business'. This is especially dramatic considering the fact that it was Justice Stevens who, when he was a young lawyer on the 7th Circuit, headed up a special committee that presided over what became known as the 'biggest judicial bribery scandal in United States history'. The allegations surfaced publicly when, in 1969, a maverick public crusader by the name of Sherman Skolnick brought charges against a group of Judges for bribery.
Due to the complexity of this case and the verifiable evidence of judicial misconduct on the part of Coca-Cola's lawyers and Judge Manning, we recommend that you take the time to read the entire story. We are confident that you will be neither bored nor disappointed with the dramatic recounting of this tale.
http://www.guerrillanews.com/cocakarma/synop.html
 Website: http://www.guerrillanews.com/cocakarma/synop.html
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| Lees meer over: globalisering | | aanvullingen | | | en Bacardi | Johannesbrug - 15.08.2002 14:43
Guardian. 15 August 2002. Bacardi accused of campaign to oust Castro.
LOS ANGELES --The Bacardi rum company has been engaged for more than 40 years in clandestine attempts to overthrow the Cuban government by both violent and other means, according to a new book.
The company is accused of bankrolling extreme rightwing groups and American mainstream politicians in an effort to remove Fidel Castro and re-establish its profitable empire on the island.
Bacardi is the world's largest rum company, with annual sales of more than 240 million bottles in 170 countries. Its history stretches back to 1862 when it was founded in Santiago de Cuba by a Frenchman and a Catalan.
But behind its image of a fun drink for partygoers, is an empire that has devoted millions of dollars of its profits towards removing Castro and the current Cuban government, which nationalised its properties in 1959, according to the Colombian journalist Hernando Calvo Ospina in his new book, Bacardi, the Hidden War.
Initially, Bacardi had supported the Cuban revolutionaries of 1959, who nationalised the company along with other private industries in 1960. Other countries and private firms have since reached settlements with the Cuban government over the nationalisation but the US and Bacardi never have.
The book alleges that, in the 1960s, the then head of Bacardi, the late Jose Pepin Bosch, planned to bomb Cuba's oil refineries, hoping to create a blackout in the country and thus stimulate "a state of national subversion." His plan, and a picture of the bomber plane he intended to use, was exposed in the New York Times and the enterprise abandoned.
A more elaborate plot to kill Castro was suggested in 1964, according to documents not released by the national security council until 1998.
Details of the CIA plot "to assassinate Castro, which would involve US elements of the mafia and which would be financed by Pepin Bosch" are contained in documents sent by CIA agent Gordon Chase to his superiors.
According to the documents, Pepin Bosch contributed $100,000 of the $150,000 requested by the people linked to the mafia who had offered to kill Castro, his brother, Raul and Che Guevera.
Directors and leading shareholders in Bacardi were instrumental in the formation in 1981 of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) which was to become one of the main bodies coordinating efforts to overthrow Castro.
It was also used as a conduit in the secret war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua carried out by the Reagan administration until the exposure of the Iran-Contra affair.
The CANF made no secret of its operations, referring at the time to its "active participation in the Central American conflict and our efforts to inform and guide those who have pledged their allegiance to the cause of a Free Nicaragua."
CANF was instrumental in the campaign to keep Elian Gonzalez, the shipwrecked Cuban boy, in Miami against the wishes of his father.
More recently, senior Bacardi figures have been instrumental in the support for the 1996 Helms-Burton legislation which outlined what Cuba must do to be regarded as a democracy by the US and attain diplomatic recognition. The law made it an offence for foreigners to invest in properties that were nationalised by Castro and denied visas to the US to the directors of any firms that did so.
In congressional circles, the legislation was referred to as the Bacardi bill. Leading Bacardi figures mounted fundraisers for Senator Jesse Helms, one of the architects of the legislation. In 1975, the head of Bacardi's Miami subsidiary co-hosted a $500-a-plate fundraiser for Helms which netted $75,000 for the senator.
Instrumental in the construction of that legislation was Otto Reich, who this year was appointed by President George Bush as the assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs despite opposition from the Senate foreign relations committee.
Before taking his current post, Reich worked for the firm of lobbyists employed by Bacardi to advance their aims.
Reich has been an active proponent of bringing down the Cuban government and "has been more helpful than any other diplomat on behalf of the CANF and particularly the Bacardi multinational," according to Calvo Ospina.
The book is published as the Bush administration has been attempting to link Cuba to the "war on terrorism" and the US state department has listed Cuba as one of seven state sponsors of terrorism.
| | Renewal of copyright should be banned | John Veldhuis - 16.08.2002 12:04
The right that is most abused in this world is copyright.
Instead of protecting writers, painters and other artistically inclined people, copyright has turned into a moneymaking machine for big corporations.
It has no longer anything to do with protection of investments, it has turned into extortion.
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