Wounded Warriors Treated to a Steak Dinner, Courtesy of Freedom Alliance

Recently, fifty-five service members stationed at Fort Polk, along with their families enjoyed an Appreciation Dinner at the Wagon Master Steakhouse in Leesville, Louisiana. Those in attendance were treated to a night of fun and camaraderie. Sponsored by Freedom Alliance, the dinner was held to honor the troops for their service and sacrifice.

"Words like duty, sacrifice and honor are defined by the men and women of the U.S. military," stated Freedom Alliance President Tom Kilgannon. "Freedom Alliance works very hard to show these soldiers that we understand, support, and are very appreciative of the job they are doing to protect our freedom and this country. It is our hope that through these dinners, we can honor our brave military personnel as much as they honor us."

Freedom Alliance regularly hosts "Troop Appreciation Dinners" for service members from all branches around the country to honor and thank them for their service and sacrifice for our country. So far this year, Freedom Alliance has held dinners for troops at Fort Gordon, Georgia; Fort Carson, Colorado; and the Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas. These dinners are held for wounded service members recovering in Warrior Transition Units, those returning home from overseas duty, those recuperating in military hospitals, and many others stationed throughout the United States.

In addition to hosting Troop Appreciation Dinners, Freedom Alliance distributes "Gifts from Home" care packages to military personnel deployed overseas and provides scholarships to children of military heroes, among other programs. For more information please visit www.FreedomAlliance.org.

Matchmaker hooks up Tampa millionaire

A 33-year-old Tampa native and Internet mogul gets a date and an earful about why he's still single on the next episode of the Bravo reality series "Millionaire Matchmaker."

Michael Prozer, who says his Internet money exchange business is worth $400 million, can't find Mrs. Right.

And self-proclaimed dating expert Patti Stanger knows why.

"What's with the hairdo?" says the ever-blunt Stanger as she watches a video of Prozer introducing himself wearing numerous necklaces.

"He's so retro with all that jewelry," she adds with a disapproving whine.

Matchmaker Stanger, who sort of resembles Morticia Addams, sees potential but notes Prozer's appearance suggests he is "in an arrested development state" and is "like a kid that never wants to grow up."

But he lives in a 33,000-square-foot mansion on 26 acres and he has a private jet.

Divorced with two young children, Prozer is a former musician and co-founder of Xchangeagent Inc., a West Palm Beach-based online money exchange service South America and Europe (like Pay Pal).

He hasn't been available for interviews but the episode was available for preview.

On it he explains that while he has no trouble "finding girls." "It's finding one that can deal with my lifestyle that's a problem," he says.

So he turns to Stanger, the bossy, blunt, outspoken manager of The Millionaire's Club, an elite Los Angeles-based matchmaking service for lonely rich guys.

Stanger says Prozer needs someone "sophisticated" to lift him from being "trailer park trash" at heart. She also suggests a makeover: possibly get a chin implant, drop the Moe of the Three Stooges haircut; and cut back on the bling.

He rejects the advice and ventures onward to a mixer in Los Angeles that the Matchmaker arranges with potential dates who look like candidates for "The Bachelor."

Also at the mixer is Stanger's second wealthy bachelor, a narcissistic Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeon who is very picky and very wimpy.

Prozer picks Alanna, a "commercial broker" of French/Irish decent. Wearing a loud T-shirt with sequins, he whisks her away on his jet to Florida where things go downhill fast.

Find out what happened on "Millionaire Matchmaker" at 10 p.m. Thursday on Bravo.

FIGHTING VIOLENCE: ABC Action News on WFTS, Channel 28, has been focusing on raising awareness about domestic violence with a six-week campaign involving news reports and public service announcements.

"Taking Action Against Domestic Violence" also provides information about services and help available to victims of violence in the Tampa Bay area.

The centerpiece of the campaign is a one-hour primetime special at 8 p.m. Friday with reports by WFTS community affairs director Lissette Campos, and "ABC Action News" anchors Wendy Ryan, Deiah Riley and Brendan McLaughlin.

A Web site also has been designed for this campaign. The site can be accessed from abcaction news.com by clicking the Domestic Violence link. The site includes information on local services and shelters, safety tips, signs of abuse and the first steps to getting out of an abusive relationship.

Why The Pirate Bay Verdict Doesn't Matter
April 16, 2009 - Digital and Mobile

By Glenn Peoples, Nashville

Against the backdrop of tomorrow's decision in the lawsuit against torrent tracking site the Pirate Bay is the harsh reality that victories against illegal file-sharing may change the shape of P2P, but they will do little to solve the industry's greater problem of transforming itself for the digital era.

Even in the event of a decision against the Pirate Bay, no quick impact will be seen because an immediate appeal would be likely. In weighing the likely long-term impact of a decision against the Pirate Bay, one should consider to the peer-to-peer market after the industry's 9-0 Supreme Court decision in the landmark Grokster case. In that decision, the Supreme Court looked beyond possible non-infringing uses of its technology and focused on Grokster's business model. The court said that a party who distributes a product with the "object of promoting its use to infringe copyright . . . is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties using the device, regardless of the device's lawful uses."

After the industry's victory in the Grokster decision, economist Tyler Cowen predicted no impact on file-sharing and the possibility that innovation may be stifled. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Fred von Lohmann predicted "a new era of uncertainty for America's innovators." University of Chicago law professor Douglas Lichtman called the decision a "hallow victory" for content owners. He wrote on his blog:

MGM won on paper today, but my first reading of the opinion makes me wonder whether the victory will have any bite outside of this specific litigation. Intent-based standards, after all, are among the easiest to avoid. Just keep your message clear -- tell everyone that your technology is designed to facilitate only authorized exchange -- and you have no risk of accountability. ...

As the opinion makes clear, evidence of unreasonable product design can be considered only if there is also smoking-gun evidence of intent. Indeed, even outlandish design desicions are off limits without the relevant precursor.

Law professor and blogger Michael Geist commented on the industry's fight against P2P. "While the unanimous verdict left the industry calling it a '9-0 shellacking,' the reality is that many file sharing services will be pleased with the decision as it provides them with a roadmap to avoid future liability."

The fight against Grokster, and other legal battles over copyright and file-sharing, have helped shape the technologies and business models of today. Without legal challenges, P2P would look much different than it looks today. Uncertainty, and fear of lawsuits, may have taken the luster off the P2P model, but entrepreneurs - some well funded, some not - have not been dissuaded in creating new services that infringe upon and challenge copyright. Some, such as Muxtape, retreat and rebuild after facing legal action. Others continue to operate, insist on their legality and occasionally reach licensing deals with content owners. They have learned what they can get away with and what they should avoid.

In the years since Grokster, there have been two main outcomes. First, the common file-sharing business model has changed greatly. Grokster's business model, not its technology, cost it the decision. Second, a great deal of file-sharing traffic has moved to different technologies that support vastly different business models.

The intended consequence of these legal battles are to make piracy more difficult for both facilitators and downloaders. The industry, which has an obligation to its artists and shareholders, ended up simply pushing downloaders from one technology to another. If the Pirate Bay is forced to shut down, other facilitators of illegal downloading will take its place just as the Pirate Bay took the place of its predecessors.

Since the Grokster decision, illegal file-sharing has changed hands but has not abated (recent studies indicate P2P traffic as a percentage of total Internet traffic has dropped slightly). Grokster helped push file-sharing out of the corporate boardroom and out of the hands of executives with purposeful business plans that overtly depend on users lured by free content. Today, industry lawyers face "non-profit pirates driven by ideological beliefs," as they were called by Anders Rydell, co-author of a book on the Pirate Bay. The Pirate Bay trial could push it further underground and further into the hands of more elusive ideologists. A likely unintended consequence is that downloaders will adopt a technology that makes both detection and enforcement far more difficult. Darknets, or networks that remain hidden from detection, account for a greater percentage of P2P traffic every year.

Piracy, contrary to the frequent claims of industry trade groups, is not the main culprit behind declines in recorded music revenue. A Capgemeni study of the U.K. music market found that only 18% of the decline in recorded music sales from 2004 through part of 2007 was due to file-sharing. The majority of the decline, the study estimated, came from "format changes" (from CD to individual tracks) and downward price pressures from discount CDs. Combined with free streaming services and countless online radio options, listeners have many options other than piracy.