Posted on 08/23/2010 4:52:06 PM PDT by nickcarraway
How does a financially strapped city with a shrinking manufacturing base and rising unemployment attempt to make a little extra cash?
Tax the bloggers.
Philadelphia is demanding that bloggers pay $300 for a business license, whether or not the blog brings in a fraction of that amount in profit, according to the Philadelphia City Paper.
Marilyn Bess blogs about eco-friendly living in Philadelphia and the surrounding areas. She occasionally contributes to the DIY site eHow.com. Her profit in the last few years - $50.
She told the City Paper that she received a letter from the city in May, demanding the $300 for a "business privilege license."
According to the city's website, every individual, partnership, association and corporation engaged in a business, profession or other activity for profit within the city of Philadelphia must file a Business Privilege Tax Return.
Whether the blog earns a profit does not matter.
Andrea Mannino of the Philadelphia Department of Revenue, told the City Paper that by choosing the option to make money from ads — regardless of how much or little money is actually generated — qualifies a blog as a business.
"It sounds ridiculous," blog and social media author Debbie Weil told the Daily News. "Does the city have the resources to go after every blogger? I'm not sure they understand the difference between blogging for business and personal satisfaction."
Joey Sweeney, editor of the Philadelphia nightlife and gossip blog Philebrity.com told the Daily News that the site had already acquired the business license.
"Since our business model relies on advertising sales, it makes complete sense that we'd need a business license, as we're in business every bit as much as a corner store," said Sweeney. "However, where people who mostly blog as a hobby and are making little to no money at all via their online pursuits, it doesn't really seem fair." These business privilege taxes and licenses are far from popular in Philadelphia. Smaller vendors have been crying foul about the city randomly cracking down on licenses and fees.
Many Philadelphians who didn't know that they owed taxes on their unprofitable blogs missed out on tax amnesty offered back in the spring.
Still, not all bloggers are concerned with rushing to print out new tax forms. Many didn't even know about it until it was reported on Monday.
"It wouldn't affect me in the least,” says 'Mike Meech', author of the Phillies blog Fightins.com. "I write under a pseudonym so they'd be sending a $300 bill to a fictitious name."
Are New York City bloggers next?
"I don't think that's on our radar," said Abby Lootens, from NYC Dept. of Consumer Affairs.
Bring on the proxy servers! Make ‘em work for it.
Lefties love to drive away their constituents
Not bad.
Many should be beaten too.
Taxed and beaten and run out of town on a rail.
99% of bloggers give the other 1% a bad name.
Soon Philly will be taxing people with big noses for using too much air.
Like W.C. Fields, I think I would rather be dead than live in Philly.
100% of obsessive, delusional and clueless people give themselves a bad name
Perhaps.
Then they write inane blogs and pimp them mercilessly.
That's the part I object to.
Then start your own site, and don't explicitly include a "Bloggers and Personal" section.
And then, since its your own site, you will have the added benefit of not regularly getting your comments pulled, with no apparent ability to notice the irony of the rudest and most often pulled guy on the site considering himself some sort of mod's deputy.
You're the one with a problem, knock yourself out.
Me, I'm just expressing an opinion.
You are allowed an opinion too.
Isn't that great?
You can love blogs all you want, I don't care.
You can support blogpimps and click blogs to see stolen
videos and print out blog pages and put them under your pillow.
The thing is..I have an opinion. It may not match yours.
Do differences in opinion equal "start your own site"?
I think not. You obviously do.
That's fine.
So tell me, Adolph.. why do you think someone with a different opinion should be elsewhere?
Hmmmmm?
"Write Flight".
Well, speaking as somebody what has never in 12 years been suspended or had a comment pulled; I'd say it's because your stupid obsession with bloggers detracts from the general value of the place, and is an annoyance to just about everybody that encounters your stupid, childish little pranks. Then there's the people that encounter your boorish and crude posts before they get pulled. Most all of them probably wish you were elsewhere, no?
If JimRob had a problem with the way bloggers post, do you think he may have done something about it by now? It's his property, not yours. He sets policy. You don't. Why is that so difficult to understand.
If JimRob had a problem with the way I post, do you think he may have done something about me by now?
I think that's the whole reason for mods pulling posts and suspending people, problems with the way they post, is it not?
Well, I’m still here.
I don’t like blog pimps. I will continue to thwart them.
See, I’m allowed a preference, just like you.
I’ll continue to deny pimps blog hits whenever possible for
as long as it suits me. You are free to cry about it for as long
as it suits you. Don’t like it, start your own forum! ;-)
As may be, I remain active and unbanned and busting blogpimps.
Suck it up, hoss, and wipe your face.
I think you're the guy the phrase "legend in his own mind" was invented for. What does your court mandated therapist say about your blogger obsession?
You have no passion.
He says "Stay away from blog defenders. We don't need any more assault charges or whiny victims running up hospital bills".
WTH? Start your own site? Why? We have FR and losers who haven’t an original thought, come along with crap for posts thinking they are bloggers.
The next time we run some racist punk off this board is your incredible lame idea going to be start our own white sheet society?
These blogpimps don’t pay to be here and never get involved in their own posts.
They want you to go to their site so they can collect cookie points and Facebook points.
It’s wrong.
There is no problem whatsoever with bloggers.
Chumps like CSD and iloveamerica are not bloggers and they are to stupid to write.
Bloggers - Cool
People pretending to be a blog and stealing others intellectual property, lifting wholesale and verbatim others writings and posting it as your entire post is plagiarism and a whole lot more.
Jeff Head is a blogger and Freeper. No problem
Dave Weinbaum is a blogger and Freeper. No problem
John Semmens is a ???????????? Well his damn writing is too close to reality and hilarious. Especially those that get snared by his wit.
If JimRob had a problem with the way bloggers post, do you think he may have done something about it by now?
In fact, JR has pointedly told these pimps their thievery is unacceptable.
So have several mods.
We can post their direct comments if you wish.
Now the way I see it, you are busting our chops as Blogpimp busters.(need a logo)
And that is your right, the same as it ours to be a part of the community and bust miscreants.
As a side, each of the pimps was counseled on what a blog was and we all tried to help them improve, even the Mods.
When it became clear they had no intention of improving and their intellect was lower than a grave diggers boots, it was time to blow them out.
You cannot lift others work, post it here on FR and claim by omission it is your original work so people will click on your fake blog.
LOL
No way! Do you mean to say blogpimping has been officially condemned?
I just refuse to believe that, it's too far fetched.
Oh, wait....
Never mind.
Here ya go:
You beat me to it, Mr. Legend in My Mind Too.
Oh cool. One for each of us!
Thanks!
See there, Minn?
It’s called being intellectually and morally bankrupt.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2576465/posts ?
A post by Brittany Pounders at LibertyJuice.com. It's a real live site with original content. The text posted here and linked to is directly from Brittany's keyobard. She's providing original commentary and sharing it with us here. The commentary here is fairly short, but still entertaining. Previously she has published full columns pertaining to a piece of video. (You've gone after her those times as well.) At the link are other original writings by her that have nothing to do with any video. She alerted us to something many may not have already been aware of. She provided good commentary and reminded readers of who this Bozo's opponent is. What the hell is the problem with that? Nothing. But that didn't stop your attack.
Did she claim to be the original source of the video? No. She used a non commercial video posted to YouTube by a citizen videographer, who surely is happy to see it disseminated in just the way she is doing it. The internet is jammed packed with plenty of original sites that wrap commentary around Youtube sources. Ever hear of PowerLine? There's Youtube framing all up and down that page Are those guys a bunch of phony cookie collectors too?
So what do Brittany Pounders and LibertyJuice.com have to do with anything in the mods treatise? Nothing. If she had violated something, do you suppose the mod is bright and and competent do handle it all by him/her self?
She's violated nothing. She's stolen nothing. She's engaging in no deception. She provides lots of original content. She has the cutest little name. So what other than your maniacal, clown like obsession caused you to go after and all the others like her?
She's a blog pimp. She wants you to visit her blogette to see a video that she did not produce.
Did she claim to be the original source of the video?
Did she credit the owner of the video?
She provided good commentary and reminded readers of who this Bozo's opponent is.
She presumes to educate the ignorant? She can ram her presumption up her bloghit counter.
She's providing original commentary and sharing it with us here.
She plagiarizes a bit, but at least she isn't an excerpt whore. I'll give her that.
It's a real live site with original content.
Not a site. It's a blog. With ripped-off videos and semi-plagiarized content.
Didn't you hear me the first time? Pay attention, Minnie.
She has the cutest little name.
Ohhhhh-kay.
I think they’re about to give me a seizure.
But seriously, it occurred to me that if I responded to every comment, or series of comments I read on FR that angered me, or that I thought were off base, or that were perhaps just not my taste, I would be glued to this screen 24/7, steeped in vitriol and rancor.
Point being, we need to pick our battles and limit them to that about which we are really passionate. Perhaps gunner has stirred some hidden passion in you. I suppose that's not so remarkable, as he does seem to have noticeable effects on some people. But really - If he bothers you that much, why don't you just ignore him? And me. And all the rest of us.
Why exacerbate your tensions by drawing more attention to our posts? If they are as ill-conceived and obnoxious as you claim, then surely we will just self destruct, or be relegated to insignificance, or pulled, or whatever.
If you enjoy the “work” of some of the bloggers that post here, nobody is stopping you from reading their posts, clicking on their blogs, sending them love letters and donations, or kissing their owwies when they get a boo-boo.
By the same token, on the few occasions that gunner or others of us have “busted” a blogpimp that had some special place in the hearts of FR management, the Mods have been quick to let us know, with admonitions like “safe your weapon and save your ammunition for the real offenders.”
When such statements have come from those in authority, we have been quick to back off and comply. But just as you repeatedly tell gunner that this isn't *his* website, neither is it *yours*. He is pointing out the misuse of the site for personal financial gain, by bloggers piggybacking on the donations of loyal FReepers. You, on the other hand are trying to silence a fellow FReeper with whom you personally disagree.
Which brings me back to my original point - If it bothers you that much, why not just ignore it?
Dad? Can I get a blanket? /s
His contribution to the site is decidedly negative and consistently hostile. He regularly gets posts pulled for crudeness. He's a bully with a hatred for bloggers that borders on clinical lunacy. Bullies sometimes demand a response.
You say it's not my site, which is of course true. But I'm not the one that has embarked on a personal crusade to inject my pet agenda of monumental triviality into thread after thread. And where's your advice to him to pick his battles and ignore "blogpimps" and maybe just get a grip?
So why don't you just take your own advice, ignore what you may othewise object to, and let the mods control the site?
The whole roving band of do gooders bringing those nasty pimps to justice thing is laughable. All you do is hijack comment sections with irrelevant chatter.
Bottom line the blogpimps are boils and they need to be lanced.
They are thieves.
They are plagarists.
They are con men.
They are leeches.
They are offensive not for their personality quirks but for the intellectual deceit and breaching the decorum of this board.
Said board is not some inanimate object but a community and as such the community, working with the police(Mods), decides when such miscreants can longer be tolerated.
Now, you have been provided proof of the Mods disapproval and there are more than 20 I recall.
We can as well, provide you with our attempts to improve the quality of these leeches postings and helping them understand what blogging is and they are not blogging.
We have been fair in our efforts to help them improve the quality of their work, as well the integrity.
They made clear they have no responsibility to the community and they would continue to blog.
They are so stupid they even posted emails from JR and other Mods and Jimmie somehow in his dementia or contrivance twisted the direct meaning of the emails.
We, the community, regularly call out racists, liars, Trolls, DU, KOS, LorenC(sorry. one my pet peeves), jokes in poor taste, reposting of subjects for the umpteenth time, inappropriate language for the board or subject, etc.
I understand you have personal grievance with Mr. Legend in his mind, he has that effect people.
But really, you would hold that against him when tries to stop a thief?
I don’t get it.
And isn’t this thread getting longer with each of your replies?
Seriously, you, me and the other pay for the privilege of being a part of this community.
Further, our postings are unique for their originality as would be a true blogger.
If the ever so humblegunner is mistaken we will correct our posse, as we have done.
by correcting the posse, there was no implication of humblegunner. Actually, it was me and I self corrected and let the others know.
“If he bothers you that much, why don’t you just ignore him? And me. And all the rest of us.”
It is impossible to ignore me.
[take that however you will]
;-D
You vex me... you vex me so...
That’s my sole purpose in life....:)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.