OPINION
April 6, 2012
A federal appeals court has given Viacom a second chance to prove its copyright infringement claims against Google's YouTube, reviving a high-stakes battle between entertainment companies and Internet entrepreneurs over "user-generated content" sites. The decision Thursday by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals was a partial win for both sides, but it left a few important issues unsettled as it tried to strike the right balance between competing interests. Viacom — a giant entertainment conglomerate whose assets include Paramount Pictures and Comedy Central — alleged that YouTube made more than 60,000 snippets of its content available for free, damaging the market for its movies and TV shows.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 3, 2012 | By Dennis McLellan, Los Angeles Times
Wayne M. Hoffman, the retired chairman of Tiger International, the Century City-based parent company of the Flying Tiger Line, which was once the world's largest air cargo carrier, has died. He was 89. Hoffman died Saturday of natural causes at his home in Indian Wells, said Nissen Davis, a family friend. A former railroad attorney who rose to become executive vice president of the New York Central Railroad, Hoffman was recruited to become chairman of the Flying Tiger Line in 1967.
BUSINESS
March 25, 2012 | By Lauren Beale, Los Angeles Times
Former Von Dutch chief executive and clothier Tonny Sorensen — who gained recognition for popularizing a trucker cap bearing the company name and using celebrities to promote the brand — has left his own signature on his personal residence in Beverly Hills and put it on the market at $6.9 million. The gated Midcentury Modern was built in 1961 but completely redone by the Danish entrepreneur. He combined his love of minimalism and high-quality materials in the single-story, 6,000-square-foot home.
WORLD
February 17, 2012 | By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times
A few years ago, she embodied the rags-to-riches legend of modern China: The daughter of an illiterate farmer starts a hair salon when she is just 15, and in little more than a decade creates a business empire that makes her one of the country's wealthiest women. Now the country's "sister millionaire," still only 31 and looking much like a schoolgirl with her ponytail and straight-cut bangs, has come to symbolize something far different: opposition to the death penalty. A provincial court on Jan. 18 upheld Wu Ying's death sentence on charges of fraud and "illegal fund-raising," violating legislation aimed at fighting underground banking and loan-sharking.
FOOD
February 16, 2012 | By Betty Hallock, Los Angeles Times
Bill Chait is leading a half-dozen colleagues through a two-story factory that has been converted into lofts on the edge of downtown's Arts District. The building is the future home of his next project, a $1.2-million, 140-seat trattoria called Bestia, in the shadow of the 7th Street bridge, next to train tracks that run along the L.A. River. Among its neighbors are a furniture warehouse, a diesel gas station and an all-nude strip club. "It's the SoHo of L.A.," says Chait, a soft-spoken but steely 51-year-old with dark, side-parted hair, slightly big ears and metal-framed glasses.
BUSINESS
February 5, 2012 | By Rosanna Xia, Los Angeles Times
The gig: Gil Elbaz is founder and chief executive of Factual Inc., a Century City company that aggregates and organizes huge amounts of online data. Factual, started in 2007, has attracted $25 million in venture funding. Claim to fame: He co-founded Applied Semantics Inc., which built technology that connects related online content. Google used it to create its landmark AdSense product that automatically displays advertisements based on a Web page's content. Google bought Applied Semantics in 2003 for $102 million.