Bob Kohn
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Bob Kohn is the founder, Chairman and CEO of RoyaltyShare, Inc., an outsourced royalty processing solution for the music, book publishing, brand licensing, and motion picture industries. Kohn served as Vice Chairman of the Board of Borland Software Corporation, where he previously served as senior vice president and general counsel. He serves as Chairman of Laugh.com, a comedy record company he founded with comedian
George Carlin George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author. Regarded as one of the greatest and most influential comedians of all time, he was dubbed "the dean of countercultur ...
. In 1998, Kohn co-founded
EMusic eMusic is an Online music store, online music and audiobook store that operates by subscription. In exchange for a monthly subscription eMusic users can download a fixed number of MP3 tracks per month. eMusic was established in 1998, is headquart ...
, the
MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was designed to greatly reduce the amount ...
music-download service. EMusic sold its first downloadable music file for 99 cents on July 23, 1998. Once listed on NASDAQ under the symbol EMUS, the company was acquired in 2001 by
Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as Universal Music Group or Universal Music) is a Netherlands, Dutch–United States, American multinational Music industry, music corporation under Law of the Netherlands, ...
. Prior to EMusic, Kohn served as vice president of business development and general counsel for
Pretty Good Privacy Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is an encryption software, encryption program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication. PGP is used for digital signature, signing, encrypting, and decrypting texts, Email, e-mail ...
, Inc., the developer of the controversial PGP
encryption In Cryptography law, cryptography, encryption (more specifically, Code, encoding) is the process of transforming information in a way that, ideally, only authorized parties can decode. This process converts the original representation of the inf ...
software; senior vice president of corporate affairs and general counsel of Borland International, Inc.; associate general counsel of
Candle Corporation Candle Corporation was an American software company active from 1976 to 2004. The company spent the first two decades developing system monitoring applications for a variety of IBM mainframes and their corresponding software, their first being OM ...
, a mainframe software company; corporate counsel for
Ashton-Tate Ashton-Tate Corporation was a US-based software company best known for developing the popular dBASE database application and later acquiring Framework from the Forefront Corporation and MultiMate from Multimate International. It grew from ...
, a personal computer software company, later acquired by Borland; and associate attorney at the law offices of Milton A. "Mickey" Rudin, an entertainment law firm. Kohn served as associate editor (and is now on the advisory board) of the ''Entertainment Law Reporter'', a professional publication that provides monthly updates on legal developments affecting the entertainment industry. He has appeared as a media commentator on ''
The O'Reilly Factor ''The O'Reilly Factor'' (originally titled ''The O'Reilly Report'' and also known as ''The Factor'') is an American cable television news and talk show. ''The O'Reilly Factor'' first aired in the United States on Fox News Channel on October 7 ...
'', ''
Scarborough Country ''Scarborough Country'' was an opinion/analysis show broadcast on MSNBC Monday to Thursday at 9 P.M. ET. It was hosted by former congressman Joe Scarborough. ''Scarborough Country'' made its debut in April 2003. On average, ''Scarborough Count ...
'', and other cable TV news programs. In 2003, he wrote ''Journalistic Fraud: How The New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted'', a book with a thesis similar to that of
Bernard Goldberg Bernard Richard Goldberg (born May 31, 1945) is an American author, journalist, and political pundit. Goldberg has won fourteen Emmy Awards and was a producer, reporter and correspondent for CBS News for twenty-eight years (1972–2000) and a pa ...
's ''
Bias Bias is a disproportionate weight ''in favor of'' or ''against'' an idea or thing, usually in a way that is inaccurate, closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individ ...
''. Kohn's book describes a climate of liberal bias in which reporters routinely slant or
spike Spike, spikes, or spiking may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Books * ''The Spike'' (novel), a novel by Arnaud de Borchgrave * ''The Spike'' (Broderick book), a nonfiction book by Damien Broderick * ''The Spike'', a starship in Peter ...
news stories to ensure that the media presents a liberal point of view. ''Journalistic Fraud'' specifically speaks of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
news pages, as opposed to its opinion pages or media in general, which are not the concern of the book. Kohn cites copious examples of what he claims to be journalistically poor leading sentences and biased topic choice and placement in the news articles of the paper. He states that the news articles are (or were at the time) biased, and political opinion in newspapers should be confined to the editorials. On September 4, 2012, Kohn submitted an amicus brief in US v. Apple opposing the Department of Justice's settlement and theory of the ebook price fixing case in a 5-page comic strip.


See also

* Criticism of The New York Times *
Opinions An opinion is a judgement, Point of view (philosophy), viewpoint, or Proposition, statement that is not conclusive, as opposed to facts, which are truth, true statements. Definition A given opinion may deal with subjectivity, subjective matters ...
by Bill O'Reilly alleging bias by
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...


Bibliography

*''Kohn On Music Licensing'' (music publishing copyright law, Aspen Publishers, 2002) *'' Journalistic Fraud: How The New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted'' (media criticism, Nelson Current, 2003)


References


External links


Bob Kohn's home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kohn, Bob Books about media bias American chief executives Living people Year of birth missing (living people)