As a cab driver one learns and masters many things, one important thing is to keep calm when passengers act foolishly or even sometimes try to bully you, just don't loose your mind and finish the job.
Today, upon accessing my inbox, I found an e-mail which can be categorized as bullying . I have been accused of breaking the copyright laws and threatened a lawsuit apparently by a fellow cab driver, e-mail is quoted below.

I am the president of NYCabbie.com
The NYCabbie name and logo and photos are protected by international copyright laws.

By using the NYCabbie name on your website you are breaking the law and you are placing yourself at risk for a lawsuit.

I suggest you remove any reference to the NYCabbie name on your website.

Unless, of course, you are in a financial position to go to court and lose your case.

MLK
President
NYCabbie
www.NYCabbie.com

I think MLK needs to learn, what can and can not be copyrighted before making such claims, your works on your website including writing, photos, logos and graphics can be copyrighted but your name, pen name, title and even your domain name can not be copyrighted in the U.S.
Copyright office website states these thing as given below.

Can I copyright my website?
The original authorship appearing on a website may be protected by copyright. This includes writings, artwork, photographs, and other forms of authorship protected by copyright. Procedures for registering the contents of a website may be found in Circular 66, Copyright Registration for Online Works.

Can I copyright my domain name?
Copyright law does not protect domain names. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a nonprofit organization that has assumed the responsibility for domain name system management, administers the assignation of domain names through accredited registers.

How do I protect my recipe?
A mere listing of ingredients is not protected under copyright law. However, where a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions, or when there is a collection of recipes as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for copyright protection. Note that if you have secret ingredients to a recipe that you do not wish to be revealed, you should not submit your recipe for registration, because applications and deposit copies are public records. See FL 122, Recipes.

Can I copyright the name of my band?
No. Names are not protected by copyright law. Some names may be protected under trademark law. Contact the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, 800-786-9199, for further information.

How do I copyright a name, title, slogan or logo?
Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases. In some cases, these things may be protected as trademarks. Contact the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, 800-786-9199, for further information. However, copyright protection may be available for logo artwork that contains sufficient authorship. In some circumstances, an artistic logo may also be protected as a trademark.

Hence reading above statements by copyright office, it is clear that NYCabbie can not be copyrighted, but can be a registered trademark or patent and upon checking USPTO site, it is not even registered trademark or patent till date.


Even if it is a registered trademark of your company, still, you can not stop me using this name, only thing you can do is not to let me use your logo, artwork or photos or maybe postings, which I'm not using neither intend to use.
Just to refresh, think of any famous brand or website names like yahoo, msn or even microsoft and add .blogspot.com domain to them, they are there and for a reason that names and website domains can not be copyrighted.
And my thoughts on this whole matter, WOW, with the reader ship of maybe three and half, I'm at the verge of being sued. What are other three thinking about this?

Labels: Personal, Taxi Business

It is almost a month since NYC cabs are charging additional $0.50 surcharge in order to help MTA to overcome $5 billion deficit.

If we consider, there are 13,000 yellow cabs in NYC and every cab is making 60 trips per day, MTA is getting 3,90,000 per day from yellow cab industry, black car industry is not included in this calculation.

How did this surcharge affected a cab driver? Well! after a month, I'm in better position to tell as my November's tips had dropped down by almost 24%, most people tend to think this money is going to driver's pocket, which is false, as at the end of his or her shift, driver pays it to the garage or to the brokerage company from where he or she is leasing his/her car.

Drivers, who have Taxitronic meter installed on their cabs, like myself, are suffering more, because at the end of fare, meter does not adds up the fare price and additional surcharge, unlike pulsar meter which does show the total at destination, there are few passengers, who want to know about extra $0.50 fare hike, which is fine with me and many other drivers but there were couple of passengers, who actually paid me less than fare price and walked away, for first two I just let them go, when same thing happened third time I literary chase the passenger and demanded for the extras, he started arguing that when he was in the cab fare was $7.00, why am I adding up $1.50 to the fare price? he had paid me $8.00 thinking  $1.00 as tips, he ended paying me additional $1.00 and said "Thanks for stopping me for $0.50".

But why do a driver has to go through all this? Why the hell TLC price sticker says $3.00 initial fare, when it is not so on the cab meters? Why hadn't they printed a sticker which says clearly additional $0.50 for MTA, to some drivers like this one situation has gone to extent, where they are thinking to put explanatory note at back of the cab, which says $0.50 are for MTA, to avoid explaining every third passenger.

Labels: NYC, Personal, Taxi Business

Somehow comments on my blog were not apearing, I was notified by one of my friend early this morning. I tried but my own comment went through, I told my friend that " he needs to learn how to comment".

Then I checked my statmeter, which shows number of attempts been made to post comments, but they were not apearing on the blog, comments were only working with google account, when tried to post comment as anonymous and Name/url option, they were not getting published on the blog.

I have fix the problem, feel free to comment, because comments keep a blog alive.

Labels: blog design, Personal

Finally, I have finished with my blog design, I'm quite satisfied with it, It is simple and yet has a Cab Driver's Blog look.

As this is the first post on this blog, I should introduce myself, I guess.
My name is Muhammad, an immigrant, New Yorker for almost ten years and a cab driver. I was born in a small and remote village in Pakistan, graduated from Karachi University in Ship Technologies, in year 2000. Same year my family got immigrant visa to U.S.






We landed in new York, on July of 2000, since then I'm a new yorker. It is pretty hard to settle in new place, more harder if you don't know any one. To make ends meet I worked as construction helper, behind the counter jobs, jobs where you don't make money, but they take care of your bills and rent etc.

As you might know, in NYC almost 70% cab drivers are south Asian descend, I knew people who were driving cabs and were making decent living, biggest thing was they were also able to save few bucks, only thing that kept me back from driving cab was "I don't know my way around city".

After encouragement from people, who were driving already, I applied for FHV license, from 2005 to 2008, I drove as a chauffeur in black car company "limousine company". Until 2007, I was pretty satisfied with that, as I had plenty of time for myself, yet doing my job, making money.

Then economy started falling, the company I worked for had Lehman Brothers Account, which was one of the biggest account for us and many more companies, my company lost the account. That was just the start, even after losing Lehman brothers account, drivers were able to make their living. By the end of 2007 economy and banks started falling so fast, unimaginable, so does black car business which mainly works with those big banks. I spent whole 2008 in “ hope for the best” kind of feelings, and went in debt during this period, I was working 15-18 hours, and after paying lease for the ca , company dues, was only able to save money for the next week's gas.

Early in 2009, one of my friend from black car company, started driving yellow cab and was able to make some money, upon his referral, I took the test, and since march of 2009, I'm driving yellow cab.

Right now my plans are to work as cab driver at least for 2 years, get out of debt, save some money and start my own business in near future.

During that period, I will continue writing some stories, along the way, I might learn English, Which many customers think, I should.

Labels: NYC, Personal, Yellow Cab