It's common, but there actually is no exemption for friends and family. Those offerings should technically be done under the 506 exemption which require investors to be accredited.
It was also illegal, before the JOBS Act, to engage in "general solicitation," which is what raising money via a publicly-viewable crowdfunding page would amount to.
That's what I was wondering -- I've heard of the accredited investor barrier to entry, but it does seem like rule 506 would allow for investment from anyone.
Really? Sorry, not trying to be dense here, but from what I see in 506.b.2.ii:
Nature of purchasers. Each purchaser who is not an accredited investor either alone or with his purchaser representative(s) has such knowledge and experience in financial and business matters that he is capable of evaluating the merits and risks of the prospective investment, or the issuer reasonably believes immediately prior to making any sale that such purchaser comes within this description.
Sounds like to me that they just require you or your representative to "know what you're doing" if you're not an accredited investor.
But isn't a general solicitation on a public site considered to be a public offering? My understanding of what a "public offering" is, is that any general solicitation to the public, without qualification, for investment in a security in a company, where a security is any investment without a guaranteed return (as opposed to debt).
I understand that JOBS act allows to solicit up to $1M from unqualified investors, but does it allow public offerings of up to $1M without registration?
I lost a smartphone in Brooklyn and the NYPD bent over backward to get it back and then asked me to fudge the date that I filed the report, which I told them I was uncomfortable doing. It was very weird. They must be able to book it as some great achievement at the station.
Entrepreneurs are creatives. it's no different than the pebble smartwatch or light table project, except you are offering stock in the company instead of physical rewards.
That's all the difference in the world. One is a finite project where you act as a patron and get something in return no matter what (assuming the creator doesn't fall off the face of the earth). If you fund a startup, most of the time your money doesn't have any sort of return.
In particular they're very clear on the finite-project angle. You can't just raise funding for your art studio, but for some specific piece of art or project your studio is doing. A startup can already use Kickstarter to fund a specific project that way, if they want (several game studios have). But they can't just raise funds for the company "in general", which I don't think is something Kickstarter will be looking to change.
That said, I'm currently involved in a Kickstarter project in Design and it occurred to me that since the tech-side seems to draw in the most attention/funding these days--not true when I opened my project/account--, isn't confining this platform to the US counter-productive? Thus stagnating the progress of current or potentially new viable innovations.
If anyone is interested I'm seriously considering open to accepting applications for potential tech projects within Europe, S. America and Asia that want but are unable to use KS, provided they meet certain criteria, for a nominal fee in an opportunity to advance this avenue before Grinda and his ilk clone it throughout the World. Its my free Market solution to ensure that Kickstarter remains the crowd sourcing platform of choice.
If you know anyone in need of such a service tell them to post their email/link here and we can get in touch to get the ball rolling. No promises made, of course, but I think its a short-term solution to the current geographical issue.
Why wouldn't they have the right? The DNS servers in question are physically in US territory. And due process is part of the bill: in the current version a domain takedown requires a court order. Weak protection to be sure, given the army of lawyers the MPAA has lined up and the tendency of some judges to rubber-stamp legitimate-seeming orders, but not strictly speaking a due-process issue.
IANA is only under (US-based) ICANN control because of the grudging agreement of the rest of the world. There have been arguments to remove control over the DNS root from US jurisdiction, but each time the US Government and ICANN have promised not to do something like SOPA.
Why wouldn't they have the right? The DNS servers in question are physically in US territory.
Well in the US we have this thing called "constitutional rights" which say, among other things, that Congress shall make no law "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press".
Laws blocking results returned from a DNS server is just about the closest thing imaginable to "abridging a press" in the 21 century.
There are more examples of expensive classes in this followup story on Betabeat: "In fact, there’s plenty of demand for pricey Ruby classes. A ten-session intro class at NYU is $1,295. Ruby classes can run upwards of $2,000 for a three-day course. New Yorkers can get five days of Ruby and Rails training at the for-profit training center Marakana for $2,150. Codeacademy offers 12-week courses for $6,000."
