The NCFDA staff provides below a summary of up-to-the-minute information on critical news affecting funeral service. For further details, please see the NCFDA newsletter, Funeral Service News Leader, provided to all members of NCFDA.

WHY DIDN'T THE FTC AMEND OR MODIFY THEIR FUNERAL RULE?

Earlier this month, the FTC determined that, after reviewing written and oral comments, there was no reason to modify or amend the Funeral Rule. Many of you may be wondering why the Funeral Rule was being reviewed and why nothing changed. See NFDA's response to all these questions under our News Page on our "members only section" of this website.

NEW HEALTH ALERT SUPERBUG SPREAD PROMPTS PUBLIC OUTREACH

New Superbug (MRSA) school spread infections and death plusnew research prompts need for immediate publicawareness to deadly drug resistant infection.Details... 

http://www.emergencyemail.org/newsemergency/anmviewer.asp?a=251&z=1 

Center for Disease Control has issued an advisory:

CDC Advisory Alert

THE EMERGENCY EMAIL & WIRELESS NETWORK 

http://www.emergencyemail.org

SCAM ARTISTS TARGET FUNERAL HOMES CONTINUOUSLY

Funeral homes are consistently target of scams. In order to minimize your risk of being a victim of a scam, please adhere to the following guidelines:

Never ship merchandise until you verify that a check has cleared and funds are in the account.

Simply because a charge goes through on a credit card does not mean it is legitimate. The card may have been stolen and a chargeback will eventually be made against the funeral home when the theft is discovered. Funeral homes should be very careful about accepting credit card payments when the contact is initiated by the consumer and credit card information is given via e-mail, fax or telephone.

Never wire funds back to a consumer, especially overseas. Also, do not provide account information to an overseas consumer who needs to deposit funds into your account.

Be suspicious whenever the purchase order is for several of the same item of merchandise.

Whenever a funeral home is requested to ship to an international address, it should be suspicious. Many scams are initiated overseas.

VISA advises that merchants should be careful about shipping to a single address when the transaction is placed on multiple cards.

Another sign of a possible scam is orders from addresses that use free e-mail services. VISA reports that these e-mail services have no billing relationship with the consumer, making them very difficult to trace.

NFDA TESTIMONY ON ESTATE TAX

Below is testimony that John Fitch, Legislative Office of the National Funeral Directors Association, recently gave at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the estate tax. We thought you might find it to be of interest.

NFDA Testimony on Estate Tax

NC PANDEMIC FLU PLAN

NCFDA continus to be involved in planning with the NC Department of Public Health, Medical Epidemiology Division, relating to the role of funeral service in the event of an anticipated influenza pandemic.  NCFDA offered a list of services that could be provided by our association members. Funeral Directors are identified as a priorty group for immunization. Below are links relating to the NC Pandemic Flu Plan that relates to funeral service.

NC Pandemic Flu Plan Web Site

NC Pandemic Flu Plan (Section Relating to Funeral Service)

The National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza

Article by the NC Department of Health, Medical Epidemiology Division

What is Influenza Pandemic?

RELIGIOUS EXEMPTION FOR COPYRIGHT LAWS

The religious exemption to the copyright laws does allow for music and lyrics to be printed on programs that are used for religious ceremonies.  Sometimes questions can arise as to whether a funeral is a religious ceremony.  Certainly those run by the clergy would qualify.  If no clergy are involved, there could be a closer question as to whether the funeral is a religious ceremony that would qualify for the exemption. It would probably depend upon whether prayers are involved, etc.  

Regarding the printing of the program, it does not matter if it is the family, the church, or the funeral home who performs the printing.  What is important is that the program being printed be used for a religious ceremony.   The BMI/ASCAP/SESAC license would not apply in this case.  That license allows music to be performed at the funeral home, whether live, on cassettes, CDs, music on hold, etc.  However, those licenses do not permit musical compositions or lyrics to be printed.  Therefore, you would need to rely on the religious exemption to print the music and lyrics in a program.   Pulling music, lyrics or other material from the Internet does NOT give it any type of immunity.  There is no Internet exemption from the copyright laws.  Hope this helps. 

Scott  Gilligan, NFDA Attorney