The US Copyright Office has undertaken a study to evaluate the effectiveness of current methods for licensing musical works and sound recordings.
At this time, the Office seeks additional comments on whether and how existing music licensing methods serve the music marketplace, including new and emerging digital distribution platforms. Written comments are due on or before August 22, 2014
[Commentary] Today, Amazon so dominates the marketplace that it feels free to bulldoze the competition, dictating terms to suppliers and customers alike. Antitrust issues are not only about price and market share, but also the antidemocratic implications for both competition and the larger culture.
When will the Justice Department wake up? We support Amazon's right to offer readers the widest array of books at the most reasonable price. But such a right is not to be exercised at the expense of the fragile and essential contributions of authors, editors and publishers to the general culture. Amazon ought no longer to be permitted to behave like a parasite that hollows out its host. A serious Justice Department investigation is past due.
[Commentary] I was at first saddened when Alex Nogales, head of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, said that Latinos and Latino organizations like the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute who disagreed with him on whether the Federal Communications Commission should apply Title II (otherwise known as “heavy” government regulation) to the Internet or utilize a “light “regulatory touch via Section 706 were “. . . at best misinformed and at worst intentionally distorting facts.”
Simply, what Rep Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), most Latino organizations and most experts are saying is don’t apply a decades-old rotary phone regulatory regime to the Internet. If the Internet, through “light” regulation, helped advance causes essential to Latinos without Title II, why is Title II so necessary now? Latinos no longer use rotary phones. In fact, we use smart phones in greater percentages than any other group of Americans, regardless of ethnicity.
My friend Marty Chavez of the Ibarra Strategy Group and the Hispanic Technology and Telecommunications Partnership (HTTP) responded to a statement I recently made highlighting his participation in a very unbalanced event, hosted on July 9, 2014 by the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute and sponsored by Verizon, AT&T and Comcast, where he and others opposed strong Open Internet rules.
I had questioned whether or not it is appropriate for him to simultaneously represent the interests of corporate clients while asserting that he is working on behalf of the Latino community.
Of the many fabrications, Marty said that ‘most Latino organizations’ oppose the Federal Communications Commission using the sound legal authority found in Title II of the Communications Act to restrict blocking or discrimination online. This is patently false. A number of highly respected Latino organizations have sided with the community and come out in favor of strong Open Internet rules based on Title II authority.
Recently, Level 3 decided to call attention to their congested links into Verizon’s network. Unfortunately, they are now the one “trying to get a free ride on someone else’s network” and failing to “keep the interest of their customers paramount.”
Fortunately, Verizon and Netflix have found a way to avoid the congestion problems that Level 3 is creating by its refusal to find “alternative commercial terms.” We are working diligently on directly connecting Netflix content servers into Verizon’s network so that we both can keep the interests of our mutual customers paramount.
Providers of broadband Internet access services must disclose accurate information about their service offerings and make this information accessible to the public. This requirement, known as the Open Internet Transparency Rule, has been in full force and effect since 2011.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said, “Consumers deserve to get the broadband service they pay for. After today, no broadband provider can claim they didn’t know we were watching to see that they disclose accurate information about the services they provide. The FCC’s transparency rule requires that consumers get the information they need to make informed choices about the broadband services they purchase. We expect providers to be fully transparent about the details of their services, and we will hold them accountable if they fall down on this obligation to consumers.”
The Federal Communications Commission will face a lawsuit if it tries to invalidate state laws that restrict the ability of cities and towns to offer Internet service, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) wrote to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.
Such a move would infringe on states' rights protected by the Constitution, the group claimed.
Chairman Wheeler has said he intends to "preempt state laws that ban competition from community broadband," relying on authority detailed in a court decision that overturned the FCC's network neutrality rules. These state laws make it difficult or impossible for municipalities to create their own broadband networks that compete against private Internet service providers like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon.
Comcast executive vice president David Cohen got a chance to showcase some of his company's diverse content at a premiere screening of Comcast's Universal Pictures biopic, Get on Up, about the life of the Godfather of Soul, James Brown.
Cohen spoke to the audience about the company's diverse hiring and casting practices -- which drew applause from the crowd -- and its addition of four new, diverse cable channels including Revolt and Aspire. While expounding on Comcast's diversity efforts, Cohen also said he knew "how much farther we have to go" to achieve its diversity goals, adding that the company's proposed merger with Time Warner Cable would allow it to do more.
The US District Court for the Southern District of New York appears poised to grant broadcasters a motion finding online TV station signal streamer FilmOn in contempt for continuing to deliver network TV station signals over the Internet after the Supreme Court found similar service Aereo in violation of copyright.
FilmOn says it has since stopped. In a hearing on July 22, Judge Naomi Buchwald, who has already found FilmOn in contempt once, said she was likely to do so again.
The Federal Communications Commission has implemented four industry- wide reforms and the initial phases of two carrier-specific reforms for the Universal Service Fund’s (USF) high-cost program.
However, the FCC has encountered delays implementing the subsequent phases and more complex carrier-specific funding reforms that require extensive cost modeling and stakeholder input.
This report examines 1) the extent to which the FCC implemented funding reforms, 2) the extent to which the FCC is collecting data to determine the effectiveness of the reforms, and 3) what changes, if any, states have made in USF funding. The Government Accountability Office recommends that the FCC demonstrate how high-cost funds were used to improve broadband availability, service quality, and capacity.
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