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Amazon has won a patent to create a virtual marketplace where users could resell digital content like apps, songs and e-books. But it’s unclear whether such a marketplace would be legal under current copyright law.

Users’ rights to resell digital content is already a contentious issue under copyright law. Startup ReDigi, which allows users to resell digital music, says its model is legal according to U.S. copyright law’s “first sale” doctrine, which lets people resell physical content. But the record label EMI is suing ReDigi, claiming that digital files can’t be resold like physical objects because there is no way to ensure that the “original” digital file was deleted. A court will rule on the case this year, and the outcome could have implications for Amazon’s marketplace.

Twitter is acquiring Bluefin Labs, a company that analyzes online chatter about TV shows and companies and sells its findings.

Twitter is paying nearly $100 million for Bluefin, according to a person with direct knowledge of the sale, making it the Web site’s biggest acquisition to date. The person insisted on anonymity because the terms of the deal were not disclosed publicly. The deal suggests a new line of business for Twitter, which is under pressure to increase its revenue. Bluefin calls itself a social TV analytics company, one of many that have cropped up as Facebook and Twitter have created an instantaneous stream of commentary that helps inform television producers and distributors. Companies like CBS, which televised the Super Bowl, pay Bluefin for information about what is being said about them online.

Three House Committees held a joint hearing* to review the ramifications of a treaty signed by 89 nations at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT). House Commerce Committee staff described the action as “likely the start, not the end, of efforts to subject the Internet to international regulation.” The hearing examined what happened at the conference, what implications the treaty has for the Internet and the economic and social freedoms it fosters, and what steps can be taken to redouble international support for the multi-stakeholder model in which non-governmental institutions recommend best practices with input from the public and private sector. The hearing also examined legislation making it the policy of the United States to promote a global Internet free from government control.

House Republicans and Democrats spoke with one voice about the threats to global Internet freedom coming out WCIT. Legislator after legislator took to the microphone to praise the U.S.'s stand against the Internet language and ask what could be done to repel future attempts at government encroachment into Internet policy, which everyone agreed would continue. One answer stressed the importance of giving developing companies more support in the form of money, education and infrastructure so they do not turn to authoritarian regimes like Russia and China for help.

Ambassador David Gross, who was a member of the U.S. WCIT delegation, made a pitch for continued engagement with the ITU. While he was in total agreement that the language in the treaty made it unacceptable, he said remained extraordinarily important, both in terms of spectrum policy and as a way to do outreach to the developing world.

Dr. Bitange Ndemo, who led the Kenyan delegation to the Dubai conference, stood with the U.S. in opposing Internet-related language that made it impossible for the U.S. delegation to sign on to the treaty. Dr Ndemo said many of the countries that did sign on had been coerced.

Federal Communications Commission member Robert McDowell testified that the US should intensify efforts to prevent governments from exerting control over the Internet after a United Nations conference increased countries’ ability to regulate Web traffic. Supporters of international control of the Internet are “patient and persistent incrementalists who will never relent until their ends are achieved,” he said. "In short, the U.S. experienced a rude awakening regarding the stark reality of the situation," he said. "[W]hen push comes to shove, even countries that purport to cherish Internet freedom are willing to surrender. Our experience in Dubai is a chilling foreshadow of how international Internet regulatory policy could expand at an accelerating pace."

The takeaway from the hearing was that there were continued threats that required constant vigilance, and that one way to win hearts and minds would be to help the developing world. That would include not only infrastructure, said Sally Shipman Wentworth of The Internet Society, but also education, so that homegrown engineers would understand the stakes for their countries. There were also some suggestions that governments and private industry might help pave the way to conferences for countries that could not afford the price of admission to an Internet dialog that was important for them to be a part of. Not doing so, they suggested, could send them to authoritarian regimes for help.

* The three House committees participating were: the House Communications and Technology Subcommittee, the Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade and the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations.

Three months after Hurricane Sandy struck the Northeast, the federal government is trying to determine what could be done better to keep cellphone and Internet services running in the event of another natural disaster.

The Federal Communications Commission met with representatives of phone carriers, public utilities and city governments in New York on Tuesday to discuss what happened to broadband and cell services during Hurricane Sandy and how to improve performance. It took several days for the carriers to restore most of their service; in some cities, some cell towers are still down. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said the storm “underscored something important: how essential modern communications like mobile and broadband have become to our daily lives. They connect us to family, work and emergency services. And we sure notice when we can’t get through on our phones or connect to the Internet or get TV or radio news.”

At the meeting, FCC commissioners asked what could be done to prevent network failures, how to make networks more resilient and what could be done to speed restoration. Michael Corso, Director of Industry and Governmental Relations for the New York Public Service Commission, said the only way to prevent a repeat of what happened is to invest. “Undegrounding is going to have to be considered. Hardening and protection from water intrusion,” he said. A crucial issue brought up was the inability to communicate with the carriers. Jack Schnirman, city manager of Long Beach, said that after wireless service went down in his city, it was easy to contact government officials using radio devices but impossible to contact a phone carrier.

Broadcasters continued to be praised for their "first informer" status and they were offered an opportunity for some of those broadcasters to outline the preparations that allowed them to remain on the air while other communications systems failed.