Benton RSS Feed

A BRAVE NEW WORLD OR POLITICAL SKULDUGGERY?
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Howard Kurtz and Jose Antonio Vargas]
The instant popularity of an attack video that mocked Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) prompted plenty of talk this week about how an ordinary citizen can influence political discourse by tapping into the power of the YouTube culture. But the unmasking of the filmmaker as an employee of a company on the payroll of Clinton's Democratic presidential rival, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), raises questions about whether the more old-fashioned art of political chicanery was at play. Phil de Vellis, who worked for the firm that designed Obama's Web site, Blue State Digital, says no one at the company or in Obama's camp knew he had made the video depicting Clinton as the droning voice of a totalitarian establishment. Obama and his aides say they had no idea who was behind the 74-second ad, which has been viewed online more than 2 million times, and which closes by flashing Obama's Web address. The uncovering of de Vellis, who used the screen name "ParkRidge47," a reference to Clinton's 1947 birth in Park Ridge, Ill., was a digital-age detective story. Liberal blogger Arianna Huffington said she had 30 staffers contributing to a message board of tips and technical sleuthing that eventually led to a source who confirmed de Vellis's involvement. She then called de Vellis and persuaded him to confess on the Huffington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/22/AR200703...
(requires registration)

* Ad creator claimed role in Obama campaign
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-hillary23mar23,1...
* Hillary's Big Bother
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/03/22/MNGDROPM7...

TANGLED WEB
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Steven Cook & Michael Levi, Council on Foreign Relations]
The Internet has been hailed as a technology that empowers average citizens to make their voices heard. Its dispersed nature, most assume, makes it difficult to control. Yet countries generally route Internet traffic through a small number of checkpoints, allowing governments to efficiently monitor and control what happens on the Web. Many have placed responsibility for promoting Internet freedom squarely on the companies that provide Internet services. When corporate leverage is limited, governments must step in. U.S. efforts have, so far, been anemic. The Global Internet Freedom Task Force, the highest profile effort launched so far, has been little more than a talk shop. Congress has attempted to step in, but its foreign-policy tools are blunt, and leave too little room for creative diplomacy. Real action has to come from the top. Washington should not go so far as to bar U.S. companies from operating in states like Turkey, but it should make clear that its diplomats will not actively facilitate IT investment from U.S. firms in countries that are repressing bloggers and restricting freedom of speech on the Web. Making investment in information technology dependent on good Web citizenship has the potential to encourage meaningful change in emerging economies. The U.S. should also exert global leadership. A first step would be to sponsor a United Nations Declaration of Internet and Electronic Freedom. To be sure, the U.N.'s enforcement mechanisms are hopelessly weak, but the declaration can serve as a standard against which countries can be judged. Using universal standards set forth in the new U.N. Declaration, the State Department should include a status report on Internet freedom in its annual report on human rights around the world. The transformative nature of the Internet is well-documented, but it is not impervious to authoritarian leaders intent on limiting debate. Global Internet companies like Google, Yahoo! and others should not be left alone at the messy junction of ethics, business, corporate citizenship, and technology. Washington must lead the way both in establishing global standards for Internet freedom and implementing a policy to encourage compliance with those principles.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117461374329246343.html?mod=todays_us_op...
(requires subscription)

MUSIC PUBLISHERS ACCUSE XM OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
[SOURCE: C|Net News.com, AUTHOR: Anne Broache]
An association of music publishers late on Thursday filed a lawsuit that accuses XM Satellite Radio of refusing to stop "widespread infringement" of popular copyrighted songs. In a complaint filed in New York federal court, the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) argues that the satellite radio operator's "XM + MP3" music service skirts copyright laws by allowing radio listeners to make permanent copies of on-air tracks through devices like the Pioneer Inno player without permission and without properly compensating songwriters. The service "constitutes pervasive and willful copyright infringement to the overwhelming detriment of copyright holders, legitimate online music services and, ultimately, consumers," lead attorney Debra Wong Yang said in a statement.
http://news.com.com/Music+publishers+accuse+XM+of+copyright+infringement...

* Music Publishers Sue XM Radio Over Songs Stored on Receivers
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117459929926145965.html?mod=todays_us_ma...
(requires subscription)
* Music Publishers Accuse XM Radio of Copyright Infringement
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/22/AR200703...

JET PASSENGERS MAY NOT GET TO CHAT ON CELLPHONES AFTER ALL
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Paul Davidson]
The once-highflying idea of letting passengers use their wireless phones on airplanes is about to be grounded. Apparently, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is recommending the FCC drop its tentative plan to lift its ban on in-flight cellphone use. The FCC has long worried that wireless calls at 35,000 feet would clog hundreds of on-ground towers at once. That hurdle was expected to be remedied by a plan to send passengers' cellphone signals to a small airplane antenna, known as a pico cell. The antenna would then relay calls to earthbound towers over spectrum — earmarked just for air-to-ground use — won by AirCell in an FCC auction last year. But tests conducted last year by CTIA, a wireless association, showed that in-flight calls still cause interference, especially if the pico cell couldn't recognize the passenger's cellphone signal, says CTIA Vice President Chris Guttman-McCabe. AirCell CEO Jack Blumstein says the interference issues can be fixed. The larger obstacle, he says, is a lack of enthusiasm by both consumers and wireless industry players for in-flight cellphone use.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/telecom/2007-03-21-fcc-usat_N.htm

* Chief Says F.C.C. Is Against Cellphone Use on Airliners
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/23/business/23FCC.html
* Cellphone calls likely to remain grounded
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-airphone23mar23,1,188...