Communications Daily had a story in today’s (subscriber-only) edition about the top technology priorities for Congress as they return from recess. 4 of the top 5 priorities are all about expanding government intervention into the technology, Internet or media sectors:
* SHVIA (Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act) reauthorization: Re-imposes compulsory licenses (read: forced contracts and price controls) on broadcast programming redistributed over satellite networks.
* Indecency regulation: As the name implies, we’ll be getting a bill with increased fines / penalties for “indecent” broadcasts on radio or television. (The Senate version of the pending bill also has a section censoring “excessive violence” on television.)
* VoIP bills: Although early drafts of VoIP legislation looked good, a Senate mark-up of a bill sponsored by Sen. Sununu this summer ended in disaster when pro-regulatory forces included language largely gutting the bill by opening the door to state and local regulation.
* Copyright revisions / INDUCE Act: There’s apparently going to be a serious push to get the INDUCE Act through before the session expires. The bill would impose liability on technology providers if their service or products “induced” copyright infringement.
So, by my count, it’s Freedom 0, Regulation 4.
As I always ask: What ever happened to “Hands Off the Net“?
I just wanted to make folks in the southern California area aware of a fun event I am going to be co-hosting on Tuesday, September 14th out in L.A. on “The New Censorship Wave: How Real Is the Threat to Freedom of Speech and Expression?” It will feature a discussion with Penn Jillette of the magic / comedy team of Penn & Teller. Should be fun!
If you’re in that area and interested in attending, here is the info. It will be held at the Beverly Hills Hilton starting at 11:00.
Techdirt has a blurb on the inevitability of RFID technology and another on why that’s a good thing, making the point, as Declan McCullagh does here, that a precautionary approach to technological innovation can deprive consumers, and society in general, of tremendous benefits. In other words, the mere possibility of some harm resulting from the development or widespread use of a technology should not preclude that development or use. Rather, a comparison of potential costs and benefits is required. As Declan points out, the potential benefits of RFID are tremendous while the costs, though not completely negligible, are easily managed through technological safeguards and consumer-driven accountability.
Continue reading →
Communications Daily reports today that the only thing the Republican platform has to say about telecom policy is that “every American [should have] access to affordable broadband by 2007.” Well, that’s nice. I guess I missed that section of the Constitution that granted every human being an inalienable right to high-speed Net connections. Perhaps the new Republicans technology platform should be labeled “Life, liberty, and the right to speedily download porn and P2P music.”
Continue reading →
Catherine Yang reports in the current Business Week that America is “Behind in Broadband” and implies that the deregulation of telephone operators is the primary culprit. She argues that “To have any hope of joining the world’s broadband vanguard, the U.S. must create a viable third competitor” to telco and cable providers. But she then suggests that forcing at least the Bells to share the infrastructure with rivals is the primary way of accomplishing this goal in the short term.
How many times and in how many ways must it be said: SHARING IS NOT COMPETING. Infrastructure sharing is not the same as infrastructure creation and innovation. Simply mandating that more “rivals” share someone else’s embedded infrastructure is hardly a sensible way to bring about the additional facilities-based competition America really needs. We don’t ask policymakers by regulatory fiat to create new car companies by forcing Ford to share their facilities with another companies at regulated rates. Instead, we expect companies to build all new facilities to compete and offer us a legitimate choice.
Continue reading →
FYI, Heritage last week released a new report by Norbert Michel on the effects of file-sharing on music sales. His conclusion:
Despite both sides’ positions, the research thus far does not show a clear effect on record sales from file sharing. Does this mean that P2P is harmless? Not necessarily. There are many reasons why P2P’s impact may not have appeared in empirical data, and there are valid reasons why P2P remains a threat to the music industry.
Michel goes on to discuss the shortcomings of the existing data on the issue. He, by the way, is a research analyst with Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis, and wrote his PHD dissertation on the file-sharing issue.
The other day in my post on the rising cable viewship for political conventions, I cited figures showing cable viewership at about half that of the b-cast networks. I thought that was a lot. Last night, however, Fox news actually beat all three b-cast networks, scoring over 5 million viewers for the GOP convention. Perhaps it was Zell Miller, who knows? Just one more milestone in the ever shrinking influence of broadcast TV in America.
Yesterday, the FCC extended the comments period for its inquiry into the impact of violent TV programming on kids. The FCC launched the inquiry this summer after several members of Congress wrote to the FCC earlier this year requesting that the agency study what it could do about violence on television. The Senate recently included a measure in a military spending bill (how’s that for irony!) that would ban violent video programming on broadcast TV during hours in which children might be in the audience (basically anytime before 10:00 p.m.). Thus, this latest “for the children” censorship crusade du jour, aimed at getting “excessive violence” out of the media, suddenly seems like a very real possibility.
Continue reading →
Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied a DMCA anti-circumvention claim made by garage door opener manufacturer Chamberlain against rival SkyLink. SkyLink developed a universal remote control that could operate Chamberlain’s garage door openers and Chamberlain didn’t like that so they filed a lawsuit. Luckily, they lost.
Continue reading →
A couple of days ago, the Post had an article detailing the strategy shift that politicians are using to “reach out” to voters. Rather than the old, and very expensive, method of sending voters junk mail, politicians are now buying very detailed e-mail lists in order to spam registered voters in targeted ways. This trend should be of no surprise to anyone. When CAN SPAM passed last year, it only “banned” commercial e-mail. Apparently, political messages are so vital that spamming voters with them is ok.
Continue reading →
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.