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George Ou, the former Technical Director of ZDNet, has found a new job where he continues to lead the technology sector by publishing innovative thoughts and ideas – sometimes not necessarily his own.read more

About 16 months ago, I heard Ed Richards of Ofcom speak at a CITI conference at Columbia, and blogged about it here. I remember thinking that Richards didn’t seem to think that highspeed access to the internet was all that important. The market had to demand it, and the market wasn’t being demanding. Also, he wasn’t interested in government intervention to support highspeed access.read more

Over the next couple of days, thousands of online activists will gather in Austin for the Netroots Nation conference. This is the former Yearly Kos meeting, an extension of the Daily Kos progressive blog. There are scheduled caucuses for Open Left Readers and Geeks and Texans and Moms, and sessions on how to use social networking tools in campaigns. There are panels on how the Internet could be used for transparency in government, how the Internet has affected campaigns and lobbying, to discussions of science, space and food policy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will be there, as will Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) and retired Gen. Wesley Clark. All of the speeches and 99.99% of the panels and discussions will be about how to the Internet is being used, and should be used. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s fabulous that activists want to make the most out of the online medium.read more

On Monday, Judge Richard Sullivan of the Southern District of New York ruled resoundingly for eBay in its defense against Tiffany’s various claims of trademark infringement. Coming as it does in the wake of eBay’s $63 million loss to Louis Vuitton in France, this decision stands as an unambiguous breath of sanity. It’s great to see that France’s nakedly protectionist, moral rights-influenced, lack-of-first-sale-doctrine decision has been quarantined to France for the time being. As Judge Sullivan affirmed, “The law clearly protects secondary markets in authentic goods.” The Court detailed the myriad ways in which eBay extended itself in trying to accommodate Tiffany by removing listings featuring counterfeit Tiffany merchandise.read more

Yesterday, a federal court in Arizona decided MDY v. Blizzard, finding that violators of any licensing terms of an End User License Agreement (EULA) are liable for copyright infringement. MDY sold Glider, a software program that let players of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft game automate their play in violation of the game’s EULA. Blizzard contended that, since every user of the game must copy the game (or at least portions thereof) into RAM in order to play it, these copies would be copyright infringements but for the existence of the EULA. If the EULA then says you don’t get this license unless you don’t use a bot, then using a bot is copyright infringement.read more

The first Senate hearing I attended struck me as a “dog and pony show” since the witnesses were presented for display purposes, merely echoing the pre-determined opinions of the presiding Senators. I’m beginning to see the animals in a less benign light. Today, Senator Baucus (D-MT), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, held a hearing on “International Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights and American Competitiveness,” with Ranking Member, Senator Grassley (R-IA), in the wings and with Senators Kyl (R-AZ) and Roberts (R-KS) making cameo appearances towards the end. As for the witnesses, the deck was stacked, as appears to be more the norm than the exception.read more

For months now, Public Knowledge has been communicating to the FCC the need to place conditions on an approval of the proposed XM/Sirius merger. We would like to think this has been successful, as a draft order recently circulated by Chairman Martin proposed to approve the merger subject to conditions, many of which closely echoed our suggestions. Even more recently, XM/Sirius themselves identified a set of conditions they would voluntarily commit to should the merger be approved. Although we think the language of the merged entity’s proposed voluntary conditions need some work to truly reflect the public interest, this is a definite step in the right direction. Of course, that assumes that XM/Sirius will ultimately abide by these obligations. After all, a condition is meaningless if it is ignored.read more

Ever since Robb Topolski unleashed his exposé on behavioral advertising company NebuAd, behavioral advertisers and their partners have found themselves in the hot seat. And judging by the looks of it, that heat isn't going to let up anytime soon. You'll recall that back in May, Representatives Joe Barton (R-TX, Chairman and Ranking Member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce) and Edward Markey (D-MA, Chairman of the Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee) sent a letter to NebuAd's CEO, politely asking him to put his pilot tests on hold, pending an investigation into the company's practices. A coalition of 15 consumer advocacy and privacy groups, including Public Knowledge, voiced its support for Barton and Markey's letter and urged the Congressmen to continue their investigation into the practice of behavioral advertising. And continue they have. read more

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have been quick to blame problems with service quality on so-called “bandwidth hogs.” According to AT&T, the top 5% of their Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) subscribers use 46% of the consumed bandwidth, and the top 1% of subscribers use 21%. But it is unclear what these figures mean, and if congestion problems could even be caused by those who use the network the most. These figures would seem to be describing the bandwidth consumption totals at the end of some designated time period (day, week, month). If this is the case, then 5% of subscribers using 46% of bandwidth consumed is not necessarily cause for alarm. Excessive bandwidth usage is only a problem when it degrades the quality of service for other users of the network.read more

Whats New:

• Public Knowledge and Free Press Shine A Light on Behavioral Advertising
• PK Conditions Included in FCC’s XM-Sirius Merger Draft Order
• OECD Ministerial: Protecting the Internet is a Public Policy Priority
• G8 Endorses Secretive Trade Agreement
• Notable Press Mentions: June-July 2008

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Even though I was in Seoul a little less than a month ago, I would be remiss if I didn’t take note of the nightly protests that were occurring there. For one thing, they were impossible to miss—the convention center where the OECD Ministerial was held had a small phalanx of orderly protesters and riot police outside it during the days—a scene mirrored in vastly greater numbers each evening downtown. But another reason for me to pay attention to the protests was an issue that touched on media and even copyright issues. On June 18, the front page of the Korea Times covered a speech given by President Lee Myung-Bak at the OECD Ministerial. The headline?read more

For Immediate Release: July 11, 2008 Background: Press reports indicate FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is recommending that Comcast be punished for violating Commission policy statements to preserve an open Internet. The following statement is attributed to Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge: “We are pleased that Chairman Martin has decided to enforce the Commission’s policies preserving the rights of Internet users. Comcast’s conduct in throttling Internet traffic was deplorable when it was discovered, and remains deplorable today. read more

For Immediate Release: July 10, 2008 Two key merger conditions suggested recently by Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) “fall short of what is necessary to ensure that the merger is in the public interest,” Public Knowledge (PK) and Media Access Project (MAP) today told FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.read more

In its “Declaration on the World Economy”, the G-8 included an endorsement of ACTA and ongoing efforts to “standardize” IP enforcement through customs organizations. “We encourage the acceleration of negotiations to establish a new international legal framework, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), and seek to complete the negotiation by the end of this year,” the statement says. So we have a major endorsement of ACTA from the leadership of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. And pressure to have this international legal agreement ready to roll at the end of the year. So what’s going to be in this critically important, possibly binding international agreement, to be completed in less than six months? We have no idea.read more

We recently scanned all of the documents filed in response to the USTR’s request for public comments regarding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). They are presented below, if sometimes angularly, as well as on our issue summary page here.read more

More than 40 years ago, the FCC was worried about telephone companies using their power over communications to control the then-nascent (and competitive) data processing marketplace. The Bell System at that point was already banned from providing services that weren’t common carriage communications services (or “incidental to” those communications services). In Computer 1, the Commission tried to distinguish the use of computers for processing information from the use of computers as part of communications, with the goal of not allowing the Bell System into the data processing business.read more

While the full United States Senate on Wednesday (July 9) takes up the subject of wiretapping by the government, the Senate Commerce Committee will take up the subject of wiretapping by private industry. It’s a tossup which one is more scary. The Senate votes July 9 on the bill to grant the Executive Branch almost unlimited authority to wiretap private citizens without any judicial oversight. The Commerce Committee will hear testimony from Robert Dykes, the chairman of NebuAd, a controversial company recently in the news because his group came up with a novel way of getting detailed information about Internet users. NebuAd wasn’t satisfied to get information only from a customer’s use of one Web site. Instead, they want to see everything that a Web surfer does online. Here’s Dykes pitching his company at a conference in New York earlier this year:read more

I’m the sucker who just over a year ago got up at 5AM to sit in a line until 6PM to buy an iPhone. There are a lot of people like me, I met many of them in line that long day. It was actually a lot of fun, but had I known that if I had just shown up at the Apple Store at 7PM that night, I could have walked out with the same iPhone, since there was plenty of supply, I think I would have done the latter. Since June 29, 2007, I have been incredibly in love with this new computing platform called the iPhone, and I’ve written about it a bit before.read more

For months, Comcast spokespeople have been deny, deny, denying that the FCC has the power to do anything about Comcast’s throttling of BitTorrent traffic. Now, in papers filed as part of a class action lawsuit against Comcast, Comcast has gone the opposite direction, asserting that because “these issues are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the FCC, and because the FCC is actively investigating them,” the judge should put the suit on hold until the FCC renders a decision. The court has agreed, staying the case until the FCC acts.read more

For months, Comcast spokespeople have been deny, deny, denying that the FCC has the power to do anything about Comcast???s throttling of BitTorrent traffic. Now, in papers filed as part of a class action lawsuit against Comcast, Comcast has gone the opposite direction, asserting that because ???these issues are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the FCC, and because the FCC is actively investigating them,??? the judge should put the suit on hold until the FCC renders a decision. The court has agreed, staying the case until the FCC acts.read more