Whoa…where did this come from? The Telecom and Antitrust Task Force of the House Judiciary Committee is slated to hold a hearing tomorrow on net neutrality. The line-up of witnesses is evenly divided between pro- and anti-net neutrality reguations:
—Walter B. McCormick - president and CEO, U.S. Telecom Association
—Earl W. Comstock - president and CEO, COMPTEL
—Paul Misener - vice president, Global Public Policy, Amazon.com, Seattle, Wash.
—Timothy Wu - professor of law, Columbia Law School, New York, N.Y.
The Judiciary Committee had been slated a few weeks back to hold hearings on phone company mergers (the hearing was cancelled due to scheduling matters) but this hearing on net neutrality is a sure-fire, clear shot across the bow of the House Commerce Committee’s Telecom and Internet subcommittee, which is well along in advancing its own telecom reform bill with net neutrality provisions (before anyone attacks me, I know you believe the current Barton bill’s net neutrality provisions are worthless, but they do exist nonetheless).
The scheduling of this hearing is further proof of a turf battle between two of Congress’ most powerful committees. The hearing will be available on the committee’s website. You can also watch it on C-SPAN 3 via TV or online at C-SPAN’s web site. (C-SPAN should give a raise to Peter Kiley. Thanks Peter.)
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 4:49 PM | Print | Comments (0)Public Knowledge has generated a hit on YouTube. The public interest group posted a video regarding net neutrality on the hot video sharing site, and as of 3:15 today, the video was ranked 11th most popular for the day and has garnered 28,055 views over the past two days.
The video is well-done, but I was amused by some of the potential dangers illustrated. For example, the video posits a hypothetical degradation of Google by the broadband provider in favor of a search engine the broadband provider itself might prefer…such as Yahoo! It’s true that Yahoo! has locked down deals with AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon to be the preferred portal provider, even though Yahoo! is on the record in some cases as favoring net neutrality regulations.
The comments on the video are also funny. One commenter named Insertcoolname asked
wow, is that legal? screwing with your connection like that? WHERE’S MY FREAKIN CONGRESSMAN!Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 3:15 PM | Print | Comments (0)
Courtesy of Cory Doctorow, this item from a local Georgia newspaper about how the RIAA has lodged a file-sharing suit against a family that doesn’t even own a computer. The RIAA filed suit against Carma Walls of Rockmart GA alleging copyright infringement due to unauthorized file-sharing of music and seeking an injunction plus monetary damages.
The Walls family found out about the suit from a reporter.
This came as shocking news to the Walls family, who were notified of the lawsuit Friday afternoon by a newspaper reporter. James Walls, speaking on behalf of his wife and family, said they have not been served with legal papers and were unaware of the lawsuit. After being shown a copy of the court filing, Walls said he found the whole thing bewildering. “I don’t understand this,” Walls said. “How can they sue us when we don’t even have a computer?” Walls also noted that his family has only resided at their current address “for less than a year.” He wondered if a prior tenant of the home had Internet access, then moved, leaving his family to be targeted instead.
Perhaps the RIAA was too busy petitioning a Michigan court to name a guardian ad litem for a 14 year-old girl so that they could sue her for copyright infringement.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:40 AM | Print | Comments (1)
St. Cloud, Florida is apparently experiencing problems with its high-profile municipal Wi-Fi project. The 15 square-mile project, which offers free service to city residents, is experiencing “hiccups” that some residents say make it difficult to use the service.
The issue, as is always the case with Wi-Fi, is geographic reach, with terrain impediments a big factor in the ability to receive the signal.
Former Mayor Glenn Sangiovanni, who spearheaded the project, stressed that kinks were still being worked out, but noted that not everyone was having problems. “There’s a lot of variables, and that’s part of it,” Sangiovanni said. “It could be the block construction you have, it could be the tin roof you have. There’s lots of different things that could be unique to your environment as opposed to my environment.
This real-world experience with large-scale Wi-Fi revives the question about whether 802.11 technologies, which were designed for ultra-local purposes, can be scaled up to cover major territories. In other words, St. Cloud’s experience may indicated that Wi-Fi, as some critics have noted, may not be the best technology to deploy across large geographic regions.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 7:47 AM | Print | Comments (0)
The New York Times’ John Markoff has this piece today about a patent award landed by Real Networks. Real’s CEO and founder Rob Glaser talked to Markoff about the patent, which apparently gives Real Networks some kind of intellectual property right over “intelligent” streaming of video, audio and “other information” over congested networks.
Glaser contends that it’s a “foundation” patent that will allow Real to promote its Helix multimedia servers and that Real doesn’t plan to use the patent to extract payments from direct competitors.
“We’re an operating company and we’re not likely to go after big hairy porcupines,” he said, “but we want our intellectual property to be respected.”
I say: huh? First, what’s the point of having a patent unless you plan to ask for royalties from those who use it? Moreover, how else can you gain “respect” for your intellectual property rights unless you threaten those who you feel infringe upon those rights.
Finally, after all this time, does no one else have a patent on “intelligent” streaming or whatever it is that Real is claiming it has the rights to? Markoff notes that Apple was awarded a similar sounding patent in 1996, but that “It appears the patent office examiners did not consider it in their evaluation of the RealNetworks patent.”
Glaser did tell Markoff he had a “Kafkaesque” time persuading the patent office to give him the patent (his name is listed first on the patent).
For the life of me, I can’t figure out what this news means. Is Real Networks suddenly the king of all things streamed on the Internet? Did the Patent Office make a giant mistake?
Update: Real issued a press release this morning regarding this patent. It doesn’t really shed light on what Real is exactly patenting except to say it covers pretty much everything having to do with streaming media.
The recently-issued patent (U.S. Patent No. 6,985,932, “Click-to-Stream”) covers the core methods used when consumers select links to stream audio-visual media via web browsers and other media players.
Real does say that the work that went into the patent started in 1994, at least two years prior to Apple’s patent.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 7:32 AM | Print | Comments (1)
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