In a vote of 22 to 34, the net neutrality amendment introduced by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) was defeated today in the Commerce Committee mark-up of draft telecom legislation known as the Barton Bill. After a series of impassioned statements, mostly by the amendment’s proponents, Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX) called for the vote.
Prior to calling the vote, Rep. Barton said “I don’t think all the draconian things are going to happen that they proclaim will happen if we don’t adopt their amendment,” dismissing the idea that broadband providers will create economic disadvantages for companies that can’t pay for fast-lane Internet access.
“If there is some bad actor out there down the road, we’ll pop ‘em,” Barton said.
Given the surprisingly strong support that network neutrality advocates generated as the Committee mark-up neared, there is little doubt that when the bill hits the House floor, yet another, potentially more intense, fight to include tougher net neutrality regulations will occur. In a statement, Gigi Sohn, President of public interest group Public Knowledge, pointed to the 11th-hour upswing in support for net neutrality regulations.
The Committee vote on the Markey amendment was more encouraging than the total might seem. Those of us who advocate for an open Internet substantially narrowed the gap between our position and those who side with AT&T, Verizon and Comcast to close off innovation. Credit should be given to Reps. Ed Markey, Rick Boucher, Anna Eshoo, Jay Inslee and John Dingell for cosponsoring the amendment, and to those members who has the courage to vote for it in the face of a fierce lobbying campaign.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 4:15 PM | Print | Comments (0)
While net neutrality proponents seek to amend the Barton bill moving through mark-up today, the cable industry is trying to expand the telcos’ video franchising requirements through amendments. The first one to surface has been introduced by Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA), who has introduced a measure that would bar red-lining, which is the avoidance of delivering service to lower-income territories.
Solis’ amendment prohibits “the denial of services on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, or income.”
Meanwhile, in pressure on Commerce Committee Ranking Member John Dingell (D-MI), a big union ally and a big proponent of the telcos’ pursuit of national video franchising, the Communications Workers of America sent a letter to Dingell asking that he consider “principles and factors” when marking up the bill.
Among these principles are the need to prevent red-lining and mandate community build-out requirements, the need to impose customer service requirements on the telcos in their video efforts, the need to impose public, educational and government channel access requirements on telco video systems and the need to impose minimum consumer protection requirements on phone companies’ video marketing efforts.
Surprisingly, the CWA’s letter also asks Dingell to adopt a la carte programming requirements (I say surprisingly because I assume the letter was instigated by the cable industry, which is opposed to a la carte). Even more surprisingly, the CWA has traditionally supported the telcos’ efforts to gain franchising reform.
Update: The Solis Amendment lost this morning by a vote of 22 to 33.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 12:17 PM | Print | Comments (0)What’s up with Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX)? First, he prepares a bill that would, among other things, hike to severe levels the criminal penalties surrounding unauthorized digital content. Now, according to this piece from Editor & Publisher, Lamar is the sponsor of a little-noticed bill that would eliminate three free speech protections under trademark law. The bill is about to be signed into law.
Three exceptions under trademark law allow for limited use of others’ trademarks. These exceptions are:
—News reporting and commentary.
—Fair use.
—Non-commercial use.
By eliminating these exceptions, journalists, artists and other creators of intellectual property will no longer have simple legal defenses if they cite trademarks in newspaper articles, for example, or satirize a trademark in artwork, as another example. Smith says the bill, H.R. 683 or “The Trademark Dilution Revision Act,” is necessary to clarify the rights of trademark holders and to cut down on litigation.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 11:06 AM | Print | Comments (0)
The BBC, the broadcasting giant with a strong slant toward new, innovative ideas, announced yesterday an ambitious new blueprint to position the company to capture new digital opportunities. Fueled by year-long work conducted by ten teams, the blueprint, called The Creative Future, lays out some forward-looking new ways to distribute BBC content.
The plans call for beefing up the BBC’s website to include more user-generated content and audio-visual material. The blueprint also calls for the BBC to create a “teen” brand of radio and TV services to be delivered online, commission more “360-degree” cross-platform content and focus on creating continuous news for TV, radio, mobile and broadband. In announcing the new initiative, BBC Director-General Mark Thompson said:
The second wave of digital will be far more disruptive than the first and the foundations of traditional media will be swept away, taking us beyond broadcasting. The BBC needs a creative response to the amazing, bewildering, exciting and inspiring changes in both technology and expectations.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 10:42 AM | Print | Comments (0)
Courtesy of JD Lasica, PBS’ Mark Glaser has this interesting piece on how the government in Singapore is banning election-related speech on blogs in the runup to a May 6 election. The long-standing dominant political party in Singapore, the People’s Action Party (PAP), announced through its Minister of Communication and Arts that blogs and podcasts that offer overt political content will be shut down between now and the election.
Despite an international outcry by such organizations as Reporters without Borders, the ban seems more geared toward stopping the flow of false information as opposed to outright suppresion of unwelcome speech. As Glaser points out, the Singapore government isn’t hard-line when it comes to limiting speech.
“The freedom available to Singaporeans is quite wide,” Au [Alex Au, a gay blogger in a country that bans homosexuality] told me via email. “However, there is a climate of fear that the government can clamp down anytime. There have actually been very few instances of arbitrary clamping down, but the fear persists, and thus a lot of people in Singapore, including bloggers, self-censor to some extent. With the passage of time, there is increasing confidence that freedom of speech on the Internet is pretty wide. The more years that pass without incident, the more confidence people gain.”Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:00 AM | Print | Comments (0)
AT&T and Yahoo! announced this morning that AT&T will offer its high-speed Internet customers and Yahoo! customers within AT&T’s 13-state local phone service region a co-branded version of Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, the online giant’s VoIP-enabled IM application. The IM service is now out of beta worldwide as of today.
The service is clearly going to be a money-maker for AT&T. Not only is the phone company Yahoo!’s preferred network termination provider for all phone calls that use the traditional voice network (resulting in network termination fees for AT&T), but it will also presumably get a stake of the premium revenues that flow from Yahoo! Messenger with Voice enhanced voice services.
These premium fees apply when customers call or receive calls from traditional or mobile phones with the IM service. The PC-to-phone service is called Phone Out and the phone-to-PC service is called Phone Out. Yahoo! offers the enhanced option with calls priced at $.02/minute or $2.99/month or $29.90/year.
Update: Yahoo! is really cooking with gas on the new apps front. Om has this item about Yahoo! quietly releasing for all its DVR option, formerly Meedio now Yahoo! Go TV.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 6:57 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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