Terrestrial radio stations would have to pay performance royalties under a bill by House Judiciary Intellectual Property Subcommittee ranking member Mel Watt, D-N.C., introduced Monday. It was met with applause from artists’ rights groups such as the musicFIRST coalition and the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), but NAB criticized the legislation as harmful to local broadcasters. The bill follows July comments from Watt previewing a bill that he had said would “incentivize the parties to negotiate in good faith,” and that would be introduced by early August.

A House bill that would remove the integration ban requiring cable operators to use CableCARDs instead of built-in security in set-top boxes doesn’t have a clear path to passage but has generated a lot of industry interest, a Republican lobbyist who represents cable interests and a consumer electronics official told us Friday. Both NCTA and ACA have issued statements in support of the bill, while CEA, TiVo and Public Knowledge denounced it as anti-consumer. The League of Rural Voters, National Puerto Rican Coalition and National Congress of Black Women support the bill, said a spokeswoman for House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, who introduced the bill. “I think there’s going to be a big push to get this done somehow, some way,” said the lobbyist.

Public Knowledge asked the FCC to deny approval of AT&T’s proposed buy of low-cost carrier Leap Wireless. The request came in a petition filed Friday at the FCC. The Competitive Carriers Association, meanwhile, filed at the FCC asking the agency to attach conditions to the merger. The Rural Wireless Association also planned to file in opposition to the deal, said General Counsel Carri Bennet. AT&T and Leap unveiled the deal in a surprise announcement in July (CD July 15 p1). PK had been a leading opponent of AT&T’s unsuccessful move to buy T-Mobile, and was joined on its petition by Consumer Action and Writers Guild of America.

Securus is coming out swinging in response to the FCC order Thursday (CD Sept 27 p20) requiring phone rates to and from correctional institutions be cost-based. “We're well beyond the letter writing stage,” CEO Richard Smith told us Friday. “This is the ‘file a lawsuit’ stage.” The No. 2 U.S. inmate calling service (ICS) provider hopes to file by mid-November. That would give the court time to consider injunctions and restraining orders with respect to the implementation date -- which, barring judicial action, would be 90 days after publication in the Federal Register.

Two percent of the FCC’s staff and 21 percent of the FTC’s workforce could keep working during any government shutdown, according to updated contingency plans those agencies released Friday. That the FTC gets more of its funding from user fees and not congressional appropriations, even though both agencies are largely funded by such money, appears to be the reason that agency wouldn’t be hit as hard as the FCC, said several experts in interviews last week. As many as 38 of the FCC’s 1,754 employees could stay on the job, that agency said (http://bit.ly/15zE9A2), while 248 of the FTC’s 1,178 workers would be exempt from furloughs, it said (http://1.usa.gov/1946pki).

In a new paper on regulation for the digital age, former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt says the agency needs to embrace a “modern” regime of light-handed regulation, but that a “laissez-faire” regime will work only some of the time. The paper was co-authored by Greg Rosston, former FCC chief economist, now a professor at Stanford University.

A new era of transparency has swept U.S. intelligence agencies, privacy advocates said Thursday at a Federal Communications Bar Association event. They expressed support for legislative changes and discussed how to improve the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees much of U.S. surveillance in secret.

Congress should give the FTC authority to regulate common carriers under its consumer protection authority, said Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen. If the agency expands its authority anywhere, it should be there, she said Friday at a TechFreedom event commemorating the agency’s 99th birthday, at which she emphasized areas in which the FTC should limit its regulatory efforts. But the FTC has the antitrust and consumer protection authority as well as the tools to address issues in that area, she said. If the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit strikes down the FCC net neutrality order, the FTC would “certainly” have the authority and tools to take up the issue, she said. Others have said that as well, if Verizon wins its case that was heard Sept. 9 (CD Sept 9 p1).

Comcast has 60 days to put Bloomberg’s standard definition business news channel alongside other SD news channels on all its headends in the top 35 DMAs, said the FCC Wednesday in an order affirming an earlier Media Bureau decision on a dispute between the two companies. All three commissioners approved the order (http://bit.ly/1dNbhcU), though Commissioner Ajit Pai also issued a partial dissent.

The FTC proposed using its 6(b) authority to study the business methods of patent assertion entities (PAEs), said Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen on Friday. The proposed PAE study, on which the agency will accept public comments for the next 60 days, would ask 25 of the entities to provide information on their corporate legal structure, the types of patents they hold and how they assert their patents. The FTC aims to “develop a better understanding of how [PAEs] impact innovation and competition,” it said in a Friday news release (http://1.usa.gov/1bMInLI).