GENEVA -- There’s some hope for deal cutting within the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as it gathered for its 24th meeting Monday in Geneva. Efforts to harmonize international copyright legislation may be advanced through some wide support expressed for an international treaty for copyright exceptions for visually impaired and blind people and another one on the protection of broadcasters and cablecasters.

Spectrum sharing presents a tantalizing potential to improve efficient use of spectrum, but the technology and policy fixes needed to make it a reality are at least a decade off, wireless network expert Peter Rysavy said in a report released Monday (http://xrl.us/bng3q5). Underutilized government-only frequency bands will be need to be restructured so non-governmental and commercial entities can share them, the report said. It’s entirely possible for commercial and government entities to share these spectrum bands, but it will take time to determine how they can integrate, Rysavy said during a news conference Monday sponsored by Mobile Future. Getting information from federal agencies on how much spectrum they use can be challenging, an aide to the House Commerce Committee told the event.

The U.S. faces huge challenges trying to stay ahead of growth in wireless broadband use, and putting the right band plans in place is critical, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Monday at the start of an all-day agency workshop conducted by the commission’s Technological Advisory Council (TAC). “We are going to be listening very closely to what happens at this workshop and what comes out of the TAC process in terms of directions and recommendations for the FCC."

Lawmakers must realize that media marketplace policy has “failed” and is harming consumers, said Mark Cooper, research director at the Consumer Federation of America, in an interview Monday. The media marketplace is facing a “collaborative duopoly at best and a non-regulated monopoly at worst,” Cooper told us. “There is a very serious danger to consumers in this space.” Cooper added that if the proposed Verizon/SpectrumCo deal is approved, it will mark the “end of competition” in the media marketplace.

CNET’s Download.com allegedly took the “unusual and ill-advised steps of distributing software programs that are capable of widespread copyright infringement while simultaneously demonstrating how to infringe copyrights using that software and evaluating the various programs as to their effectiveness in copying copyrighted material,” a federal judge said Friday. Those inducement allegations are enough for a copyright infringement suit against CNET parent CBS Interactive to proceed, U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer in Los Angeles ruled while approving CBS’s motion to dismiss vicarious and contributory infringement claims.

Other government initiatives to protect mobile privacy are already well under way and the FCC doesn’t need to impose regulations of its own, AT&T and Verizon Wireless said. Their comments responded to a May 25 public notice about carrier practices on network diagnostic information stored on mobile devices. Both companies also assured the FCC they are taking steps on their own to protect consumer privacy. FTC staff suggested carriers and others need to do more to protect consumer privacy. “Providers of mobile products and services must do a much better job of providing consumers with basic information about what information they are collecting, how it is used, and what third parties gain access to it,” staff said.

More than 650 telecom providers signed a letter to commissioners “to ensure” the FCC and Congress “have clear and unambiguous notice of our collective concerns with the ‘regression analysis'-based caps” on USF support (http://xrl.us/bngrm9). A NTCA spokeswoman said the letter was an industry-wide effort in which several national and state associations, other groups and individual members “all reached out collectively to raise the visibility of this issue among policy makers in Washington.” The commission has received eight waiver petitions dealing with support reductions, of which one has been granted interim relief, a spokesman said. The commission also got two expedited waiver petitions dealing with boundary data, which it granted.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the FCC in a challenge from competitive carriers, who argued that the FCC “put the cart before the horse” when it ordered that relinquished USF monies shouldn’t be redistributed among a state’s eligible telecom carriers. Instead, the FCC set aside the money to be used later to pay for broadband. The Rural Cellular Association, joined by the Universal Service for America Coalition, argued that the January 2010 order violated the Communications Act and FCC regulations and was arbitrary and capricious in that it fell short of explaining how it ensures the “sufficient” level of support for CETCs required by the act.

A federal appeals court denied a petition for a writ of mandamus that would have forced the FCC to act on a pending program access complaint by Sky Angel against Discovery Communications. Sky Angel, which now does business as FAVE TV (Family and Values Entertainment), sells a package of linear pay-TV programming delivered over the Internet to proprietary set-top boxes. It complained to the commission in March 2010 that Discovery improperly withdrew its programming networks from Sky Angel’s service in violation of program access rules. Sky Angel sought the mandamus petition earlier this year to force the commission to act on the complaint.

A third company is involved in a retransmission consent dispute between Hearst Television and Time Warner Cable that went into its fourth full day Friday (CD July 13 p2). Nexstar, owner of three TV stations that Time Warner Cable is importing network programming from in five areas, filed a complaint at the FCC against the operator over the practice. Time Warner Cable said it’s within its rights to import the signals of Nexstar stations from other markets that have the same affiliation as Hearst stations blacked out on TWC’s systems.