SAN FRANCISCO -- A new copyright-enforcement law ought to emerge from negotiations between opponents and supporters of the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and companion PROTECT IP Act, and it probably will, a top MPAA infringement fighter said Wednesday. “I see this as round one, and I can assure you that the MPAA is not going to give up,” said Larry Hahn, the association’s director of U.S. content protection.

Revamped data protection rules will make Europe an “international standard-setter” in the privacy arena, Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said Wednesday. The reform package, which must be approved by the European Parliament and Council of Ministers, includes a regulation with general rules for data protection (DP) and a directive governing use of personal data in criminal investigations and prosecutions. It updates 1995 rules that aren’t “fit for the digital age,” Reding said. It requires explicit consent to use personal data and provides a “right to be forgotten” when consumers withdraw personal information from social networks and other sites, she said. Any company that wants to do business in Europe will have to comply, she said. In a related privacy move, Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes continued her push Tuesday for a ‘Do-Not-Track’ industry standard.

Some groups think Congress now recognizes the need for more transparency when it comes to Internet legislation, following the success of the Internet blackout. Others think Congress missed the initial message of the blackout and will continue its old habits.

Negotiations among the three FCC members on the Lifeline order scheduled for a Jan. 31 vote are expected to get under way in earnest later this week. Questions remain about the mechanisms in the order for controlling the size of the Lifeline fund and are expected to be the subject of more discussion headed into the meeting. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski put the Lifeline order on the Sunshine notice, released Tuesday afternoon, scheduling the order for a vote at next week’s meeting and cutting off further lobbying. Both Genachowski and FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell are in Geneva for the early part of this week, attending the opening of the World Radiocommunication Conference.

Meredith’s moves a few years ago to begin consolidating the back office functions of all its TV stations in a few regional hubs has begun to pay off in the form of more efficient station operations, executives said during the company’s fiscal Q2 earnings call Tuesday. Its EBITDA margins approached 40 percent, nearly matching a record high for the unit during a non-election year, CEO Stephen Lacy said.

It could cost millions of dollars for TV stations to start putting just part of their public-inspection files online, the NAB told the FCC. It estimated that putting existing political ad files online could cost $15 million, and said making electronic other parts of the files would cost even more in employee time and other expenses. But nonprofits told the FCC and the Office of Management and Budget that the costs will be limited. OMB will consider the paperwork burdens of the regulator’s proposal to require all TV stations to put the files online through a commission-hosted website.

Verizon logged a loss of $2.02 billion in Q4 due to a one-time pension charge of $3.4 billion, the company said Tuesday. But, helped by the iPhone, the carrier added 1.5 million net retail customers, the most it has added in three years.

As the authors of the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) work to revise their bills, Mozilla, Wikimedia, Yahoo and other technology companies say the bills are ultimately doomed, unnecessary and unlikely to pass. Technology groups have repeatedly told Congress that the bills deny website owners the right to due process of law, mimic Web censoring technologies used by China and Iran, and undermine the security of the Web. Both Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said they're committed to working with stakeholders to address these concerns, but Hill staffers have been mum on exactly what changes are being considered.

GENEVA -- Nigeria was highly critical of the small digital dividend delivered at WRC-07 and the slow-moving approach European countries are taking to accommodating the needs of lesser developed countries. The comments came in a plenary session at WRC-12. European countries have excellent wired networks and received a sufficient digital dividend at WRC-07, a Nigerian official said, but Africa did not. Germany, Russia and Israel said the matter should be addressed at WRC-15.

The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the FCC’s 2009 wireless zoning shot clock order, in a decision handed down Monday. That was a win for wireless carriers who sought the shot clock, over broad opposition from many local government groups. The New Orleans court rejected arguments by Arlington, Texas, that the way the order was developed was “arbitrary and capricious” and a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The court dismissed a second petition from San Antonio outright on the grounds that it was filed too late and thus the court lacks jurisdiction.