A major torrent search engine can’t claim immunity under the DMCA because it ignored “red flags” for its users’ “willful infringement,” and the evidence for its inducement to infringe was “overwhelming and beyond reasonable dispute.” U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson in Los Angeles, who also handled the Grokster case that ended with a Supreme Court ruling against P2P software makers, said there are limits to the safe harbors granted under the DMCA. He granted summary judgment to the plaintiff movie studios in Columbia v. Fung, filed three years ago. Neither red flags nor inducement, with regard to safe harbors, were litigated in Grokster.
TVs and the Internet have been on a collision course since Thomson and Compaq unsuccessfully combined a CRT direct-view TV with 200 MHz processors and dial-up modems. But with the arrival of broadband, flat-panel TVs and a host of content services, consumer electronics manufacturers are banking on the technology merger starting to bear fruit in 2010, industry officials said. Sony with its Bravia Internet Video Link and Panasonic and Samsung with Viera Cast and InfoLink have taken early stabs at the market. But with the emergence this year of Yahoo Widgets and streaming video services from Amazon, Blockbuster, Netflix, Vudu and others, the market is gaining a foothold.
AT&T asked the FCC to set a deadline to move telecom from circuit-switched to IP-based networks. The request came in comments this week on an FCC National Broadband Plan public notice that proposed the release of a notice of inquiry (NOI) on the transition. Small rural carriers cautioned the commission not to move too fast. Meanwhile, competitive carriers fought with Verizon over whether interconnection and traffic exchange requirements under Sections 251 and 252 of the Communications Act apply to IP networks. Wireless carriers said the rules should ensure regulatory parity.
The head of ICANN’s Washington office is headed home to Australia as the organization gets ready to formalize its presence in the District, if not dramatically expand its operations. Vice President of Corporate Affairs Paul Levins, honored at a going-away party Tuesday night, told us his plan from the start was to leave once the group had moved beyond its joint project agreement (JPA) with the Commerce Department. “I'm really pleased to have been one of the key architects” of the affirmation of commitments that ICANN signed with the U.S. government this fall, he said. The pact set up review teams to be chosen by various constituencies to oversee ICANN, and it has no expiration date (WID Oct 1 p1).
Responding to industry accusations of bias, a Harvard University center said its conclusion that open-access policies spurred broadband in several foreign countries had been based on a review of 57 studies. In a 68-page memo released Monday, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society specified the studies, and it outlined updates planned for the final version of its report, requested by the FCC for developing the National Broadband Plan, coming in mid-January. Berkman’s first draft was criticized as unfair (WID Nov 18 p5) by incumbent broadband providers including USTelecom and NCTA.
The White House announced the long-awaited appointment of a cybersecurity coordinator in an e-mail message Tuesday to members of the public who signed up for White House updates. Howard Schmidt, former Information Security Forum president, eBay chief information security officer, Microsoft chief security officer and special adviser for cyberspace security in the Bush administration, will coordinate the federal government’s own security while reaching out to the private sector and to private citizens. In a video message, Schmidt said he looks forward to working with Congress, industry, federal agencies, state and local leaders and international partners to ensure the nation’s economic and national security interests are enhanced by the cybersecurity efforts.
China can’t discriminate against foreign electronic and hard media under the guise of protecting public morals or regulating content, as allowed by the World Trade Organization, or by saying the Internet isn’t covered by previous agreements, a WTO appellate body ruled Monday. It upheld an earlier panel that said China’s restrictions on movies, music, software and publications violated its trade commitments (WID Aug 13 p4). The appellate body said China’s content-review regime wasn’t imperiled by the ruling, but made clear it couldn’t be used to justify any trade restriction. U.S. industry and federal officials praised the ruling.
Getting broadband to small businesses must be a priority as the FCC puts the final touches on its National Broadband Plan, Chairman Julius Genachowski said Monday at a commission field hearing in Chicago. The session, in President Barack Obama’s adopted hometown, was the FCC’s last broadband hearing for 2009. It was the fifth on the road and its first since October.
The winter storm that dumped up to two feet of snow on areas of the East Coast over the weekend hurt brick-and-mortar retailers in the region. But it helped drive a significant sales spike in U.S. online sales, research company Coremetrics said Monday.
A review team set up by ICANN’s Generic Names Supporting Organization proposed a different framework for a “trademark clearinghouse” and “uniform rapid suspension” procedure from one offered by ICANN staff in the latest version of draft applicant guidelines. Use of the clearinghouse, intended to handle disputes over new generic top-level domains, would be mandatory for new registries before but not after launch, the GNSO’s “special trademark issues” team proposed. That provoked one of many criticisms from ICANN’s business constituency. Still in sharp dispute: Who should pay for the clearinghouse’s operation.