Georgia Tech is the first university to integrate bitcoin payments for stadium concession sales, student dining and the school’s shopping credit system via BitPay, said a BitPay news release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1yzbI8w). BitPay has partnered with Greenpeace (WID Sept 23 p10), electronics e-retailer Newegg (WID July 2 p14), Warner Bros. Records (WID June 12 p16) and others. BitPay raised $30 million in May (WID May 14 p14).
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., is continuing to work with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to deal with “political tantrums” over the House-passed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) and the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), he said during an event Wednesday. Experts consider CISPA (HR-624) and CISA (S-2588) relatively analogous, though CISA’s proponents say it has better privacy protections than CISPA. Critics of CISA argue those privacy protections are insufficient (WID July 30 p3). “Tantrums” over CISA threaten to result in “holds and other things” in the Senate that could kill the bill’s prospects for the rest of the 113th Congress, Rogers said during a Washington Post event. Rogers said he fears if the Senate isn’t able to pass CISA during the post-election lame-duck session, the legislative process “all starts over.” Rogers and Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., are retiring at the end of the 113th Congress, adding to future problems for cybersecurity information sharing legislation, Rogers said. There aren’t any holds on CISA because the bill “hasn’t been hotlined,” a committee aide told us. Senate Intelligence hopes to address all potential issues before it’s hotlined “to allow it to be passed,” the aide said.
Congress needs to give “serious consideration” to the Respecting Senior Performers as Essential Cultural Treasures (RESPECT) Act after a U.S. District Court in Los Angeles ruling against SiriumXM for pre-1972 public performance royalties (WID Sept 24 p1), said Seth Cooper of Free State Foundation (FSF) in a paper released Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1nLtJMs). Because legal questions on the protection of pre-1972 public performance royalties remain unresolved in other states, HR-4772 “could provide certainty,” he said. Although the RESPECT Act doesn’t pre-empt state law protections for such recordings, the bill provides “safe harbor for digital music services providers from state copyright infringement lawsuits,” said Cooper. The ruling also highlighted copyright law’s “unfair favoritism” toward terrestrial radio, he said. That terrestrial broadcasters aren’t obligated to pay public performance royalties for any sound recordings “infringes on the rights of copyright holders” and is “unfair to digital and satellite radio services,” said Cooper. “Free market copyright policy should include an eventual transition, even if piecemeal, toward greater reliance on contract bargaining and less on government rate-setting,” he said. “It’s apparent that FSF has very little understanding of the unparalleled free promotional value that broadcast radio provides artists and record labels,” said an NAB spokesman. Many cases are pending on pre-1972 public performance royalties for digital broadcasters, but “none of those lawsuits were brought against over-the-air radio stations,” said NAB. “There’s no reason to believe the outcome of these cases will impact” terrestrial broadcasters, it said. The Local Radio Freedom Act (H. Con. Res. 16), which would prohibit any new taxes or royalties on broadcast radio stations, has 232 co-sponsors (http://1.usa.gov/1rM1GfK). HR-4772 has 14 co-sponsors (http://1.usa.gov/10lsRDj).
The FCC unlicensed devices rulemaking notice approved by the agency Tuesday asks questions about how to improve white spaces databases, as well as dozens of other often highly technical questions. The FCC posted the notice, which runs 87 pages without commissioner statements, Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1vxJFBU). The NPRM says the FCC is examining whether it should allow white spaces devices to operate in the whites spaces that remain in a larger part of the broadcast band than is now permitted. “We believe that it is appropriate to revisit the Commission’s previous decisions to prohibit personal/portable device operation on channels 14-20 and below channel 14,” the FCC said. “Since the time the Commission made these decisions, it has designated multiple TV bands database administrators and has had extensive experience working with their databases.” Comments are due 45 days after publication in the Federal Register, replies 20 days later. The size of guard bands and the duplex gap will depend on how much spectrum is recovered in the auction, the agency said. The guard band between wireless downlink services and TV spectrum could be 7, 9 or 11 MHz wide, the notice said: “The duplex gap will be 11 megahertz wide under all spectrum recovery scenarios, but its frequency location will depend on the amount of spectrum recovered."
Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Calif., has continued to weigh potential problems with Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable. He met with members of the Writers Guild of America, West for an informal briefing at the Capitol Tuesday that included Alfredo Barrios, known for his work on the TV show Burn Notice, and Patric Verrone, a past guild president. Cardenas is concerned about “the potential for both vertical and horizontal integration issues surrounding the potential Comcast-Time Warner merger, and how those could lead to both media consolidation and a shortage of independent voices in front of the camera, along with fewer job and growth opportunities in production and other trades,” his spokesman told us. The spokesman said the briefing’s key takeaway was the Guild’s objection to Comcast/TWC due to creation of “more homogenized programs, with far fewer opportunities for diverse, unique voices to be heard.” Cardenas signed a letter to the heads of Comcast and Time Warner Cable this summer expressing concerns. In September, Cardenas and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus met with independent producers to discuss the transaction. Comcast has defended the proposed acquisition as ultimately good for consumers.
Consumer Watchdog endorsed Focus on the User, a new website (http://bit.ly/YOAukr) and widget that highlights Google’s favoring of its own services on local search results, said a Consumer Watchdog news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1teq31T). The website is an “important way to educate consumers and policymakers about Google’s unfair search practices,” said John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog privacy project director. “The widget gives best results if searches are done on one of Google’s European domains,” said Consumer Watchdog. Google didn’t comment.
The deadline for submitting Form 477 broadband deployment data was extended because of “significant and unanticipated” technical issues in the FCC’s filing system on Sept. 26, the Wireline Bureau said in a public notice in Tuesday’s Daily Digest (http://bit.ly/1ovVALd). The deadline had been Oct. 1. The bureau said it will announce the new filing deadline when the problems are resolved.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler declined to shed further light on whether he plans to push for reclassification of broadband as a Title II service or to impose similar rules on mobile and fixed broadband, during a news conference after Tuesday’s open meeting. Wheeler was asked about both, saying in each case he would let his past statements speak for themselves. “I'm not going to respond to hypotheticals,” he said. “I said Title II was on the table. Period.” The FCC received “3.7 million different ideas” when it took comments on net neutrality, Wheeler said. “We're looking at a lot of things that were suggested.” Wheeler said a Sept. 22 blog post by Julie Veach (http://fcc.us/1nGmDJ6), chief of the Wireline Bureau, accurately reflects where the agency is on net neutrality.
The Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) expressed support for European Commission President-elect Jean-Claude Juncker’s plans to strengthen U.S. and European Union (EU) consumer data protections, said TACD Information Society Policy Committee Co-Chairs Jeffrey Chester (U.S.) and Kostas Rossoglou (EU), in a letter to Juncker Tuesday. The TACD supports the enactment of the Obama administration’s Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights in the U.S. (http://1.usa.gov/AcsRci) and the EU’s adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation, it said. The U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Privacy Principles should be reviewed to ensure the consumer data is appropriately safeguarded, it said.
Two of three LECs have reduced congestion at interconnection points they have with Level 3 since March, but it’s hardly a promising sign for an open Internet, said Level 3 Vice President-Content and Media Mark Taylor in a blog post Tuesday (http://bit.ly/YNYQea). Congestion for the two LECs, which he did not name, improved only because they “forced Netflix to pay to interconnect directly with them,” the post said. Netflix signed the deal “because they had no choice: all third-party content that LEC broadband users want to see eventually has to go through LEC interconnection points. When the LEC tries to turn these interconnection points into Internet tollbooths there is no alternate path for the content to take to reach the consumers,” said Taylor. Broadband providers are offering “'Not’ Neutrality: a competitive distortion made possible by the monopoly control they have over access to their customers,” he said. “These broadband providers are willing to degrade the performance of the service they sell to their customers to extract arbitrary access charges, discriminate against third-party Internet content and harm competition."