| |
|
Technology
This week Victoria Espinel, the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, submitted her long-anticipated 2010 Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement to the President and to Congress (PDF, 65 pages).
Intellectual property (IP) has become a controversial topic in the past few years, but thankfully there was very little controversy in the Joint Strategic Plan. It seems that one of the few truly non-partisan policy issues today is the recognition of the importance of intellectual property protection to our nation’s economy.
Read More...
|
|
|
Last week the FCC released a report showing that 91 percent of US residents are pleased with their broadband connection speed, even if they do not know exactly what that speed is. In response, the FCC expressed bewilderment that this could be true, demanding that customers must know the speed so that they could carefully shop.
Really?
Can most people rattle off the horsepower of their car or their lawnmower? Can most people even tell you what “horsepower” means? (Horsepower is a measurement of work over time. Move 33,000 pounds one foot in a minute and that is one horsepower). What about their furnace? Can they opine on how many BTUs it produces? (BTU stands for British thermal unit. Heat one pound of 60 degree water by one degree at a pressure equal to one atmosphere and you have one BTU).
Most people can tell you whether their vehicle can pull their trailer effectively or accelerate fast enough when needed. Read More...
|
|
|
Piracy and Counterfeiting are back in the news again.
On piracy, there’s a new round of lawsuits against people who have been illegally sharing copyright-protected materials, although this time it’s movies, including the Oscar-winning film “The Hurt Locker.”
And on counterfeits, a cache of over seven million counterfeit pills, including counterfeit Viagra and other common prescription drugs, was just seized in Dubai, a central distribution port for destinations all over the world.
Two weeks ago, a Canadian man was arrested for selling counterfeit cancer medication through his Canadian Internet pharmacy website.
Oh, and the same guy was selling pirated business software. So he’s adept at both piracy AND counterfeiting.
Read More...
|
|
|
Even casual observers of the FCC should have noticed by now that the policy actions it has taken in the last year, and the comments made by some of the commissioners, make clear that at least a couple extreme so-called “consumer groups” that routinely visit with FCC staff are leading commissioners in radical policy directions.
Obviously we are supporters of the First Amendment and are cheered when the public speaks up, telling government what they think. It’s all part of our right to petition the government, including regulatory agencies. However, we also think that government agencies need to especially consider data and substantive facts and information, rather than just policy pressure.
We’re concerned that these days the FCC seems to be in the thrall of one or two left-leaning groups and is following ideology rather than working from easily observable business and market reality. Read More...
|
|
|
I blogged the other day about bipartisan Congressional opposition to the FCC's attempt to expand their regulation of the Internet in the form of letters from 74 House Democrats and 37 Senate Republicans.
Well, today, the radical leftwing group Free Press that is agitating for more government regulation of the Internet put up a temper tantrum on their website. It musthave really knocked them for a loop to find out that not every Democrat on the Hill is smoking what Free Press is dealing. Read More...
|
|
|
Those who think that the FCC's aggressive attempt to begin regulating the Internet is a partisan issue should take careful note of a letter released today in which 73 elected Democratic Members of Congress oppose the FCC's actions.
As the letter notes,
We are writing to reinforce the strong bipartisan consensus among policymakers, industry participants, and analysts that the success of the broadband marketplace stems from policies that encourage competition, private investment, and legal certainty. The regulatory framework first adopted in 1998 by the Clinton administration's FCC has resulted in broadband industry infrastructure investment of approximately $60 billion per year.[italics mine]
Read More...
|
|
|
Recently the FCC decided it should examine the current “retransmission consent rules” to determine whether they are working for all parties, including broadcasters, content creators, service providers and customers.
Retransmission rules were adopted in 1992. They allowed US television stations to force video service providers, such as cable or satellite, to carry “local content” provided by the local television station (called “must carry”), or to negotiate with the video service provider for carriage of its broadcast programming.
But today, the rules need an update. Continuing the threat of “must carry” distorts price mechanisms and thus distorts negotiations—a short-sighted government construct rather than a true marketplace negotiation.
Read More...
|
|
|
A few years ago there was a popular book entitled All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Watching the FCC’s reaction to losing the Comcast case, we’re beginning to wonder if maybe some higher-ups at the FCC weren’t paying attention in Kindergarten.
Don’t Throw a Tantrum
Perhaps you remember the days when being told “no” was really hard to handle. Sooner or later, for the most part, people learn that being told “no” is simply part of life and that “no” is far from the worst thing that can happen, and is actually often the catalyst to other opportunity.
Some, however, do not learn to handle “no” well. Read More...
|
|
|
The National Broadband Plan debate has given rise to claims that the FCC intends to go beyond its traditional regulatory mandate and begin to aggressively refashion the Internet in such a way as to achieve particular social ends. As a case in point, today the FCC announced that is going to assert sweeping authority to begin to subject broadband networks to an outdated, decades-old regulatory framework.
So how should one view the recent comments by one FCC commissioner who would be exercising these new and expanded powers, Commissioner Copps, when he addressed the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies?
Throughout his comments he bemoaned the fact that broadband is not yet available to every American (even though electricity and telephone took decades longer to reach the near ubiquity we have today). Read More...
|
|
|
Having just watched highly controversial legislation become law along painfully partisan lines and cause political fractures that may last for years, it’s nostalgic to be reminded of the good old days when Congress acted less along partisan lines and more in the interests of the majority of the American people—like way, way back in 2008 when the House of Representatives passed the PRO-IP Act by a vote of 410 to 11, and the Senate passed it unanimously.
What kind of legislation passes with such a broad, bipartisan majority? Legislation that is designed to solve widely recognized problems in a way that makes sense to the American people. The PRO-IP Act was such a bill, designed to enhance intellectual property enforcement in order to protect the interests of those who work in the innovative and creative sectors of the U.S. economy, and the health and safety of all Americans.
Read More...
|
|
|
In many developing countries, including most African countries, as much as 60 percent of prescription drugs sold are actually counterfeit, containing little if any of the active molecule, and in some cases containing toxins and other harmful substances.
That's just one of the many frightening statistics that emerged from a conference last week in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, sponsored by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the benefit of government officials in the East African Region. IPI was pleased to be able to co-sponsor and participate in the conference.
Designed to help justice and customs officials intercept counterfeits and prosecute the perpetrators, the conference was a terrific example of cooperation between “north and south” in improving the health and welfare of East African populations.
Read More...
|
|
|
By any objective measure, the rollout of broadband services to the country is going phenomenally well, and is largely being done with private capital and without involving taxpayer dollars. As you might expect, broadband providers have focused on areas where demand and market forces sufficiently incentivize private network companies. But there obviously remains the problem of areas where, for reasons of geography, population density, or other issues, making a business case for deploying broadband is a challenge.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is about to reveal it’s recommendations to Congress regarding a National Broadband Plan. As part of the FCC’s efforts, they have solicited ideas from the public on what should be the elements of the plan.
Read More...
|
|
|
Is there a more dynamic industry than wireless communications?
In a relatively short time a cell phone has become a necessity to virtually everyone, and one of the areas of most rapid technological innovation is in wireless handsets. Every few months one company or another introduces a new, feature-rich handset, which consumers eagerly gobble up.
At the same time, service providers compete fiercely for customers, continually upgrading their networks to provide better and faster service and even financing consumers’ purchase of sophisticated handsets.
This is at least one industry that has succeeded in creating high-paying jobs, pleasing consumers, delivering innovation, and funneling tax revenue to virtually every level of government. You’d think government would be pleased, but from San Francisco to Maine, and at many stops in between, mobile phones are under attack by radical opportunists.
Read More...
|
|
|
One of the challenges of putting out nearly daily content is to find a title for all of the various pieces. Ideally titles should be clever and also provide the reader with some idea of what’s to come.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seems to have a similar challenge—how to “Title” various things, which is why you should be concerned about the recent talk of moving Internet oversight from Title I to Title II.
One might be forgiven for thinking this is just inside-the-Beltway meddling and jamming the iPod earplugs back in. But in fact it is just that freedom to stream music, play a massive multiplayer game, watch video, send messages, and enjoy the future bounty of innovation that could very well be at stake. One could say that the “open Internet” as we know it is at risk.
Communications systems of various sorts get placed under either Title I or Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. Read More...
|
|
|
When will the Census Bureau enter the 21st Century—or even the 20th?
It’s time to take the constitutionally mandated census once again. But while the rest of the country gathers and processes information with the speed of light, the Census Bureau still operates at the speed of shoes, where few, if any, technological tools exist to streamline the process. And they seem uninterested in improving their processes.
This is a recurring theme in government: the misapplication of government interest in technology.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) pushed for years to create a means for taxpayers to file their taxes online, even though the private market had created Turbotax, a popular and successful tool for individuals to file their taxes. Government plowed ahead and created an ability to file, but only because of an agreement with Intuit. Reneging on the agreement might have run the company out of business.
Read More...
|
|
|
In the federal government, regulators are not directly accountable to the electorate. While an elected official must account at every election for their actions, typically regulators, such as FCC commissioners, are appointed by elected officials and hence do not answer directly to the people.
This simple fact may explain the FCC’s seeming determination to assert increased government control of the Internet, or at least the belief by pro-government control activists that the FCC deliver their agenda on a silver platter.
Years ago, the FCC determined broadband would be regulated as an “information service” rather than a “telecommunications service.” So, the FCC decided, and later the Supreme Court agreed, that broadband is not to be burdened with antiquated “common carrier” regulations, rules created in 1934 to impose heavy government control of the then monopoly telephone system. Read More...
|
|
|
While in Washington ideologues argue over whether there is adequate competition in the communications industry and dream up fanciful schemes to redesign the communications industry and dangerous plans to regulate the Internet, the states are moving ahead with modernizing their communications regulations to reflect the competitive reality that we see around us every day.
This week the story is Georgia, where the legislature is beginning the process of eliminating hidden and distortive subsidies in the rates paid by Peach State consumers.
Wisely, Georgia is planning to "bring access charges to parity," which means to eliminate the subsidies buried in inter-carrier compensation, or fees paid between different carriers to carry local and long-distance traffic. The entire system is outdated and creates competitive distortions between companies.
Read More...
|
|
|
With insurmountable majorities in both Houses of Congress, Congressional Democrats had the votes to jam through any piece of legislation they liked. They didn’t need the support of Republicans, and they acted as if they didn’t even need the popular support of the American people. They had the votes.
Or so they thought. Massachusetts’ new Senator-elect Scott Brown says the biggest driver behind his remarkable election was the people’s disgust with “the way things are being done.” Voters are unhappy with a ruling majority that seems intent to pass an agenda without regard to the will and concerns of the people.
It’s not too big a stretch to see a parallel situation at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), where Democrat-appointed commissioners “have the votes” to jam through new federal regulatory control over the Internet through so-called “network neutrality” regulations.
Read More...
|
|
|
[The following is an excerpt from IPI’s comments filed today with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to regulate the practices of Internet service providers (ISPs)]
The intent of Congress to increase competition and innovation in communications through the Telecom Act of 1996 is finally being realized. Congress intended to deregulate and thus invigorate the communications industry through competition and market forces—and it did just that.
The wisdom of this approach is obvious: The United States today has a vigorously competitive communications marketplace, and consumers have access to a tremendous array of products and services, and all of the research and rollout have been paid for through private risk capital at no cost to the taxpayers.
Read More...
|
|
|
When you watch a dog chasing its tail around and around in circles, the obvious question posed to the dog is “what are you going to do with it if you ever catch it?”
Well, politically liberal activist groups have been chasing their own tails for years, criticizing content and media companies for, well, just about everything they do, and of course all in the name of “protecting consumers.”
But in their latest attack, these activists have caught their own tails, and in the course of doing so have demonstrated that their real agenda is anything but innovation and consumer benefit.
The activists’ latest complaint is a new video service called TV Everywhere. Read More...
|
|
|
For years one activist organization after another has expressed concern about the “control” of the media. They slice and dice the markets to attempt to demonstrate all of the untold harm that will befall listeners or viewers if this, that or the other business is allowed to merge with or purchase control of another media entity. The wailing and gnashing of teeth has been heard from the FCC to the FTC to the Department of Justice.
These same meddlers were heard from when the barely solvent XM Satellite Radio sought to merge with Sirius Satellite Radio. The resulting entity still struggles to date, but as one with no evident harm to consumers. The same voices were heard opposing newspapers seeking to merge in an effort to put off rigor mortis. Read More...
|
|
|
The American Cancer Society, World Health Organization, the Food and Drug Administration and the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection all agree: A survey of the recent scientific literature shows there is no clear evidence of any link between mobile devices and health problems. And yet some special interest groups are advocating for action based on only a couple European research reports while ignoring the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence. In the process those special interests are scaring the public.
Scaring people so much that some states and cities are considering whether they should impose regulations that would require health-related warning labels despite the lack of evidence, and ignoring the fact that government restrictions are already in place.
Read More...
|
|
|
Even while you are preparing to once again feast on turkey and mashed potatoes, the European Union (EU) is preparing to once again feast on U.S. industry. And while the EU had set the table to dine this week, it has now changed the reservation to late January. What is on the menu? Two American companies, Oracle and Sun Microsystems.
Oracle is seeking to merge with Sun in order to be more competitive now and in the future. The U.S. Department of Justice approved, stating that, "Several factors led the Division to conclude that the proposed transaction is unlikely to be anticompetitive."
But earlier this month the EU issued a "Statement of Objections" to the proposed merger. With this statement the EU has made clear that it has decided to continue its push to be the global regulator, apparently thinking that regulation of the global software industry (which is vastly domiciled in the U.S.) is the way to demonstrate European-style innovation.
Read More...
|
|
|
The good news this week is that it appears that no binding treaty is going to come out of next month's Copenhagen conference on climate change.
This is good news for any number of reasons, but ironically, it’s also good news for ”green tech” – technologies that promise to produce energy from new sources or result in increased energy efficiency.
Yes, that’s right: It’s good for green tech that an international climate agreement has been stalled, at least for now.
That’s because a key demand by many of the parties at the negotiating table is that patent protection on anything labeled green tech be weakened or even eliminated in the name of facilitating technology transfer to developing countries.
Read More...
|
|
|
While lately a number of people may have been left out of the policy making process, the FCC has opened up an opportunity for you to comment on its plans to bring good old fashioned heavy handed regulation of the Internet through “network neutrality” rules.
But comments are being accepted only until this Thursday, October 22, at www.openinternet.gov (then click the “Join the Discussion” link).
Over the last many weeks, in response to the FCC chairman’s comments and news reports that the FCC is prepared to pursue comprehensive regulation, a rising crescendo of voices has been heard expressing deep reservations.
Of particular concern is that these additional regulations would drive up consumer prices for an average Internet user even while holding down prices for the heaviest users. Read More...
|
|
|
The Obama Administration has earned kudos for their vision of using of technology to be a primary part of the solution to policy challenges from improved healthcare to efficient energy usage.
And while considering the application of existing technology to current problems is ahead of typical political thinking, it is still fairly two dimensional. The true promise of an information technology-based health system or of a smart grid for greener energy is the ongoing innovation, the promise of better and better solutions.
The administration and Capitol Hill need to broaden their thinking beyond particular solutions and begin considering ways to foster and empower a solution economy.
What makes up the solution economy?—a society that allows the freedom to innovate and experiment with ideas.
That requires an environment that encourages, or certainly allows, risk by providing reward. Read More...
|
|
|
Somewhere lost in all of the heated rhetoric about whether or not to move the country to a government health insurance plan are the patients—those who are and who will be ailing but who could be helped by advances in technology if that technology were deployed and not hindered.
Lost in all the rhetoric is that all the pieces of health care must work together to work in the interests of patients—not politicians or bureaucrats.
While the healthcare reform debate goes on, other parts of government are acting to the detriment of a better healthcare system and causing near and long term harm to those whose future well-being depends on innovation.
Perhaps the greatest threat is the FCC’s newly suggested heavy regulation of the Internet. As currently proposed the new regulations could hinder network providers from giving priority to healthcare applications. Read More...
|
|
|
If I were the FCC, I'd spend my time on more important things than fighting a net neutrality problem that doesn't exist.
Like coming up with a better logo, for instance.
Jeez, dudes . . . Read More...
|
|
|
It would be hard to imagine an industry today that is more “dynamic” than the wireless industry. In a relatively short time a “cell phone” has become a necessity to virtually everyone, and one of the areas of most rapid technological innovation is in wireless handsets. Every few months one company or another introduces a new, feature-rich handset, which consumers eagerly gobble up.
At the same time, service providers compete fiercely for customers, continually upgrading their networks to provide better and faster service and even
financing consumers’ purchase of sophisticated handsets.
It would seem that this is at least one industry that has succeeded in pleasing consumers, delivering innovation, creating high-paying jobs, and funneling tax revenue to virtually every level of government. You’d think government would be pleased, yet every level of government seems to have the wireless industry in its crosshairs.
Read More...
|
|
|
Late last week the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission shared his view that it was critical for the Federal Government to start regulating the Internet. Hey, we’ve got an idea: Before the Feds start regulating the Internet, why not start using it?
Why not, for instance, try to crack the problem of posting the text of major legislation on-line for 72 hours before debate, so that all Members of Congress and informed Americans can see for themselves what is being considered?
We’re pretty sure that when our country was founded over 200 years ago, our representatives had a copy of the bill in their hands before they had to vote on it. Yet today, in the era of the Internet, mobile broadband and thumb drives, we’re told that this is impossible, unnecessary, or undesirable.
Read More...
|
|
|
I’ve just returned from an overseas trip, and once again I was reminded of how pervasive American entertainment media is around the world.
Wherever you go in the world, you find American television shows and movies on TV, American movies in the theaters, and American music on the radio. Looking beyond entertainment, you’ll see American-made software on their laptops and on the computers in the hotel business center.
And the medicines they’re taking are mostly made by American companies as well.
You don’t find American plumbing fixtures in the hotel bathroom, and you don’t see people wearing American-made clothes. They’re not driving American cars, and they’re not using American-made electrical appliances. But they’re consuming American creative goods almost to the exclusion of anything else. It’s striking, actually.
Read More...
|
|
|
In just a few weeks a tax you pay will increase – by 36%.
Part of some plan to fund health care? No. Another bailout? Wrong again.
Without a vote by Congress or a signature from the President, the unelected members of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have determined that despite recession, the highest unemployment in decades and rampant government spending, now is the time to hike a tax that almost every telephone user must pay.The FCC has raised the Universal Service Fund (USF) tax to 12.9%, up from 9.5%.
The federal USF tax, typically listed as an individual line item on phone bills, is levied to subsidize telecommunications services for low income households, schools, libraries, and consumers in rural or high cost areas. However, the federal universal service program is widely regarded as too large, too redistributive, largely unnecessary and with potential for serious problems due to lack of adequate oversight.
Read More...
|
|
|
After uncovering yet another troubling aspect of the current health care proposal, IPI recently wrote, “Because HR 3200 (the House of Representatives health care reform legislation) contains the most egregious violations of Americans’ privacy imaginable. Indeed, one way to characterize HR 3200 is as ‘The End of Privacy.’”
HR 3200 would protect your privacy right up to the point that it runs into the most disgruntled, curious or careless government employee.
Bad enough. But wow, did we miss the big story…
As it turns out, privacy is under attack from many new “programs,” creating a virtual pattern of turning a person’s private life into a public exposition. |
|
|
As most states have watched their coffers dwindle over the last couple years, state revenue authorities have become increasingly creative in finding ways to drain more money from the citizens via fees and taxes.
The healthy way to generate more revenue is to grow the tax base by attracting more businesses or residents to the state.
And attracting more businesses involves having appropriate infrastructure, skilled workers and competitive educational systems, but most of all maintaining a minimal tax and regulatory burden. For some reason, this seems beyond the reach of many state governments these days. Instead, it’s easier to go on a “tax grab,” looking around for easy new sources of cash.
But some sources of new revenue have the downside of also leading to new costs. Read More...
|
|
|
Is the White House Monitoring Your Political Discussions?
Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says the administration is looking for names....
The White House has released a video telling Americans that if they get an email about health insurance reform that seems “fishy” to send it to the White House.
That means the administration would have the email addresses, IP addresses, recipients of the email, and the allegedly fishy comments, which could be used to monitor future conversations or take other actions.
And yet the mainstream media seem oblivious to this potential threat to civil liberties.
Texas Senator John Cornyn has sent the White House a letter saying that he is unaware of any president ever asking Americans to report their fellow citizens for simply exercising their right to engage in political discussion.
Read More...
 Fishy |
|
|
From the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI)
Privacy advocates who enjoy focusing on issues like browser cookies, behavioral advertising, database privacy and deep packet inspection can just throw in the towel if anything approaching HR 3200, the current draft of the health care bill in the House of Representatives, becomes law.
Because HR 3200 contains the most egregious violations of Americans’ privacy imaginable. Indeed, one way to characterize HR 3200 is as “The End of Privacy.”
The bill creates a “Health Choices Commissioner” (henceforth sarcastically referred to as the Health Choices Commissar), and, of course, the Commissar needs to be able to pry into your finances. HR 3200 gives the Commissar the right to look at your tax return, so as to quickly determine your eligibility for services and for federal health care benefits.
Yes, it’s right there, on pages 195-196 Read More...
|
|
|
Last week U.S. Transportation Secretary LaHood proposed a summit in September to “address the dangers of text messaging and other distractions behind the wheel.” But revealing his real intent, he went on to say, “If it were up to me, I would ban drivers from texting…”
Secretary LaHood’s intent in this case may very well be good–saving lives—but his proposed solution smacks of political opportunism rather than serious intent.
The problem, of course, is distracted driving, not text messaging per se. Technological mandates and technological discrimination are nothing new in public policy proposals, but the effect of such tech-specific policies is short-lived as whatever technology gets specifically addressed will be passé in a matter of years if not months.
Read More...
|
|
|
Back in April, the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, supported a law which was passed by parliament creating a policing group which would track those who were illegally downloading copyrighted material—in other words, those who were committing piracy, and empowered that group to eventually cut off the criminal’s access to the Internet if they continued their illegal ways.
Many criticized the law as creating a “big brother” peering over the shoulders of Internet users, and several actually claimed it was technically not workable. The Socialists even argued that the law violated the notion of separation of powers by creating an extra-judicial organization with powers to punish perpetrators.
Read More...
|
|
|
| A common theme in science fiction literature and movies is technology run wild. The machines take over, bioweapons researchers accidentally release an engineered virus into the population, or nano-sized machines suddenly develop intelligence and start malevolently chewing through the biosphere, leaving a sea of “grey goo” in their wake. There’s just enough of a nugget of truth in the setup of these dramas to make them remotely believable. But that’s where science fiction doomsday scenarios depart from human experience. The fact is that innovation and technology have led to the creation of wealth, better health, greater access to knowledge, and thus overall greater quality of life. But there are still parts of the world that innovation hasn’t reached—where people don’t have access to clean water, adequate health care, basic energy and educational resources. Read More...
|
|
|
Back in 2006, a United States Court of Appeals issued a permanent injunction against EchoStar Communications for illegally retransmitting local broadcast network signals— allowing virtually anyone who asked to receive local signals through their DISH Network subscription.
Under existing law, satellite companies are only allowed to provide local channels to customers who reside within the market area of a local broadcaster but who for reasons of distance or geography are unable to adequately receive those signals.
The law is clear—rights exist in a local broadcast stream and are owned by the local broadcaster. Also clear—when the property rights of local broadcasters are run over, the penalties are severe.
Breaking this law required the “death penalty”—that the violator could no longer provide local channels to anyone outside of certain broadcast markets.
Read More...
|
|
|
Should the federal government have the power to monitor and control Internet traffic to make sure that our critical cyber-infrastructure is not harmed?
New legislation seems to think so. The “Cybersecurity Act of 2009” would give the president the power to “declare a cybersecurity emergency,” allowing for the shut down or limitation of Internet traffic “in the interest of national security”— though “critical information network” and “cybersecurity emergency” are not defined and left to the president to determine.
There is no doubt that our cyber critical infrastructure is at risk. Every few weeks or so the mainstream press uncovers new reasons for concern—most recently after attacks presumably originating in North Korea on the Pentagon, White House and Department of Treasury among others.
Read More...
|
|
|
Back in March, U.S. Attorney General Holder expressed sympathy and understanding of how antitrust restrictions were making it difficult for newspapers to consolidate and survive. Holder said, in response to the urging by Speaker Pelosi to give newspapers leeway to merge to combine operations, “I think it’s important for this nation to maintain a healthy newspaper industry. So to the extent that we have to look at our enforcement policies and conform them to the realities that the industry faces, that’s something that I’m going to be willing to do.”
Given this week’s news that the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division has begun a “review” of “large telecom carriers” to see whether they have “abused” their so-called market power, it seems that the AG has lost his sympathy – at least for the wireless industry.
Read More...
|
|
|
The drive for new, more efficient, renewable “green tech” is real this time.
For some, the importance of green tech is its ability to address concerns over damage to the planet due to the burning of fossil fuels, while for others, it’s all about reducing dependency on “foreign” oil.
But perhaps the consensus driver of green tech is the observation that there is simply greater competition than ever for scarce energy resources such as coal, oil, and natural gas. “Scarce,” of course, doesn’t mean we’re running out of carbon energy—in fact, projections are regularly enlarged and expanded regarding the quantity of carbon energy sources still available for energy production. But with demand projected to continue to grow, it looks like there’s nowhere to go but up for energy prices based on carbon.
Read More...
|
|
|
I have spent a fascinating several days on Twitter, literally talking to Twitterers in Iran, and in some cases talking directly to young people who were in the protests. I watched as demonstrators warned each other "don't go to the hospitals--the basijis are taking names at the hospitals" and "helicopters are dropping acid on the demonstrators." Amazing.
I had a discussion with one in particular who was pushing back at Twitterers in the U.S. who were excited and supportive of the demonstrations. This particular person was convinced that America (American neocons, to be specific) wanted the regime to stay in place because "America needs an enemy."
But by the end of the weekend I started to feel sorry for Twitter, because now Twitter matters to governments, and that's bad. Read More...
|
|
|
UPDATE: I found the archived video of the entire hearing. Link is here. (Real Audio) Opposition testimony starts at 1:22:22; my testimony is at 1:25:34
It was a warm and humid morning in Baton Rouge on Wednesday. If it weren't for an air conditioned shuttle van running the 6 blocks between the Capitol Hilton and the state capitol, Louisiana might have become the first state to defy the Internet Tax Freedom Act and implement a discriminatory tax on Internet access . . .
No, I don't think the narrative style is working for this blog entry. I'll go back to a less-dramatic style.
I had the privilege of testifying this morning before the Commerce Committee of the Louisiana Senate on a bill that would have placed a "fee" on Internet access for Louisiana citizens in order to provide additional funding for the Attorney General' Read More...
|
|
|
When a politician argues that something is necessary to protect the children, you can almost always guarantee it’s time to hold onto your freedoms, your wallet or both. And so it goes in Louisiana.
Attorney General Buddy Caldwell is pushing for a first-of-its-kind law, now headed to the Senate, to raise taxes—though the AG calls it a fee—by at least $2.4 million a year on Louisiana taxpayers who simply desire being on the Information Superhighway. His reason? To “finance” a division of his office for investigating more sex crimes against children online.
The irony here is stunning. While the federal government is spending billions of stimulus dollars, including Louisiana citizens’ hard-earned money, to promote Internet usage, the AG is fighting the spirit, if not word, of the Internet Tax Freedom Act, designed to promote Internet usage and facilitate wider-spread adoption of broadband.
Read More...
|
|
|
The Internet is a vast collection of mostly privately owned networks that have agreed to exchange traffic for the mutual benefit of their users. The history of the Internet is of these mostly private actors naturally organizing themselves and their networks outside of the scope and control of government, and in some cases despite attempts of governments to prevent them from doing so.
The Internet thus is not and has never been a centrally planned, top-down, government-directed mechanism. Rather, the Internet represents a triumph of freedom and markets.
The fact that our private broadband infrastructure was built largely from private risk capital with almost no demand on the taxpayer is a strength, not a weakness. Government does not need to spend money in markets where there is already private economic vitality.
But some activists hate our mostly capitalist-owned broadband infrastructure because they think they would do a better job of running th Read More...
|
|
|
As state legislative sessions begin to close, states continue to modernize their regulation of the communications industry. Recognizing that decades-old regulations are no longer appropriate, states are eliminating requirements, simplifying governing structures, and otherwise making it possible for companies to compete with each other on near-level playing fields as they try to please consumers with new products, new services, and competitive prices.
As broadband is being rolled out, it gives consumers and businesses not only new products and services, but also introduces new competition in phone service, Internet access and video service.
In a typical market today, consumers can choose to purchase video and broadband services from two different satellite providers, a cable provider, and often from one or more “phone companies” such as Verizon, AT&T and Qwest or from hundreds of smaller, regional phone companies.
Read More...
|
|
|
Note: The Institute for Policy Innovation will be highlighting trade issues this week in recognition of World Trade Week.
Why are domestic policies, both here and abroad, threatening to tear apart the most globally competitive companies? Rather, we should be doing all we can to encourage their success, especially now.
The European Union has been on a tear, swinging a wrecking ball at U.S. globally competitive companies. Just last week the EU fined Intel a record-shattering $1.45 billion for “anticompetitive practices”—the largest fine ever imposed for any breach of EU antitrust law. The previous record-smashing fine was $677 million, imposed on Microsoft in 2004.
Which U.S. companies are next? Could it be: - IBM facing a new complaint after settling a decades-old case?
- How about Rambus or Qualcomm, which are under an ongoing inquiry?
Read More...
|
|
|
Patent reform has been stalled on Capitol Hill for years. Nearly everyone agrees that reform of the system is needed to some extent. From patent fees being diverted away from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for better, more innovative operations, to great concerns over how damages in lawsuits are apportioned, there is room for improvement in this critical area.
Yes, critical. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) about 40 percent of current U.S. economic growth tends to be attributed to intangible assets. As a result, in part, the Department of Commerce has had an innovation metrics committee, which along with BEA, has tried to identify the value of intangible assets. In absolute terms, intangible assets have accounted for approximately 4.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) during the post-WW II era, but in the last few years have swelled to between 6.5 percent and 8.5 percent of GDP.
Read More...
|
|
|
On your local oldies radio station, when you hear Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons’ hit song “December 1963 (Oh, What a Night),” neither Frankie Valli nor The Four Seasons receive any income from the broadcast of their performance.
Now, Bob Gaudio, the songwriter/composer, makes some small royalty for his musical work (the song itself). When the song is included in the stage production of “Jersey Boys” along with the background history of the song, the playwright is compensated. If “Jersey Boys” was ever made into a movie, that audiovisual work would enjoy a full performance right. If the book Jersey Boys by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elise is ever made into a book on tape they will get compensated for that, as will whoever performs the reading. But for the over-the-air broadcast of the sound recording, the basis of all the derivative products, performers do not get compensated for their creativity.
Read More...
|
|
|
In 1990, Congress substantially increased the fees associated with obtaining and maintaining patents and trademarks. But what Congress gives it can also take away—which is exactly what it’s been doing.
The fee increase was designed to recover the costs of processing patent and trademark applications. While user fees may cover more than the cost of operating the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), some of those fees may be siphoned off to a general revenue pool to fund other government programs.
This diversion of user fees to fund unrelated government activities is unfair to those who pay the fees, and it’s damaging to our nation's economic health and progress.
Read More...
|
|
|
We’re firm believers that the 25-year economic expansion that started in 1982 and lasted through 2007 was due in large part to adoption of policies that rewarded investment capital, by encouraging its formation, incentivizing its deployment, and resisting the devaluation of inflation.
But it’s also undeniable that a key driver of the increase in productivity that buoyed the economic expansion was technological innovation and its adoption throughout the economy.
We would argue that, in fact, this was a virtuous cycle, with increased investment capital helping to fund and to drive innovation in the American economy.
Innovation also requires human capital—where knowledge and understanding, thinking, experimenting, trying and failing, and eventually succeeding result in innovation.
In other words, human capital + investment capital = innovation, and innovation drives increased productivity and economic growth. Read More...
|
|
|
This week the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) asked for input about PEG channels (public, educational and governmental access channels) in the states as PEG activists demanded that:
- Preferential spectrum be preserved for these channels and preferential menu placement of PEG channels be given; and,
- Video service providers be restricted from moving PEG channels from old analog technology to new digital delivery.
These channels often include (if you’re lucky) a school board or county council meeting. But they often carry obscene, offensive or wasteful
programming—such as the channel that shows a bird feeder 24 hours a day.
The short answer to the FCC’s question is "no." PEG content should not be considered sacred or treated preferentially compared to other video content.
Read More...
|
|
|
“Merger mania is gripping the global pharmaceutical industry” scream the headlines. Pfizer is buying Wyeth, Roche is buying Genentech, Merck is buying Schering-Plough, Gilead is buying CV Therapeutics, and GlaxoSmithKline is rumored to be considering purchasing Allergan.
The best way to understand all these pharmaceutical mega-mergers is to recognize an industry battening down the hatches against the coming tsunami of harmful government policies that are aligning against the innovative pharmaceutical industry.
The first is the Obama administration’s push for health care “reform.” The pharmaceutical industry has long been the scapegoat for high health care costs, despite the fact that drugs are responsible for only about 10 percent of all health care costs, and its growth rate is down to 4.9 percent, the lowest since 1963. Read More...
|
|
|
Are you excited about handing over your personal information to a clerk who you don’t know and may not even like?
You don’t have to now—but you will if you buy a prepaid cell phone after the state passes state Senator John Carona’s (R-Dallas) legislation.
The Texas Senate will have a hearing to consider Mr. Carona’s bill (SB 1635), which requires purchasers of prepaid cell phones to provide the vendor with a valid drivers license with a photo ID, complete address and date of birth.
The senator sees his bill as a crime deterrent. Since some criminals use prepaid cell phones as a way to avoid detection, the legislation would force them to register. And we are sympathetic with the bill’s intent.
The problem is we aren’t sure the legislation would actually prevent any crimes, and we are dead certain it creates all kinds of privacy and liability concerns.
Read More...
|
|
|
In a blog post on the Huffington Post, we have an admission that net neutrality and limits on media ownership are really about the political Left trying to lock in a political advantage.
I would think articles like this would be very damaging to those who are trying to argue for net netrality for reasons related to "the nature of networks" or "the nature of the Internet." No, it turns out this is really what it's about.
I'll be surprised if this blog entry isn't pulled down, so I'm going to quote it in its entirety.
Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Ari Fleischer and other right-wing mouthpieces are trying to frame future debates while they reinvent the George W. Bush years. Their eerie falsehoods, half-truths, revisions, and lies are given added weight because they sit atop a bed of chatter and static, Read More...
|
|
|
Bank of America just canceled contracts to hire a batch of foreign-born business students, because Congress said its bailout recipients (the “TARP” money) should hire American first. More jobs for Americans? Probably not: B of A can easily outsource the work abroad.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) says we don’t need foreign workers… “there are plenty of qualified Americans.” Even if there are, they might not be in the right place at the right time.
And many Americans also want to work abroad and aren’t helped by limiting the flow of workers into the U.S.
Read More...
|
|
|
Some nice ideas are nice only as long as they stay ideas. For instance, Plano Independent School District’s recently disclosed notion of a wireless Internet network for low-income families and students.
Sure, it sounds nice: a community wireless network linking low-income students and their families to the school district’s resources, using an already-existing wireless network.
All Plano needs now is some great stories to tell about where the idea has actually worked. And lots of extra cash—that’s something else that would be nice.
Read More...
|
|
|
Officials at the NTIA (the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications & Information Administration), the FCC and the USDA, (yes, the Department of Agriculture) held a meeting earlier this week to begin to decide how to spend the $7.2 billion in “economic stimulus” funds for the rollout of broadband to un-served and underserved areas as mandated by the recently passed, so-called “stimulus bill.”
These expenditures are rife with controversy and potential to harm rather than enhance broadband deployment, but in at least one area the answer should be pretty clear—reject any plans to expand the costly and failed initiatives of municipal broadband networks.
The NTIA should not support the advancement of taxpayer-funded networks. With all of the bailouts and extensive list of pork projects taxpayers are already shouldering, the last thing they should have to pay for is failed municipal broadband projects.
Read More...
|
|
|
In a desperate scramble to balance their state budgets, state legislators in many states have seized upon the idea of “increasing revenue” (read: raising taxes) rather than taking actions to live within their means. Whether it’s:
- Expanding communications taxes in California;
- Arguing in New York that a store does not have to be in the state at all to levy taxes; or,
- Florida urging the passage of federal legislation to “enable states to collect Internet sales taxes” before the state does its assigned work.
The goal of all is to get more money to spend—and they want it now.
Let’s take Florida. Years ago the U.S. Supreme Court said that states are able to force merchants to collect and remit sales taxes for goods sold to state residents (as they do today for purchases made in the state). Read More...
|
|
|
The growing incidence of calls for government meddling and control of speech is staggering.
- Last week former President Clinton opined on a radio show that government must do something to balance opinions in broadcasting;
- Acting Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Copps complained a few years ago that he couldn’t find any “quality” on television;
- Liberal Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has asserted that media reform needs to now be pushed with a “progressive” agenda;
- And then there’s the reported meetings between the FCC and the chairman of its oversight committee, the liberal Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), to discuss ways to enact so-called “Fairness Doctrine” polices.
The concern underlying their arguments? Something called “spectrum scarcity.”
Read More...
|
|
|
A recent report released by the Internet Safety Technical Task Force finds that when it comes to protecting children online, there is no technological substitute for the role of law enforcement and parents in keeping society safe.
To watch the final report of the Task Force online, click here.
Presenters of the final report include IPI’s Bartlett Cleland, John Palfrey of Harvard University’s Berkman Center, Aristotle’s Blair Richardson, and ConnectSafely.org’s Anne Collier. IPI served as a member to the Task Force and contributed to the final report. Read More...
|
|
|
The “stimulus bill” will throw $20 billion dollars at an effort to improve health information technology (IT). The idea is that if patient health data is digitized and formatted in standardized ways so that the data is easily exchanged and is interoperable with different systems, health outcomes should improve and efficiencies can be obtained.
And that’s almost certainly true (although we don’t think for a minute that it ought to be done through a bill claiming to provide short-term economic stimulus).
But when you digitize and standardize data, you don’t simply make it easily accessible, but you also make is EASILY ACCESSIBLE, if you take our meaning.
Health care providers should be able to transfer information efficiently, and that usually means electronically. Read More...
|
|
|
In his 1981 inaugural speech Ronald Reagan famously said “In the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
During the debate over how to get the economy going again, we are witnessing a case study in Reagan’s observation.
Consider that government created the problem in the first place through too loose money (Federal Reserve), and purposely distorting the mortgage markets for social engineering purposes (Fannie Mae, Community Reinvestment Act).
Now to fix their mess, our political leaders propose to borrow enormous sums of money that future generations will have to repay. But is it possible that in this crisis, government is again the problem rather than the solution?
Read More...
|
|
|
Democrats have proposed an economic stimulus package that takes us one step closer to a system in which price controls determine innovation. The key provision is $1.1 billion going to the federal Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research for so-called “comparative effectiveness research,” or CER.
Ostensibly, comparative effectiveness research is an effort to compare two or more prescription drugs to find out which ones are most effective with the fewest side effects.
But there is a dirty little secret to CER when it comes to prescription drugs. When the government sets up a process to do the research, there may be an ulterior motive: to save money, even at the expense of patient health and satisfaction.
Read More...
|
|
|
The so-called "stimulus" bill that came out of the House last week contains federal subsidies for companies that will use the money to rollout broadband networks to areas determined to be under served in some way. Many of these companies are salivating at the prospects of these subsidies, and many of these companies are my friends. I like companies that are in the business of providing broadband access, and are constantly rolling out new products and services, higher speeds, and doing it all through market processes and with their own money. These are the champions of the information age, in my opinion, and I vigorously defend them against government and activist attempts to regulate their businesses and dictate their business models. Read More...
|
|
|
A groundbreaking report released Tuesday by the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, a group formed to take an in-depth look at both the latest sociological research on on-line safety, and also to evaluate the efficacy of various proposed software solutions, found that when it comes to protecting children online there is no technological substitute for the role of law enforcement and parents in keeping society safe. IPI was named to the Task Force last March to serve alongside other organizations and Internet companies to research effective Internet safety technologies for protecting children online.
Read More...
|
|
|
Bartlett Cleland, director of the IPI Center for Technology Freedom, will appear this morning at 10:45 am ET/7:45 am PT on San Francisco's number one rated morning radio program on Newstalk KGO 810 AM with anchors Ed Baxter and Jennifer Jones.
Cleland will be discussing the research found in the report released yesterday by the Internet Safety Technical Task Forceon child online safety.
To listen live online, click here. Read More...
|
|
|
If you follow technology issues, you know that 2009 is the year that all of the various “privacy” issues are expected to mature and bloom into new attempts at legislation and regulation.
A basket of issues falls under the rubric of “privacy,” from Internet filtering, packet inspection, behavioral advertising, and data collection and retention policies, and there are legitimate policy problems in each of these areas.
But before getting into the weeds of these various debates, let’s remember some first principles that should govern privacy discussions.
The primary concern of our Founding Fathers, and thus the primary purpose of the Constitution, was to protect private citizens from their government. Read More...
|
|
|
France has found a new way to again lead the world…in the wrong direction.
France has decided to begin layering the Internet with new taxes to replace the income lost because of a government ban on primetime television commercials. This old-world view does not reflect the coming, and largely current, state of the how the Internet is accessed. And while the reasoning of the French is interesting, the result is not much different than what’s happening across the U.S.
Mobile wireless access to broadband is rapidly growing, and is expected to continue to grow as “smart phones” become increasingly popular. (While there is no standard definition of a smart phone, essentially these are mobile devices that go well beyond a traditional phone and function as a mobile personal computer.)
Read More...
|
|
|
We’re bracing ourselves for an effort by a newly-activist federal government to start playing again at central planning for industry—particularly the technology industry.
There is an army of fresh, eager new Obama advisors flocking out of their ivory towers in academia for shiny new positions in the Obama administration, and they have all sorts of pet ideas for running the American economy that they’ve been just dying to try out. And the tech sector is one of their prime targets.
We have a suggestion: Perhaps, instead of trying to run the tech economy from Washington, you should focus on deploying technology to make government better?
Health care reform—instead of undermining the parts of the U.S. healthcare system that are working best, government should be using technology to reap huge savings and better care. Read More...
|
|
|
Amid all the current concern over our economic downturn, it's important to remember that in the most recent decade the U.S. economy has gone through a productivity revolution. Despite all the news about rapid economic growth in places like China and India, there is still no country that can approach the productivity of the U.S. economy.
And according to Harvard economist Dale Jorgenson, this recent U.S. productivity increase is almost entirely due to the impact of information technology (IT) on business functions throughout the economy.
Indeed, IT has transformed almost every sector of the U.S. economy, with one glaring exception—government, and those sectors dominated by government, such as health care and education.
It's widely understood that government agencies are still using outdated technology as they attempt to do their missions. And government spending on IT has often simply been a waste of taxpayer dollars. Read More...
|
|
|
“The State Video Tax Fairness Act” was introduced in Congress with underlying goals which are laudable—ending discriminatory tax treatment, creating a competitive level playing field for all video providers, and increasing consumer benefit.
In fact, our friends who support the legislation are exactly right when they argue that consumers should not be taxed differently for video service merely based on how it is provided—whether by satellite, cable, fiber optic wire or wirelessly. Discriminatory tax treatment for the same product leads to market distortions and deprives consumers of the best service at the best price.
But to do so, the Act would strip states of their right to enact revenue policies according to the will of the states’ elected representatives. Federal preemption of the states’ right to enact their own tax policies strikes us as a gross violation of our Federalist system of government.
Read More...
|
|
|
President-elect Barack Obama could do a great deal of good when it comes to emphasizing the important role that technological advances play in our economy.
One such example would be to ask his party leaders in Congress to do more than merely pay lip service to the importance of the research and experimentation tax credit and to pass an improved permanent credit. Last year the credit was allowed to lapse, and in October of this year it was retroactively applied, sapping much of its value to tax planners, hence reducing the encouragement to companies to invest in ever increased amounts of research in this country. The credit must be made permanent.
Similarly, an Obama administration could score another easy victory by calling on Congress to repeal the Spanish-American War tax, the 3 percent excise tax on telephone calls that has never quite died, even 110 years later. Read More...
|
|
|
IPI senior fellow George Pieler and International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens F. Laurson appear today in the Heartland Institute’s InfoTech & Telecom News with a new article discussing the choice the FCC must now make—after approving the XM-Sirius merger—when it comes to HD radio
An excerpt: “In approving the merger of the two satellite-radio competitors XM and Sirius, the Federal Communications Commission decided the listening market was sufficiently diverse and cross-competitive that a monopoly couldn’t dominate by satellite-service alone. But FCC also had to consider the potential for one new technology—nationwide satellite broadcasts—crowding out another: HD radio, which can provide digital signals in potentially superior sound and with multicast streaming capability. Read More...
|
|
|
How many times have you been driving along talking on your mobile phone (with a hands free device, of course) and suddenly the call drops? Often enough that perhaps the most ubiquitous advertising phrase today is “Can you hear me now?”
Immediately the mobile phone carrier gets cursed for the problem as we redial. But cursing the carrier would be a bit like blaming the stagecoach company for the actions of a highwayman.
To meet ever-increasing demand for mobile coverage, mobile phone companies must constantly increase capacity by putting up new antennas, sometimes new towers and other times simply attaching an antenna to some already existing tower. To do so they must seek the permission of the local authorities, even to allow them to erect a tower on private property and pay for a lease. Often those local authorities balk, but more often they simply drag their feet, refusing to act on applications for new towers and additions to existing ones. Read More...
|
|
|
Before the financial mess, Congress was debating a bill that would establish new rules for an incredibly promising field of medical technology. The Pathway for Biosimilars Act includes new rules for intellectual property protection for "biologics," or pharmaceuticals derived from living organisms.
Most of what you know about traditional prescription drugs doesn't apply to biologics. They usually come in a vial, not a pill. They are as effective as they are complex; indeed they are effective because they are complex. Biologic drugs have proven effective against diseases like cancer, multiple sclerosis and diabetes.
The Act is a step in the right direction. A robust legal framework for the industry will keep investment dollars flowing and preserve incentives for firms to develop treatments.
Read More...
|
|
|
The basics of this case are as follows: Sherry Lenz posted a short video of her small child dancing to Prince; Universal, Prince's label, generated a notice-and-take-down; Lenz sought a judgment against Universal on various grounds. Ultimately, the case was resolved an interesting issue involving the DMCA, as follows:
Technically, fair use is a defense to a claim of infringement. Thus, Universal contended that all it need do to justify initiating a notice-and take-down procedure was claim infringement; any unauthorized copying would qualify. It would then be up to the defendant to dispute the procedure and get to the fair use issue.
I don't agree with the position that this is a *ridiculous* argument, although it might seem so to a novice or nonlawyer. Read More...
|
|
|
So you thought Congress may have learned its lesson about creating huge entities that will need to be bailed out at taxpayer expense? If you did, you were wrong.
From the same folks who brought you a global financial meltdown triggered by the institutions they created in an industry under heavy regulatory control, Congress is considering (as is the Federal Communications Commission) a proposal to hold a restricted auction on spectrum to establish one national wireless provider—a government-fashioned, government-favored firm in the tradition of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
In IPI’s report entitled “Should the U.S. Favor a Free Nationwide Wireless Network Provider?” IPI adjunct fellow and communications policy specialist Solveig Singleton says, “This kind of company would not be allowed to fail and therefore sets up a future bailout at taxpayer expense.”
Read More...
|
|
|
I reviewed the Veoh case for DRMWatch recently:
The user-generated video site Veoh achieved a victory in court on August 27th when California District Judge Howard Lloyd ruled that it was entitled to the protection of the DMCA's safe harbor provisions. Veoh was accused of copyright infringement by IO Group, a maker of adult films...
Like eBay v. Tiffany, another case in which one might trumpet a tech-side win... the tech gets at least some protection from liability. Read More...
|
|
|
Last month my comments on the Veoh decision went up on DRMWatch. This case ruled that a content provider that did not notify the "Internet television" provider Veoh of infringing film clips posted on Veoh's site by Veoh users, but simply sued Veoh for infringement, was entitled at most only to injunctive relief, because of the DMCA's safe harbor. Several incremental steps in the case are worthy of note.
One is the reference to Cablevision, the remote DVR case decided by the Second Circuit recently. The issue was, again, who made the copies? Was it the users, who choose the material and command the system in the instant case, or the service providers, who own the system that provides the mechanism? Read More...
|
|
|
| IPI senior fellow George Pieler and International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens F. Laurson are featured today with a new op/ed entitled “Russian Cyberwar Against Georgia Raises Internet Security Concerns for United States.”
Pieler and Laurson write:
"When the Georgian-Russian war broke out on August 8, reports of attacks on official Georgian Web sites gave the impression of a coordinated cyberattack from Russia. The source of the attacks is still a subject of debate among cyberwar experts because of the difficulties involved in tracing a distributed attack back to a government agency or sponsor. That gives potential state sponsors of cyberattacks the advantage of plausible deniability, analysts note. The U.S. government is apparently concerned about the possibility of such attacks on the United States. Read More...
|
|
|
On September 25 the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee held a hearing to learn about current practices by broadband providers to protect a person’s “privacy.”
Gigi Sohn, president and cofounder of Public Knowledge, testified regarding, in her opinion, what level of privacy should be provided and what individuals should expect. During the course of her testimony she was critical of deep-packet inspection (a form of filtering that examines the header and data packet, often to help stop viruses, spam or other intrusions). Ms. Sohn described this as "the Internet equivalent of the post office reading your mail," and went on to express outrage that this filtering could be deployed.
Read More...
|
|
|
New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, in his new book Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—and How It Can Renew America, tries desperately to convince us that Kyoto, Kyoto II and mandatory carbon emission reductions are the only solutions to addressing global climate change.
But the simple truth is that innovation is the cheapest and most effective way of addressing both climate change and the need for clean, cheap energy.
As Bjorn Lomborg, author of Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming, pointed out in his review of Friedman’s book in The Wall Street Journal, “ . . . research and development is both much less costly and a much better investment . . .” than the proposed draconian methods currently considered.
Read More...
|
|
|
IPI adjunct fellow and communications policy specialist Solveig Singleton is cited today in the Warren News publications Communications Daily and Washington Internet Daily.
They write:
Read More...
|
|
|
Amidst the headline grabbing economic crisis a bipartisan group of senators, led by Pat Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA), is fighting to enact The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act (S.3325), to strengthen significantly our government’s effort to protect American innovation, creativity and our future economic growth.
The federal government has a critical role to play in intellectual property (IP) enforcement. Only the government can: - bring criminal charges in cases of organized and prolific piracy and counterfeiting,
- conduct the investigations necessary to build and prove these cases,
- effectively engage our trading partners on behalf of U.S. rights holders and
- provide comprehensive leadership on a problem that has reached global scale and affects millions of Americans.
Read More...
|
|
|
In a brand new op/ed published today in E-commerce Times, IPI senior fellow George Pieler and International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens F. Laurson discuss how MEPs are benefiting from government price controls on wireless communications in Europe.
An excerpt:
Viviane Reding, Europe's info-media commissioner, has skillfully staked out her position as champion of consumers who want it cheap and now (rather than better, if later).
Her Europe-wide caps on roaming charges for mobile voice services are popular, and now Reding wants the same relief for consumers downloading data and text-messaging across the borders of EU member states. She also seems disposed to cap call-termination fees -- charges from one cell-service provider for ending a call from another provider's network.
Read More...
|
|
|
With all due respect to Tim Berners-Lee, it's time for him to shut up and leave the Internet alone. It's not yours, Tim.
I imagine this is a hard thing for a creator to do -- leave their creation alone and let others do with it what they will. But it has to be done.
You see, Tim Berners-Lee has decided that there is a lot of disinformation and bad stuff out on the Internet, and he's going to tell us which information is good, and which information is bad.
In this regard, Tim Berners-Lee is a greater threat to the Internet that communist China. China can only censor the Internet for the Chinese, but Tim Berners-Lee wants to do it for everyone.
Which religions will Sir Tim label as cults? Which philosophical ideas will Sir Tim label as discredited? Which scientific allegations will Sir Tim deem unfit for inquiry?
Read More...
|
|
|
The Second Circuit has authored an important opinion on whether Cablevision's remote digital video recording service infringes the copyrights of content providers like the Cartoon Network. I review the opinion here for DRMWatch.
My take in a nutshell--Cablevision won the battle, but the Second Circuit broadly hints that the irked content providers might have had better luck in the war with a theory of indirect infringement. Though it isn't that simple... the content providers might not be all that happy arguing that there is indirect infringement, because for that they must argue that the customers are directly infringing. And run into Sony's time-shifting fair use defense, among other issues (is this just a Tivo with a really long wire?).
Read More...
|
|
|
Technology continually makes new products and services available to consumers. Thankfully, much of the time technology moves too fast for government regulation to stifle it, but occasionally government regulations still get in the way.
A case in point: The movie industry would like to take advantage of technological advances and try a new way to deliver early-release (before the movie is available on DVD), high definition (HD) movies right into our homes–but only if assurances are made that their content will not be stolen right out from under them
To do this, the industry needs the ability to (for special early release content) selectively disable certain ports on the backs of televisions and cable/satellite boxes to prevent piracy.
This is exactly the kind of thing consumers want the content industry to do: Break out of the box and try new business models. Read More...
|
|
|
IPI adjunct fellow Solveig Singleton is cited in today’s Washington Internet Daily, in an article entitled “‘Cloud’ Services Test Copyright, but Recent Rulings Offer Hope.”
An excerpt:
Cloud services are "pushing the outer boundaries of [court] precedent, but more gently" than predecessors did, by noting demonstrated DMCA compliance, Solveig Singleton of the Institute for Policy Innovation told us.
If a service itself "is not making an effort to promote that particular [infringing] use," courts may not be perturbed by demonstrated user infringement. Along with the Veoh ruling, eBay's recent victories over trademark infringement suits (WID Aug 14 p5) show that active deterrence wins with judges, she said.
Read More...
|
|
|
There's this issue now related to intellectual property protection and consumer electronics (yes, another one) called "selectable output controls."
Suffice it to say that, yet again, the content industries are trying to protect their content against piracy, and the free culture geniuses like those over at Public Knowledge are against it.
In this entry I won't go into the details of the selectable output control issue. We'll be doing more on that later. My purposes here are to illustrate the (frankly) lazy thinking that lies behind much of the free culture movement.
How do the experts over at Public Knowledge come up with their policy positions? What kind of legal and economic research and background goes into their policy conclusions?
Read More...
|
|
|
A very interesting post about software piracy appeared recently in the computer game development world.
The post began with asking a question... "Why do you pirate my games?" And the author was surprised by the answers, which came down to - objections to intellectual property in principal
- objections to price
- objections to low game quality (bugs etc.) and
- objections to DRM
- objections to distribution channel (i.e. too cumbersome to outlets other than Steam and finally
- people who admitted that they liked free stuff and they could get away with it.
The author intends to respond as much as he can, by improving the quality of his games, lowering the price, and leaving off the DRM. It will be interesting to see the results. Read More...
|
|
|
Those famous lyrics from “New York, New York” just might have to be changed, at least for online retailers.
“Start spreading the news
I'm leaving today
I [don’t] want to be a part of it, New York, New York
These vagabond shoes
Are longing to stray
And make a brand new start of it
[anywhere but] New York, New York”
A new law from the state of New York thumbs its nose at the Supreme Court’s Quill decision, which held that for a state to require sales tax collections from a retailer that retailer must have some physical connection with the state.
Read More...
|
|
|
The Wall Street Journal recently ran has an important article by Stuart Weinberg, "Caught in the Crossfire." It describes the difficulties that small firms face in licensing patents to large firms. The fuss about bad patents and so called "patent trolls"--firms that own patents, but do neither research nor production, and that make their money from suing other firms--has lead legislators and courts to consider steps to make it easier to challenge and less disastrous to infringe patents. But the result is significantly less protection for small firms that do invent and then license.
"Caught in the Crossfire," describes the efforts of one firm, which was in the midst of negotiations to license its patents to Microsoft, when Microsoft initiated proceedings at the patent office questioning the validity of all its patents. Whatever the merit of the technology at issue, clearly this sort of proceeding has a bad flavor. Read More...
|
|
|
The apparent collapse of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Doha round of trade talks is indefensible. But at least one good thing came out of it: the (temporarily, at least) failure of an effort to amend WTO’s TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) provisions in some alarming ways.
A group of developing countries, with the assistance of the European Union, was fighting to make several substantive changes to TRIPS:
- Establish an international register of geographical indicators (GI) for wine and spirits;
- Extend GI protections for products other than wine and spirits; and, finally,
- Bring TRIPS into compliance with the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
The international GI register has already been agreed to and seems to have little negative impact if it’s voluntary and nonbinding. Read More...
|
|
|
In a new op/ed featured this weekend in California’s Press-Enterprise, IPI Director of Technology Freedom Bartlett Cleland and IPI senior fellow Barry M. Aarons discuss how consumers are fighting back against high communications taxes.
An excerpt: “There are signs that consumers have had it with government's addiction to high communications taxes. Consumers are now taxed, in many cases, more than twice as much on wireless services as they are on other competitive goods and services, as Scott Mackey makes clear in his recent State Tax Notes paper, "Excessive Taxes and Fees on Wireless Services: Recent Trends." But consumers, who in some places pay as much as a 22 percent tax on wireless, are beginning to fight back. Read More...
|
|
|
One current intellectual property debate is whether or not radio broadcasters should be required to license the music they play over the air. In other words, to pay for it.
Broadcasters don’t currently have to license the music they play because U.S. copyright law does not recognize a “performance right” for broadcasts.
The lack of a performance right is an anomaly in U.S. copyright law, and when compared to most other countries. But broadcasters here have been getting their music for free for a long time. With music industry revenues plummeting, the recording industry is increasingly sensitive about the gap in U.S. law and in their revenue stream.
In intellectual property policy debates, the best solutions support property rights, market forces, and technology neutrality. The lack of a performance right violates all three principles. Read More...
|
|
|
The FCC's determination to fine Comcast for it's treatment of BitTorrent net traffic has put the cableco in a difficult position. If Comcast objects that the FCC nondiscrimination principles are not really rules the violation of which can result in a fine, the firm is setting the stage for more stringent net neutrality regulation. But if Comcast does not object, it in essence allows the FCC to make rules without a specific mandate from Congress concerning their substance, let alone the consequences of a violation, and to do so retroactively. Ex Post Facto laws, indeed.
My position is that net neutrality rules are premature, especially given that no one as described an institutional device to systematically keep the rules for developing over time into a system in which regulators micro-manage prices and terms of carriage, as did the FCC and the ICC.
As regulators have lined up on the side of regulation, though, some second-best suggestions are in order. Read More...
|
|
|
This study came out a while back but is worth noting--the phenomena of those educated in the U.S. but squeezed out by the legal difficulties of staying:
A Kauffman Foundation study finds: More than one million skilled immigrant workers, including scientists, engineers, doctors and researchers and their families, are competing for 120,000 permanent U.S. resident visas each year, creating a sizeable imbalance likely to fuel a "reverse brain-drain" with skilled workers returning to their home country...
Read More...
|
|
|
A new proposal, currently called the “Organized Retail Crime Act of 2008,” is floating around the US Senate these days—a proposal to fight organized crime that involves “the theft and interstate fencing of large volumes of stolen retail merchandise.” That is to say that the purported purpose is to crack down on counterfeit and stolen goods that may be sold on the Internet.
Indeed, that sounds pretty good…for a title anyway.
The reality is that the proposal conscripts “operator(s) of an online marketplace.” So sites such as eBay and Amazon.com, which allow sellers to engage in business on their site, would be forced to be the cops of the Internet.
Worse, the proposal specifically reverses well-established law that makes clear that “interactive computer services” (any information service, such as a website or Internet service provider), are not liable for third-party content. Read More...
|
|
|
Viacom's suit against Google/YouTube for copyright infringement has opened another privacy can of worms. Most recently, the judge has ordered You Tube to turn over data on individual's video viewing.
The EFF has strenuously objected on privacy grounds, citing the Video Privacy Protection Act. Orin Kerr, posting on the Volokh Conspiracy, agrees on their legal analysis.
But in fact it is not clear that there is a violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act , because the details of the judge's order reportedly include protective measures the details of which have not been described in the coverage.
There are some deeper issues raised by this wrangle, however.
Read More...
|
|
|
IPI senior fellow Barry Aarons is featured in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram with a new op/ed entitled “Time to Start Hanging Up On Phone Service Program.”
In the piece, Aarons writes:
"Ronald Reagan used to quip that the closest thing to immortality in this life is a government program. And although government provides us with numerous validations of Reagan’s observation, perhaps there’s never been a better example than the Universal Service Fund. Created in 1934, the UFS was designed to enable national connection of the so-called nationwide wire-line network. And by the 1970s the system worked pretty well, connecting more than 95 percent of America in a switched-access wire-line system of telecommunications. It did so by taxing all users of telephone service and using those funds to subsidize telephone service in rural areas. Read More...
|
|
|
The need to achieve technological breakthroughs to provide cleaner, more efficient sources of energy may indeed be the race-to-the-moon for this generation of American inventors, scientists and entrepreneurs.
Clean energy technologies will come in hundreds of variations and will take billions to develop, test and deploy. To sustain this model there must be a global marketplace where intellectual property (IP) and innovation are rewarded according to economic drivers such as value, quality and demand. In essence, the clean energy revolution will only be as effective in solving our energy needs worldwide as the determination to promote and protect the underlying IP.
A proliferation of national strategies to promote the clean energy industry will develop, but there must also be a global approach that prioritizes real world impact while respecting IP and the innovation process.
What must some of the first steps in this global approach be?
Read More...
|
|
|
Some thorny problems in constitutional law and public policy arise when it is hard to figure out whether the activity is in the private sector or the public sector. In privacy policy, for example, data about individuals collected by the public sector (the census, say) poses threats to civil liberties that data collected by the private sector (journalists, for example) does not. But when government can easily access the journalist's data, the issue becomes muddled. My free speech rights inside my own home are clear; and it is clear that the government can manage speech inside the courthouse--but rights on the courthouse steps can be fuzzy.
Some would argue, therefore, that the private/public distinction is unhelpful or incoherent or illusory. The European Union, for example, does not distinguish between government collections of data and private collections of data in regulating privacy. Read More...
|
|
|
Like a lot of men, I'm negligent about going to the doctor regularly. I insist that my family go to the doctor, but somehow I never quite get around to doing so myself.
I've been promising my family for about a year now that I'll make an appointment to have a full physical exam, but today I'm definitely going to make the call, because I have a new goal in life: I want to live long enough to see Dr. James Hansen proven wrong about global warming.
This is James Hansen Week in Washington. This morning he's on NPR's Diane Rehm show, and this week he will be testifying before Congress. Read More...
|
|
|
As if we needed more, there is additional fodder today for us Wikipedia-haters.
ctions to Wikipedia go far beyond inaccuracies, of course. Read More...
|
|
|
On June 10 at the National Press Club, the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy organized a forum on technology policy in the Presidential campaigns, featuring former FCC Chair Reed Hundt, tech advisor to Obama and former FCC Chair Michael Powell, advisor to John McCain. One sees in U.S. elections such a fascination with the personal qualities of the candidates that one would think that the President ran the executive branch single-handedly. But, of course, he doesn't, and the teams matter. A relatively inexerperienced candidate might make up for this by having a knack for identifying astute advisors--or find his platform hijacked by a careerist with his own agenda.
Reed Hundt opened with an attack on McCain, including such details as McCain's vote against the e-rate, the provision of the 1996 Telecom Act that funded Internet service to schools and libraries. Read More...
|
|
|
I'm known in IPI's offices and among friends for my distain for Wikipedia, which knows no bounds and admittedly has become almost irrational. I won't go into the reasons here, but it has to do with our society's rejection of accomplishment and expertise, and obsession with equality which has resulted in an ethic of "anyone can (and has the right to) write an encylopedia."
Anyway . . .
So I have sensitive antennae for criticism of Wikimania, and I've found yet more on Rich Karlgaard's blog, where he mentions publically what has been observed privately for some time; namely, that Wikipedia censors critics and skeptics of global warming. Read More...
|
|
|
Add Prof. Connie Book (Elon University) to the list of academics who can be counted on to find an atoll of failure in an ocean of success.
Professor Book has released a paper that takes a look at Texas’ 2006 groundbreaking video franchise reform legislation, and she doesn’t like what she sees.
But first consider what Prof. Book grants in her paper:
- Broadband deployment has happened at a breakneck pace since passage of the legislation;
- Smaller companies are able to enter the market faster;
- Cable companies have lowered costs in communities with new competition;
- New investment and job creation is evident;
- Consumers have access to more products and services;
- Polled citizens favor the new competition;
Read More...
|
|
|
In the 1970s, the Federal Communications Commission began a struggle to reconcile old communications laws governing telephones, broadcasting, and cable television with the new technological and business realities. The old regime was based on monopoly; and it was believed that regulation was needed to protect consumers, extend networks into new areas, and keep prices low. But technological developments made competition possible, and competition would make most of the old regulations unnecessary.
In 1996, when Congress overhauled telecommunications law, the FCC gained the authority to "forbear" from regulation. The hope was that the FCC could deregulate without Congress having to revisit the matter.
How is regulatory forbearance working?
In 1996, long-time observers could have provided a laundry list of regulations ripe for forbearance over the next few years. Read More...
|
|
|
In 2006, the World Health Organization launched its International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT). The reason and importance behind this effort was clearly and succinctly captured in an IMPACT-produced brochure that reads, “Counterfeit Drugs Kill.”
How curious and disappointing then it is to see some influential nations oppose the IMPACT effort, and, in fact, question entirely the need for WHO and leading nations to step up efforts to combat the deluge of dangerous, illicit medicines.
At the recent World Health Assembly in Geneva, a group of developing countries that included India, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile and Thailand thundered loudly against the WHO’s IMPACT initiative because it may stand in the way of the parallel trade of generic manufacturers. Read More...
|
|
|
H.R. 1201, the ill-named “Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship” (FAIR USE) Act, is the latest attempt to unravel the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), while taking the Supreme Court’s unanimous Grokster decision and recent U.S. trade treaties down with it in a single piece of legislation.
As “Still Bad: A Critique of the Latest Attempt to Gut the DMCA” notes, the bill has little to do with “freedom,” “innovation,” “revitalizing entrepreneurship,” or even “fair use.”
Read More...
|
|
|
IPI senior fellow George Pieler is featured today in American Spectator online with a new op/ed: “No New Wireless Taxes.”
In the piece, Pieler writes:
The Wall Street Journal gives credit to Sen. McCain for trying to protect consumers from excessive, confusing, and duplicate taxes on wireless communications, aka mobile phone service. While Mr. McCain must share the credit with Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Chris Cannon, he was indeed the first to press for a halt in the states' shameless milking of your cell phone bill. His Cell Phone Tax Moratorium Act, introduced in January, proposes a three-year moratorium on new cell phone taxes that unduly burden wireless consumers, compared with other communications services.
Read More...
|
|
|
Google co-founder Larry Page today demonstrated that either he can't think logically, or that he can stare an audience straight in the eyes and lie to them.
At an event sponsored by Google's New America Foundation, Page said that while a deal between Microsoft and Yahoo would "concentrate too much power in the online communications market, stifling innovation and curbing competition", a deal between the two search giants Google and Yahoo would not.
You read that right. If the two leading search engines decide to start dominating the market in a coordinated fashion, that should pose no antitrust issues, according to Page. But if a company that is doing poorly at search (Microsoft) made a deal with one of the two leading search engines, somehow that should keep antitrust regulators up at night.
So we learned something about Larry Page. But we also learned something today about the New America Foundation. Read More...
|
|
|
I recently reviewed the case of Atlantic Recording v. Howell for DRMWatch.
The coverage of this case by many journalists and bloggers has been extremely silly. Take this story by Richard Korman, entitled Court Ruling Could End P2P Music-Download Lawsuits,citing the author of the Recording Industry v. the People blog Ray Beckerman.
Simply put, the prediction that this will mean the end of such suits is flat out wrong. Most courts have not relied on the "making available" theory to find liability. In the future, if the case is followed by other courts (possible, but unlikely), it simply means that the plaintiff copyright owners will produce somewhat more evidence--something they Read More...
|
|
|
You’ve probably heard of the “No New Taxes” pledge. Well, how about a “No Tech Taxes” pledge.
It looks like that’s where presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain is heading.
McCain has fought against (primarily) state efforts to impose Internet access taxes and to illegitimately require vendors to collect sales taxes, much to the chagrin of the states, which see the Internet as a new treasure trove of revenue.
Access taxes are those that would be added to your Internet service provider (ISP) bill that gives you access to the Internet. And the sales taxes would be collected whether appropriate or not when you buy a product or service online. Congress has so far successfully managed to fight off attempts to impose or expand those taxes, but the reprieves have been temporary—and hard to secure.
Read More...
|
|
|
IPI senior research fellow Chris Israel is featured today with a new op/ed on Forbes.com, entitled, “Managing Against Illegal Content.”
In the op/ed, Israel discusses the recent Comcast/BitTorrent agreement and how the market-based resolution also offers better solutions to protecting intellectual property online.
An excerpt:
”Now we have a chance to manage against illegal content on the Web.
Indeed, the recent announcement made by Comcast and BitTorrent that they will work together to find a market-based solution to the network management challenges posed by the huge bandwidth demands of peer-to-peer file sharing is positive on two fronts.
First, as FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell pointed out in his response to the announcement, it clearly demonstrates that the market is truly the best vehicle for finding solutions to problems in a rapidly changing digital environment.
Read More...
|
|
|
Should Internet application providers be liable for illegal material such as pornography, copyright violations and civil rights infractions that pass through their “pipes” or through their service?
The general principle has been that, so long as the provider passively allows traffic to flow through and does not look at or interact with the material, that provider exists within a “safe harbor” and is not legally liable.
But how passive is passive enough? This question is now in the weeds with recent decisions concerning civil rights and interactive web services like craigslist.
Craigslist, the Seventh Circuit ruled in March of 2008, is passive enough for the Communications Decency Act (CDA), in Chicago Lawyers v. Craigslist Read More...
|
|
|
A bill has been introduced to set up the creation of a free nationwide wireless network by auctioning off a significant piece of available spectrum to the highest bidder who agrees to provide service on those terms.
How many ways is this idea likely to have some undesirable consequences? Let's see how many I can list just off the top of my head.
1) One obvious problem the bill's sponsors have already thought of and taken care of; that is the problem of a free network's being swamped by adult content. The bill stipulates that the network is also supposed to come with filters to protect those underage from obscene or indecent content. (Note: the reference to "indecency" folds in the FCC's broad censorship rules for radio/TV, which have, among other things, been used to punish a station for airing James Joyce and the word "penis" in song).
Read More...
|
|
|
Here in Geneva at the World Health Organization’s Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property, there is a really bad idea floating around.
There is a small group of neo-Marxist activists who don’t like intellectual property (IP). Having lost the Marxist battle against real property rights many years ago, these neo-Marxists carry on the fight against intellectual property.
In essence they want to eliminate the economic incentives—the heart of capitalism—that propel individuals and companies to innovate and create, primarily because they see economic incentives as evil. In Geneva, that IP angst manifests itself in the loathing of patents.
Oh, they won’t say exactly that, but that’s what they mean.
Read More...
|
|
|
The European Patent Office is holding a very interesting event next month. Titled, European Patent Forum 2008 – Inventing a Cleaner Future, the conference claims to be the first global discussion dedicated to figuring out how “the fields of patenting and intellectual property” can support innovations that will address global energy needs and environmental concerns. The program can be viewed by clicking here.
There are a number of provocative questions and issues to be raised here.
First, there will be an explosion of “green tech” patents in the U.S. and around the world in coming years. Read More...
|
|
|
As reported in Business Week on March 31, 2008 "High-Tech Schooling for Our Dumb Grid" cleaner and more efficient energy is on its way. Those concerned with global warming, or just tired of paying more for power than they should have to because of inefficiencies in the system have something for which to look forward - a smarter electrical grid. In this case, smarter means the electric companies providing tools for more efficient use of the grid, to the benefit of the power company and to the benefit of their customers.
At the same time the Internet regulation crowd, who like to hide themselves behind the cloak of so called "net neutrality," are arguing for a dumber communications system in this country. A system that may in fact strand consumers without the means to filter out unwanted or dangerous content - such as spam or pornography. Read More...
|
|
|
Most of us would be embarrassed to admit in public that we don't know how to do our jobs or that we do them without any understanding of the implications of the actions we take. Yet, it seems when it comes to regulating and taxing (one in the same thing) the wireless communications industry, elected officials have no such shame.
During several panels that were held during CTIA Wireless 2008 show, state elected officials and public utility commissioners alike expressed a lack of understanding about the mobile communications industry.
Yet they expressed no concern about the implications when the subject was taxing this industry that is so mysterious to them. Regarding raising revenue one state congressman expressed "You, the wireless industry, have a big target on your head and we don't know much about your industry."
Read More...
|
|
|
The use of “short codes” is one of the most recent innovations in wireless communications.
Short codes are five and six digit numbers through which a cell phone customer can interact with a variety of entertainment and informational sources, such as voting for an American Idol contestant, providing customer feedback on a candy bar, or even responding to direct marketing.
Unfortunately, short codes have been included in the latest effort to compel the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to take a much greater involvement in the regulation of the communications marketplace.
The FCC’s current inquiry is in connection with a request for a ruling regarding “text messages and short codes.” Read More...
|
|
|
Google can't afford to hire enough staff to police YouTube and make sure it isn't showing videos of gang rapes and copyright violations, but they CAN hire an army of people to drive all over the country and photograph people's houses, driveways and backyards?
These are choices Google is making. You do what you think is important, and Google thinks it's more important to invade your privacy, photograph your house, and collect data on your web browsing than it is to make sure content on YouTube is legal. Read More...
|
|
|
Is there a reason why Google is pulling right up in people's driveways, right up to their garages, and taking pictures of people's backyards?
Yeah, I know it's "information," but doggone it, when did information just for information's sake become a virtue in and of itself? Read More...
|
|
|
Despite a couple years of debate about network neutrality, rarely have concrete proposals emerged from those who advocate for this government control of the Internet. Typically they have limited themselves to urgent sound bites to whip others into a frenzy.
However, a few pundits have set down on paper what they think the rules actually ought to look like, as in a recent article by Howard Shelanski entitled, "Network Neutrality: Regulating With More Questions than Answers.”
Shelanski points out the free market perspective cannot show that the platform owners never benefit from discrimination against competitors. How does the free market side respond? Assuming that the pricing math is right, we must also factor in long run reputational concerns, the possibility of retaliation, and a plethora of other real world factors.
Read More...
|
|
|
France is reaching a whole new level on hypocrisy over trade and intellectual property rights.
For years the French and other EU states have pressed for limitations on naming rights for foods and wines. They succeeded in bullying the United States into restrictive labeling for California “sparkling wine,” limiting use of the term “Champagne” to wine from the historic Champagne province of France.
In trade circles, this IP issue is known as "geographic indicators," or GIs, which are similar to protections for trademarks. GI protection means that products deriving their names from certain areas, such as French Champagne, Parma ham or Swiss watches, could not be marketed under the same name by anyone from another location.
Read More...
|
|
|
The most serious disease that afflicts public officials is arrested development.
Want proof? A recent survey by the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA) on the impact of state video services legislation on communities and subscribers makes it clear.
The survey focused on franchised cable television issues and totally ignores the multiplicity of video availability from other sources like web streaming, wireless phones, and satellite delivery. To their credit NATOA’s Executive Director Liddy Beaty stated, “this legislation is very new in many places and only time will tell whether, once implementation is complete, it will prove to have benefited consumers . . . ”
But Beaty also said, “State legislation . . . is not resulting in price reduction, the primary reason used to justify state over local regulation.” Read More...
|
|
|
If you like taxes, you should love the wireless phone industry!
One of IPI’s fundamental principles of tax reform is transparency. In a nontransparent system, politicians can slip in lots of taxes and regularly increase the rates without individuals ever knowing they are getting dinged.
And your wireless service is subject to one of the most nontransparent tax systems we know.
According to a new study published in State Tax Notes, the combined federal, state and local taxes and fees (as of July, 2007) on wireless service range from 22.54 percent in Nebraska to 5.85 percent in Oregon.
Do Nebraska wireless-service consumers know that they are paying the highest wireless taxes in the country? Of course not.
Do Oregon consumers know they are paying the lowest rates? Of course not.
No one knows. And trying to wade through all of those tax inputs in the monthly bill is daunting.
Read More...
|
|
|
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram features a new report discussing IPI’s membership of the Online Safety Task Force created by MySpace.
An excerpt:
The Institute for Policy Innovation, a Lewisville-based nonprofit public-policy organization, has been chosen as a member of the industry-wide Online Safety Task Force organized by the social networking site MySpace.com The organization hopes to ensure that policymakers find ways to protect children while also allowing the fair and free use of technology, said Bartlett Cleland, director of the institute's Center for Technology Freedom. "These issues are difficult, but we must begin to find effective, balanced solutions to this puzzle," he said in a statement Friday. Read More...
|
|
|
Further thoughts on the topic of ISP liability and immunity in the sphere of copyright management:
Bill Rosenblatt of DRMWatch contrasts approaches to ISP responsibility for users' copyright infringement in the U.S. and Germany.
And this article offers a more general framework within which to examine the question of whether, and when, ISPs should be liable for negligence or otherwise, with brief commentary on the copyright issue: Hylton, Keith N., "Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Immunity: An Application to Cyberspace" (July 31, 2006). Boston Univ. School of Law Working Paper No. 06-19 Available at SSRN.
Read More...
|
|
|
Andrew Noyes wrote last week of
a leaked proposal that calls for those suspected of downloading illegitimate movies or music to get an initial warning e-mail, followed by a suspension for a second offense, then a termination of their service contract for a third offense. .. Other coverage here.Similar proposals have been floated elsewhere.
Now, I suspect a large part of the reason that these proposals are moving is simply to bring ISPs to the bargaining table, which their current largely immune status gives them no reason to do. Read More...
|
|
|
Several longish comments, observations and opinions from the FCC's hearing on broadband industry network management practices at Harvard University in Boston on Monday:
- About 100 people showed up too late to get into the room, and "too late" was an hour before the start of the event. Anticipating a crowd, I showed up about 90 minutes early, and got one of the few remaining seats in the room. It was clear from the applause that both Free Press and Comcast had gotten their crowds out.
- It seemed to me that Kevin Martin had already made up his mind before he arrived at the hearing. It was clear to me from Martin's questions and demeanor that he has no patience for Comcast or their arguments. The entire day, there was only one speaker who was cut off, and that was when Kevin Martin pointedly cut off Comcast's Executive Vice President David Cohen. Martin also insisted on a particular line of inquiry several times, which indicates that it is compelling, at least to him. He kept asking people whether applications like Bit Torrent allow people to consume "more bandwidth than they are paying for." Read More...
|
|
|
Distracted Driving or Distracted Policy?
Ask any police officer in any state, county or city in America and they will tell you that they have the authority to pull over any driver who is driving erratically. Failure to control your vehicle, weaving between lanes, driving too much below the posted speed and, of course, speeding, are just a handful of erratic driving behaviors that will get you pulled over and ticketed.
And it really doesn’t matter what caused the erratic driving behavior–bad driving is bad driving. Period.
So why is it that all over America state legislators have apparently surmised that the number one culprit for erratic driving behavior is–you guessed it–your cell phone!
Take Arizona, for example, where no less than four separate bills have been introduced vilifying cell phone usage as public driving enemy number one.
Read More...
|
|
|
In case you’ve forgotten recently why not so long ago many conservatives could not abide Senator John McCain, read the transcript of George Stephanopoulos’s interview with him Sunday on This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
When asked, what would differentiate a McCain Administration from that of George W. Bush, the first thing out of the Senator’s mouth was “global warming.”
STEPHANOPOULOS: “Both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama are basically saying, ‘Vote for John McCain, you're voting for a third Bush term.’”
MCCAIN: “We will wage this campaign on profound and significant philosophical difference. . .How am I different? Climate change. Climate change is an issue.”
Not only does the Senator embrace the dubious evidence of man-made global warming as scientifically sound and settled, he also reveals a remarkable misunderstanding of the basic precepts of economics when he talks about the issue. The heir presumptive to the Republican presidential nomination told Stephanopoulos that capping and trading carbon emissions would actually be beneficial economically—a new profit center for American business, as it were: Read More...
|
|
|
A perspective from the IPI Center for Technology Freedom was featured this week in Washington Internet Daily’s article, “Networks Defend Traffic Management Practices." Internet Daily cited the following statement from IPI’s Wednesday press release, “FCC Must Allow Private Companies to Manage Their Own Networks”:
"Management is a necessary part of the efficient and effective function of any network, whether that is for electricity, water or broadband," said the Institute for Policy Innovation. "Broadband networks are managed for myriad reasons -- faster Internet connections, efficient data delivery, fighting spam, preventing phishing," IPI said.
Read More...
|
|
|
The fate of this year's patent reform bill in the Senate is still unclear. The controversial legislation includes provisions stipulating how the courts are to determine damages, changes to the re-examination rules and provisions for post-grant review.
Assessing the interests lining up to support or oppose the legislation is much less difficult than figuring out the specific procedures in the bill. Big tech firms generally support the bill. Generally, high-tech ventures in biotech or nanotech, manufacturers such as Corning, pharmaceutical firms and inventors' representatives have opposed it.
Observers grant that the tech and software industries are experiencing a legitimate problem from the status quo, but that solutions proposed to mitigate software’s problems have the consequence of weakening protections crucial to biotech and pharmaceutical companies.
Read More...
|
|
|
In an article today in the Dallas Business Journal, reporter Jeff Bounds features a perspective from IPI regarding broadband network management and the net neutrality debate.
An excerpt:
Broadband carriers must be able to try different business models without regulatory interference, the Institute for Policy Innovation said Wednesday in comments filed with the Federal Communications Commission. The Dallas think tank was responding to an inquiry by the FCC into complaints that the cable company Comcast, which serves much of Tarrant and Denton county, actively interferes with file sharing by some of its customers who use the program BitTorrent. Read More...
|
|
|
A House Commerce and Energy Subcommittee chairman has announced that hearings will be held in the spring to examine the “competition and consumer privacy issues raised by mergers of Internet firms.” In other words, by Microsoft’s offer to buy Yahoo.
More spectacle, and little to no value for the public—much like what happened a decade ago at the hands of a Senate committee, which grilled Microsoft about its business practices. That 1998 hearing was prodded not by policy concerns but by Microsoft’s rivals, who lobbied well enough to convince Senate leaders that this was an issue that would get attention.
Read More...
|
|
|
It’s surprising the degree to which technology issues have NOT been a part of the presidential race.
That was not the case in 2000. Remember Al Gore “invented the Internet”? And George Bush talked a great deal about broadband deployed across the country and the many benefits of the Internet.
It’s true that technology, particularly the Internet, is being used in campaigns like never before, especially to better facilitate more immediate feedback and fundraising.
But it turns out that the technology industry and the public policy issues most important to it have thus far been all but neglected in the presidential primaries.
This is odd, of course, because our economy increasingly relies on the technology industries for growth. And, right now, our economy could use some growth.
For instance, the tax credit provided for companies who invest in research and development done in the United States was al Read More...
|
|
|
The Wireless Imaginarium of Michael Copps
In a speech earlier this week, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps outlined his vision for how the wireless phone market ought to work, as opposed to how it works today.
Of course, it's not the role of government regulators to be designing markets, in some measure because when they do typically their reach exceeds their grasp.
Commissioner Copps is decidedly unhappy that the current state of the wireless market doesn't live up to his imagined ideal of how it should work. But, in fact, a close look at Copps' address reveals that, his imagination is a government control -- FCC control -- his control, his dream. Copps simply thinks that the wireless market ought to work exactly like -- the Internet. But it ought to work like the wireless router business, too. Oh, and it also ought to work like the old monopoly wireline network used to work.
Read More...
|
|
|
Innovation Lost
The “innovation agenda,” a promised commitment to keep America globally competitive, was discussed ad naseum on Capitol Hill a year ago as various politicians tried to prove they were committed to innovation and the future of the country. It was an important discussion. However, while politicians were talking about doing something, one of our most important policy drivers of innovation was left to expire.
The research and development tax credit was allowed to expire in December . . . again. When the credit was first enacted in 1981, the United States had one of the best research tax incentive programs in the world. The credit allowed a company to receive a tax credit for a portion of its allowable expenses for research or product development performed in the U.S., with more than 75 percent of the credit dollars going toward wages for highly skilled, highly paid workers.
Read More...
|
|
|
In a new oped, IPI President Tom Giovanetti tells the Providence Journal how sports leagues are putting the “squeeze” on video providers, and even lobbying some state governments to intervene between the private companies when it comes to sports programming.
An excerpt: “MILLIONS OF PATRIOTS fans looked forward to watching them take on the New York Giants on Dec. 29, when New England completed a perfect regular season, going 16-0 for the first time in National Football League history. But, thanks to the NFL’s greed, most New England fans were nearly unable to see the game. That’s because more than half of Americans don’t get the NFL Network, which — before the NFL relented and allowed broadcast networks to air this particular game — would have been the only channel that could carry the game. Read More...
|
|
|
Who Speaks for Consumers?
Recently, a number of news stories have been complaining about the wireless industry. We are told that consumers: - Don't want long-term contracts when they sign-up for wireless phone service;
- Don't like early termination fees when they want out of their contracts;
- Don't like the fact that the Apple iPhone is only available from AT&T; and
- Need the protection of new "net neutrality" government regulations.
We are further told that the main problem is that—brace yourself—there isn't enough competition in the wireless business.
Huh?
Consumers are, in fact, inundated with advertising by wireless companies, suggesting that there is VIBRANT competition in the wireless business. Read More...
|
|
|
Frontline Wireless, a company we strongly criticized for padding its board with people politically-connected with the FCC in order to obtain favorable terms for an upcoming spectrum auction, is gone.
According to news reports,
Despite these connections, and a year spent lobbying to create a range of frequencies intended specifically for a combination of private service and public safety communications, Frontline failed in frenzied negotiations in recent weeks to find the financial backing it needed, according to a person who has been involved in the company. Read More...
|
|
|
Video franchise reform efforts are sweeping the country. As many as 18 states have either enacted legislation, or have taken regulatory action, to allow for statewide franchises to be issued to providers of video services, reforming the decades-old and antiquated city-by-city method of issuing exclusive franchise video services.
The latest state is Wisconsin, which saw a year-long battle conclude this month with passage of legislation that, in the words of former Wisconsin Public Service Commissioner Joe Mettner writing in The Capitol Times, “aims to provide consumers a choice in video service providers, and in selecting bundled packages of broadband, video and telecommunications services. Read More...
|
|
|
| In a new oped featured in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram entitled “Roughing the Cable Passer,” IPI President Tom Giovanetti says the government has no business getting involved with private business dealings between the NFL and cable providers, such as in the broadcasting of Thursday night's game between the Cowboys and Packers. “There is no role for government to intrude into the business negotiations going on between the sports networks and the video providers,” writes Giovanetti. Read More...
|
|
|
The two countries that have been most aggressive in criticizing the intellectual property regime are Brazil and Argentina.
In Geneva, at both the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), Brazil and Argentina have led the charge against patents, claiming that patents are a barrier to access to technology, both health technology and software technology.
They don't like copyright, either, but that's another blog entry.
So I'm puzzled by these news items from Nature, which Julian Morris from IPN brought to my attention:
Brazil Invests in Science and Technology
Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recently announced a US$28-billion investment package for the country's science and technology over the next three years, equivalent to 1.5 percent of Brazil's gross domestic product (GDP). The investment is a part of a federal plan to improve academic research and to counter the lack of technological innovation in the industrial sector. There have been an increasing number of scientific papers published by Brazilian researchers over the past few years. Currently, 2% of the world's scientific publications are Brazilian - ranking it 15th in the world. Nonetheless, the country is responsible for only 0.1% of all the patents registered globally each year. With the increase in budget, the government hopes to fill this gap. Read More...
|
|
|
In a new oped featured today in the San Jose Mercury News entitled "States Wrong to Hobble Internet Commerce with Taxes on Access," IPI Senior Research Fellow George Pieler discusses the changes to the Internet tax moratorium since Congress voted for its extension, and how the states may still pose a risk to consumers.
Read More...
|
|
|
IPI Director of Technology Freedom Bartlett Cleland is featured today on Forbes.com with a new oped entitled "20/20 Vision on 70/70."
In the piece, Cleland discusses how increasing government regulation by the FCC, as by invoking the 1984 Cable Act's "70/70 Rule," is not the answer to a growing marketplace.
"Nothing brings greater service and products at better prices than market competition," writes Cleland.
An Excerpt:
Industrial policy-- the idea that government, rather than private sector, knows best how a particular industry should be ordered--never seems to die, despite repeated evidence that government-controlled industries never perform as well as those left to the free market.
Read More...
|
|
|
So, the question is, do you think this guy is an Authorized Business Partner with any of the software companies he is representing on the street corner in downtown Rio de Janeiro?
I spent 20 minutes in downtown Rio on Friday afternoon, and I saw this scene replicated a half-dozen times, on a half-dozen street corners, in that brief juncture.
I also saw two examples of kiosks obviously selling counterfeit music CDs, but in both cases they were being sold side-by-side with pornography, which I wasn't inclined to post photos of on this blog. Read More...
|
|
|
Keep the Finger In the Dike at the Internet Governance Forum
Several years of experience attending meetings of various United Nations organizations, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), has made us at IPI somewhat skeptical about the potential for good policy ideas to come from these organizations.
In fact, the least harmful thing that tends to happen is to provide a forum for countries to complain, and to try to deflect the blame for their lack of development onto the developed economies of the world, rather than accepting responsibility for the development of their own economies.
Much worse is the potential of these organizations to actually have a concrete impact on public policy. Read More...
|
|
|
I mentioned in a previous blog entry that Intel and HP were cosponsors of the workshop on the need for exceptions and limitations to copyright.
In fact, at the workshop, Brad Biddle from Intel said that Intel has a "strong interest in a robust fair use and limitations regime for copyright."
We've noticed.
I have three questions for Intel, for Brad Biddle or for anyone else at Intel:
Question #1: Let's say I walk into an Intel building and announce to everyone that the public in the developing world has such a compelling interest in easy access to inexpensive computers, specifically for educational purposes, that we are going to start filing compulsory licenses on Intel technology and enlisting very low cost producers in Asia to produce chips for us, using your patents, at low cost.
Read More...
|
|
|
Yesterday the IP skeptic travelling circus was here in Rio at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), where they are suddenly experts on digital education.
Last week they were in Geneva at the World Health Organization (WHO), where they were experts on health care. A few weeks ago they were in Geneva at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), where they were experts on economic development. Curious, that.
The circus set up its tent under a banner of education, and the basic theme of the workshop was that copyright is a barrier to education, so we need exceptions and limitations to copyright for educational purposes.
It was a completely balanced panel, with everyone on the panel believing that copyright is a real problem. Geidy Lung from the WIPO international division WAS on the panel, and she did a good job on a couple of occasions of pointing out outright inaccuracies in some of the other presentations.
Read More...
|
|
|
So I'm in Rio de Janeiro attending the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) on behalf of IPI (and right-thinking persons everywhere).
I'll do several blog postings throughout the week on this interesting event.
The IGF has been well-organized logistically with a few exceptions, one of which was inexcusably noteworthy, so I'm going to document it here.
We all had to register months earlier for the IGF. So you show up at the venue, the Windsor Barra Hotel, and as soon as you walk through the entrance, you go through metal detectors.
Then, after crossing the lobby, you go through a second set of metal detectors.
Only after going through the second set of metal detectors do you get to the IGF information booth. Now, you are told that you have to go through registration to get your badge, which is fine.
"So where is registration?" I ask. I am directed to a set of exit doors. I am to go outside, in the pouring rain, and walk down the side of the building until I find the registration area. Read More...
|
|
|
The natural-law concept of individual rights as set forth originally in the United States Constitution comprised a set of self-protective claims individuals had against the national government and subsequent to the 14th Amendment against state and local governments as well. These claims are manifest in a large set of constitutional restrictions and prohibitions on government that delineate illegitimate action—some explicit (First Amendment), many implicit (Ninth Amendment)—that government may not undertake in pursuit of the general welfare or to enforce natural-rights claims of one individual against another (e.g., rights to life and property). Natural rights that individuals possess as claims against other individuals were left properly outside the Constitution for government(s) to enforce through legislative deliberation and common-law judicial decisions, all constrained by the aforementioned constitutional limits (e.g., Fifth Amendment).
Read More...
|
|
|
This is rich: China is going to tell us all how to secure the Internet this afternoon at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF).
I wonder if they are going to brag about how effectively they have cut down on all that nasty free speech and political inquiry? I wonder if they are going to tell us how they don't respect the privacy of their citizens and constantly monitor and spy on their Internet usage? Read More...
|
|
|
In a series of blog entries, I have commented on the disagreements between several new sports video channels (NFL Network, Big Ten Network, etc.) and video providers (TimeWarner, Comcast, etc.).
In one of my blog entries, I described the upcoming NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Green Bay Packers as "the day when the NFL's greed reaches the tipping point."
The points of my commentaries were as follows:
- These are private negotiations between the new channels and the video providers. There is no policy issue other than the importance of leaving this to private negotiation, and not involving government in settling the fight and picking winners and losers. Read More...
|
|
|
If news accounts and industry sources are correct, the FCC is about to abrogate thousands of contracts all over the country, in the name of slightly-enhanced competition.
It is stunning that the FCC would assert the right to wave a magic wand and obliterate thousands of perfectly legitimate contracts all over the country. As a believer in limited government, it frightens me to see a federal regulatory authority assert such a right. This is precisely the kind of regulatory behavior that has made conservatives strident critics of regulators, and has made deregulation a policy priority for anyone who believes in limited government.
And it’s particularly troubling to me to see a regulatory body that is majority Republican-appointed doing such a thing. A regulatory body that has utterly forgotten the Reagan philosophy of government.
Read More...
|
|
|
Since I wrote about the accelerated pace of action on renewing the Internet Tax Moratorium last Friday, the pace picked up even more. The Senate approved a compromise seven-year extension of the Moratorium, nicely splitting the difference between the propose four-year and 10-year extension proposals. The House is moving the Senate-passed version to beat the November 1 moratorium expiration date without any further fuss.
If so, that is what one might call 'good-ish' news. Both the House and Senate bills, as I discussed last time, further erode the class of services and situations covered by the Internet Tax Moratorium. VOIP is already fair game, and probably email too, under the extension bills now on the verge of enactment. What's more, while there is still some interest in pressing for a permanent moratorium, absolutely no one (in Congress, that is) seems interested in taking on the issue of the slow, steady erosion of the Moratorium itself. Read More...
|
|
|
Going against all odds, Sen. John Sununu is pressing the Senate to approve a permanent, federal ban on discriminatory Internet taxes, and at least he will be able to force a Senate vote on the issue in the coming days. The House has already acted, but only on another four-year extension of the internet tax ban that, give or take a few months, has been in effect since 1998. Sununu is in a little bit of a procedural box, since Sen. Tom Carper, with support from the Democratic leadership, has a secondary amendment pending that sticks with the House four-year extension.
Parliamentary magic tricks aside, there's another problem. What the House passed...and what Sununu and Carper both based their proposals on...isn't just an extension of the old Internet Tax Moratorium but a "modernized" version that narrows the definition what an Internet access tax is. Bottom line: this new version opens up a whole batch of new loopholes for state and local governments to tax, in their inimitably creative fashion. Read More...
|
|
|
American football is the coolest sport in the world. I'm a big Dallas Cowboys fan. But America's professional football league, the National Football League (NFL), has to be the greediest league of any major sport.
The NFL's greed leads them to things like speculating about holding a Super Bowl in China, depriving Americans of their championship game in order to try to crack a new market. That's long into the future.
But the NFL's greed will reach the tipping point this year, on November 29th, when the Green Bay Packers visit the Dallas Cowboys for one of the more anticipated games of the season, and more than half of Americans won't be able to watch the game.
That's because more than half of Americans don't get the new NFL Network. Read More...
|
|
|
Rural Access Robbery
If you need more proof that Federal Communications Commission (FCC) telecom regulations and rate structures are out-of-touch with the digital communications era, you only need to go to Riceville, Iowa.
As reported in The Wall Street Journal, the FCC-managed access charge scheme allowed a couple of “enterprising entrepreneurs” to exploit the regulations and rack up huge profits when they created a conference calling system that purposely routed a massive amount of conference traffic through a rural carrier solely to tap into the higher access charges mandated by the FCC for smaller rural carriers.
Read More...
|
|
|
Today was a big day at IPI, at least from an office point of view.
Today we switched over to a VoIP (Voice over IP) telephone system, which involves (among other things) changing ISPs.
Changing ISPs means temporarily disrupting your mail server, if you run your own email server, as we do.
Fortunately, we subscribe to a service called No-IP. In addition to providing spam filtering and email storage (in case of email server failure), No-IP makes DNS changes (such as the one we had to make today) easy and quick.
Within 5 minutes of changing the IP address of our mail server, our email was already flowing properly to our new IP address.
So we highly recommend No-IP. Read More...
|
|
|
Is It Time to Tax the Internet?
The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says it is if the states have their way.
State tax revenues continue to grow, but not as fast as state spending — 8.6 percent in 2007, according to The Wall Street Journal.
That means the states want to raise your taxes, and the Internet is their favorite candidate. For example:
- Governors want to tax anything you buy on the Internet.
- Others want to tax Internet access by adding a fee to your DSL bill.
- And some have even proposed taxing the emails you send.
Several years ago Congress passed a tax moratorium prohibiting states from imposing new taxes on Internet sales and access. But congressional knees are weakening.
Read More...
Is It Time to Tax the Internet? |
|
|
Somebody's finally listening!
As we have noted, the moratorium on the taxation of Internet Access is scheduled to expire on November 1st. And as we have been opining, surely Congress doesn't want credit for having raised consumers' Internet bills by potentially double digits. But today, the U.S. House voted 405-2 to extend the moratorium for another four years.
Hopefully there is still a chance that the Senate will demand a permanent extension, but the House action demonstrates that someone in Congress is finally listening to the implications of letting that moratorium expire. A win for the good guys. Read More...
|
|
|
Read Barry M. Aarons new oped today in The Hill, “Don’t Create Internet-Tax Monster”.
In the piece, Aarons discusses the economic consequences should the Internet tax moratorium expire.
Read More...
|
|
|
Do Pirates Make Money or Lose It?
Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says, it depends on whether you’re making films or stealing them.
While Pirates of the Caribbean has been a huge moneymaker for the film industry, film piracy is a huge money loser for the whole economy.
A new study from the Institute for Policy Innovation tries to calculate the impact of film piracy on jobs, income and government revenue. According to the study:
- Film piracy cost the U.S. economy about 140,000 new jobs, with two-thirds of those jobs outside of the film industry.
- That means it cost workers $5.5 billion in lost earnings.
- And film piracy cost the government nearly $840 million in lost revenue.
Read More...
Do Pirates Make Money or Lose It? |
|
|
This image is circulating a bit under the radar on a few Marxist listservs. In fairness, it's a joke.
But the reason someone went to the trouble of creating this image is because they really think that something like this, if not to this degree, is what broadband companies want to do. They probably don't think that broadband companies would ever go to this degree, but secretly, when broadband guys go out for drinks after work and let their hair down, this is the kind of think they talk about that they'd REALLY like to do--limit customers options.
If you click here, a larger version of the graphic should load.
Read More...
|
|
|
Read George Pieler and Jens Laurson’s new oped appearing today on CNET.
In the piece, the author duo discusses how members of the European Parliament have moved to cap roaming charges for their mobile phone usage throughout the Continent.
Say George and Jens:
This is convenient for those who travel and chat a lot, but it's not actually good for the majority of consumers or the long-term health of the telecom industry.
Read More...
|
|
|
While reading the Wall Street Journal's editorial on the flap over wiretapping, I noticed a passing reference to the now well-understood fact that long distance telephony can be switched for any call, at any place and in any direction. Acall from Peshawar, Pakistan, to Beirut, Lebanon, might easily travel over a fiber-optic cable that passes through the United States.
What occurred to me is that telephone switching (as in distribution and transmission) is obviously no longer of intra-state concern. Ergo, we should seriously look at state public utility commissions jurisdiction as a relic of the past.
Do state PUC's really have any business engaging in regulation of distribution and transmission of exchange service? Are digital communications geographically confined within any political jurisdiction?
In a digital environment the answer is clearly no. Read More...
|
|
|
When is the last time anyone saw a "reach out and touch someone" advertisement from AT&T touting their long distance services? [And the under thirty group responds, "What is long distance service?"]
The FCC has now caught up to what the rest of America has known for over a decade. The segmentation of local and long distance services in wireline is not necessary.
The FCC has announced that the former Bell companies no longer have to maintain artificial distinctions and firewalls between their long-distance operations and their main operations.
Hooray. It's about time.
The truth is that there are more wireless subscribers in America than wireline (have been since the end of 2004 and the separation is growing!) and virtually all of those wireless callers have calling plans that do not differentiate between calls based on distance.
Read More...
|
|
|
Barry Aarons’ letter to the editor appears today in USA Today in response to an article published August 23, “Handcuffs Chafe Wireless Users.”
In "More Government Regulation Stifles Wireless Programs," while consumers complain about restrictive “handcuffs” on their wireless handsets based on wireless provider services, Aarons reminds them:
…The return on the investments made by the network providers such as AT&T, Sprint and Alltel is what enables the dynamic research, development and deployment of future wireless service.
Competition, not regulation, will determine advances in the wireless market, says Aarons.
Read More...
|
|
|
Tonight, at the closing dinner of the PFF Aspen Summit, the speaker was Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google.
Schmidt gave a frankly unimaginative speech, though it is always a great opportunity to hear the Chairman of a major tech company talking to a tech and policy crowd.
Surprisingly (or perhaps not surprisingly), during Schmidt's speech he said nothing about intellectual property, and he stressed repeatedly the important responsibility of tech companies to do everything possible to preserve the critical freedom of speech.
I thought Schmidt got off easy during the Q and A period. I thought there were any number of tough questions that could and should have been asked, particularly by the PFF crowd.
So I raised my hand several times to ask a question, but also several times thought better of it and lowered my hand. Because I was in the back of the room, it wasn't easy for the fine folks with the microphones to see me.
So here is what I wanted to ask Eric Schmidt tonight: Read More...
|
|
|
I'm in Aspen, Colorado (I know, you hate me now) attending the annual Aspen Summit, which is sponsored by the Progress & Freedom Foundation. If you're not familiar with the Summit, it's a conference on technology policy, digital policy, and innovation.
First speaker this morning was the renouned Harvard economist Dale Jorgenson, who went through a very interesting presentation on the information economy, describing the composition of the "tech bubble," but more importantly, identifying the sources of productivity growth in the economy.
You can get a copy of Dr. Jorgenson's presentation here.
The exciting conclusion (at least to economists) of Jorgenson's presentation was his conclusion that the economy is capable of 2.9% economic growth, long-term.
Now, 2.9% economic growth is not exactly an exciting figure. Read More...
|
|
|
Story in today's Wall Street Journal on how municipal wireless network projects around the country are running 30% or more over budget, and finding that demand from consumers is softer than expected.
That is, of course, because their expectations were akin to expecting that the Sugar Plum Fairy would show up and sprinkle their houses with lemon pixiedust and strawberry gumdrops.
I do not "hate to say 'We told you so'." No, in fact with riotous mirth and glee I say "We told you so."
Economic problems result when people stop thinking of things as goods and begin to think of things as "rights." So long as things are "goods," we recognize that some people value a particular good, while others do not. So we distribute goods through markets. If someone values a particular good, they will be willing to pay for it. If they don't value a particular good, they choose not to pay for it, or at least they buy less of it. Read More...
|
|
|
Several years ago, the federal government decided that analog television signals were taking up too much valuable spectrum, so the feds decided to force TV broadcasters to move their signals to digital by February 17, 2009. Because digital broadcast allows spectrum to be more efficiently used, this would free up large chunks of spectrum to be used for other purposes, such as expanding wireless networks.
It is estimated that there are 20 million soon-to-be-obsolete TV sets in homes where people don't subscribe to either satellite or cable.
On that date, if you are one of those homes and you still trying to pick up TV signals with an analog television, your screen will go dark, or perhaps be tuned to a permanent public service announcement explaining what happened.
Read More...
|
|
|
In June Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR) said "The [software] industry has failed in self-regulating. It's time to step in and enact serious consequences against those who use this invasive and deceptive practice." He then introduced legislation that would make it illegal for companies to install spyware on PCs without consent. He apparently believes that one more law would cause bad guys to change their ways.
This would be a bit like saying that the banking industry is not regulated because robberies still exist or that retail outlets are not regulated enough because shoplifting occurs.
Read More...
|
|
|
I've been troubled by the International Trade Commission (ITC)'s intrusion into a patent dispute between Qualcomm and Broadcom.
A jury found in Broadcom's favor and awarded Broadcom damages. But then the ITC issued an exclusion order banning the import of handsets containing the disputed chips.
My view has been that it is illegitimate for the ITC to essentially do an end-run around the legal process and issue an injunction. That is not a commentary on the merits of either Qualcomm's or Broadcom's cases; it's simply a commentary on process.
ITC does have within its mission handling certain patent disputes which involve imported goods. But this dispute was already working its way through the U.S. court system, and Broadcom took it to the ITC as well, as an end-around the legal process.
Read More...
|
|
|
The Wall Street Journal's most compelling columnist, Holman W. Jenkins, has done it again.
Today, Jenkins has almost completely nailed Google's machinations to use the power of the federal government to preserve its business share and market power by re-regulating wireline telecom and by, for the first time, regulating wireless.
This is all being done for the financial interests of the Google corporation.
Jenkins details Google's attempt, and apparently Kevin Martin's acquiescence, to having the FCC set new rules for the 700Mhz auction that reduce the value of the spectrum and force whoever owns the spectrum to give Google defacto free access to the spectrum.
Make no mistake: Google understands that restricting a wireless operator's ability to design its own business model can, by definition, only reduce its incentive to invest. But Google has bigger fish to fry. It wants to make sure it can continue to free-ride on your broadband subscription bills, even in the mobile world. It wants to make sure it won't have to share the proceeds of its massive search and advertising dominance with suppliers of network capacity. Read More...
|
|
|
I'm really pleased to see Cal Thomas' column today explaining some of the things wrong with the new campaign to force video companies to offer ala carte pricing.
There is NO--repeat, NO--economic justification for having the government force cable companies to offer ala carte pricing. Everyone who looks at the economics of ala carte understands that many, many channels go away in a world of ala carte pricing.
No, it's not economics that is driving this--it's concern about offensive content that is driving this, and a misguided thought that, if I object to a particular kind of content, like MTV, not only should I be able to block the channel but I should somehow be able to make sure that none of my money ends up with MTV or with their parent company.
Read More...
|
|
|
It has always been a bit strange to me that in the United States the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) administer unequal standards for protection of commercially valuable, and sensitive, clinical dossiers associated with applications for marketing approval for agro-chemical products vs. pharmaceutical products. Now it looks like at least the Senate may recognize the need to equalize data exclusivity periods for biologics.
In the case of agro-chemicals, the EPA currently provides a full ten years of protection (and the U.S. Trade Representative has negotiated similar terms with most trading partners in free trade talks). During this period, no one but the right holder is entitled to rely on the data submitted in support of the initial application for marketing approval. Read More...
|
|
|
Someone in the U.S. government has finally applied the brakes to the network neutrality proponents' juggernaut. The primary reason for caution is simply that we do not know what the net effects of potential conduct by broadband providers will be on all consumers, including, among other things, the prices that consumers may pay for Internet access, the quality of Internet access and other services that will be offered, and the choices of content and applications that may be available to consumers in the marketplace. So says the newly released FTC report on network neutrality. They're right. No one really knows what the ultimate effects on consumers or providers would be and therein lies the key. Read More...
|
|
|
"French President Nicolas Sarkozy caused a stir (several stirs, actually) when he insisted that the new European treaty -- what some call 'constitution-lite' -- delete classic references to the primacy of unfettered competition as a governing principle of economic policy. Sarkozy also got language included that many read as a boost to trade protection for Europe, which is something he campaigned on in the recent French election.
Now, "competition policy" in Europe is broadly what we call antitrust in the States. It refers to regulatory oversight of the fairness of business practices in competing, undue market shares, and business combinations deemed unduly large or fundamentally monopolistic in nature. So, if the European Union really is backing off of "open competition" as a regulatory goal, why doesn't it drop the Microsoft case?
Read More...
|
|
|
The headline reads "Google fights global Internet censorship," but when you read the article, you realize that Google thinks it's perfectly fine to cooperate with Communist China to censor its content so that there are no discussions of "freedom," or "democracy."
What gets Google REALLY upset, however, is when a country blocks access to Google's advertisements.
Google sees the dramatic increase in government Net censorship, particularly in Asia and the Middle East, as a potential threat to its advertising-driven business model, and wants government officials to consider the issue in economic, rather than just political, terms.
So much for "Don't Be Evil."
Read More...
|
|
|
A news story is crossing the wire today that Maine is the first state to pass a bill on net neutrality.
Proponents of net neutrality are spinning this as a legislative victory for net neutrality.
Don't believe it.
What passed is a bill instructing the Maine Public Advocate to study the issue and issue a report.
In fact, the original net neutrality legislation in Maine FAILED. This bill, which doesn't even mention the phrase "net neutrality," replaced it.
Here is Common Cause admitting that their favored bill failed in Maine.
Don't believe the hype. Apparently the Maine legislature, like the legislatures of Michigan, Maryland, and the U.S. Congress, is too smart to be hoodwinked by the misleading rhetoric, hype, and dishonesty behind the "Save the Internet" mob. Read More...
|
|
|
In the Bible the "Good Samaritan" became known as “good” because he helped a man who had recently been assaulted and robbed by providing for his care with his own money – in other words provided aid immediately and in the future without any expectation of a return. The spyware legislation potentially moving through Congress currently turns this notion on its head – instead of encouraging would be “good Samaritans” it instead protects “Samaritans” from the consequences of their inequitable, and often self-serving, acts.
Examples already exist of those that would gain greater protection for their bad acts and one recently came to light, as recently posted on the spamnotes blog:
Read More...
|
|
|
Number 4.21
May 31, 2007
“Piddle twiddle and resolve, not one darn thing do we solve” said John Adams of Congress in the Broadway musical “1776”. And while this may be true of broadband policy in Congress, not so in the state legislatures.
The list of states acting for consumer choice and robust competition in video is getting longer all the time.
- Missouri’s SB 284 sponsored by Senator John Greisheimer and signed on March 22nd by Governor Matt Blunt . . .
- Florida’s HB 529 sponsored by Representative Trey Traviesa and signed on May 18th by Governor Charlie Crist . . .
- Iowa’s SF 554 sponsored by Senator Roger Stewart and signed on May 29th by Governor Chet Culver . . . Read More...
|
|
|
I just attended the Cable Show (http://www.thecableshow.com/), and touring the floor, having the future described to me by one small business after another it occurred to me that many of these businesses would simply cease to exist under virtually any "net neutrality" regime. Many of the demonstrators were companies with technologies to improve advertising or broadband infrastructure providers including many utilizing compression technology.
The long and short of it -- many of these companies exist because they have invented ways or sell products to help networks become more efficient in the delivery of a variety of products at the same time. In other words, these products are designed to preference some material over other material -- a function that we all use without knowing it everyday that would be made illegal by those who want to bring massive government regulation to the Internet. Read More...
|
|
|
From the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI)
Number 4.17
May 3, 2007
A Crisis in Food Safety, but What about Drug Safety?
Congress can learn something from the growing crisis over the safety of pet food—if it only will.
Chinese companies have been adding an industrial chemical to animal food known as melamine, which can apparently break down into a toxin that forms crystals in the kidneys and kill animals.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials, who are charged with maintaining food safety, are saying the agency simply does not have enough resources to closely monitor all of the foreign food and supplements entering the U.S.
Read More...
|
|
|
My friend Alec Van Gelder from the International Policy Network in London has a very good piece in today's Wall Street Journal on efforts by the E.U. to impose net neutrality regulations on European broadband providers.
(For print readers, it's in the Business Europe section.)
In the U.S., we realized that forcing network builders and owners to turn their property over to the "commons" and essentially treating it as publically owned infrastructure was wrong and counterproductive, and was stifling the rollout of broadband. And we've changed our policies in the last few years, resulting in a dramatic increase in the construction and extension of new broadband networks.
But the E.U. seems to be heading in the opposite direction:
The EU's attitude to investment and innovation in telecoms is revealed in its current dispute with Deutsche Telekom over the former monopoly's right to control new infrastructure of its own. Read More...
|
|
|
I was wondering the other day whether a person can ever have enough bandwidth, and it led me inexorably back to net neutrality.
It's certainly not an original insight that applications have continually expanded to fill available storage space. Sure, hard drives have become both fast and huge, and we now have "plenty" of storage in our laptops and on our desktops. But as more space became affordable, operating systems and office suites expanded as well. You thought a 60 GB hard drive was huge. Then we started storing music, and then photos, and then storing and editing video on our hard drives, and before you know it a 300 GB hard drive isn't enough.
For instance, on my living room server, I have continually had to add external hard drives to the point where I'm using 4 external 300 GB firewire hard drives, in addition to two onboard hard drives, resulting in over 1.5 TB of storage. And it still isn't enough . . .
Read More...
|
|
|
IPI's Barry M. Aarons had the following op/ed in today's Tallahassee Democrat:
Do what state Rep. Trey Traviesa proposes and Floridians could see more investment coming into the state, more jobs and a wider variety of choices for video subscribers. The Tampa Republican's idea (HB 529) is to get rid of video franchising by municipalities - such as Comcast here in Tallahassee - and to turn instead to a streamlined, simplified state franchising system. This would recognize what 11 other states already have, that the conditions that led to the old cable systems just do not exist anymore. Read More...
|
|
|
From the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI)
Number 4.08
March 1, 2007
Over the years there have been many attempts to ensure communications interoperability for state and local emergency first responders such as police, fire, and ambulance services. But coordinating so many disparate organizations has proven consistently daunting, and no progress was made until a solution was proposed at the federal level.
That was in 2005, when the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 contained a provision allocating the recovery of 24MHz for public safety and emergency services communications. With this spectrum in hand, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) began the process of implementing a federally-coordinated solution for emergency communications interoperability, and was mandated by Congress to complete the task by February 17, 2009. Read More...
|
|
|
In a letter published in the Kansas City Star, IPI's Barry M. Aarons reveals how the Missouri Public Service Commission is attempting to regulate certain VoIP services over others. Such regulation is bad for consumer choice and prices.
Internet voice service The Missouri Public Service Commission is wrong as it moves to regulate new technologies, thus harming advances in technology, service to customers and state competition. The commission’s opinion is that an Internet voice product being offered by Comcast should be heavily regulated while other similar voice products are not. The Federal Communications Commission has already declared that state regulation of Internet voice products was pre-empted by federal authority. Read More...
|
|
|
Here's the kind of people we now have running the legislative branch of the country. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-Delusion) thinks what we need in communications is MORE regulation, not less:
"I love the free market, but the fact is more concentration means less competition, and these markets are less free than they should be. And this Commission is about regulation -- regulators. I always worry a little when I hear regulators shy away from regulation talk."
Dorgan uses the juvenile and dishonest rhetorical device of pledging false allegiance to an idea on his way to trashing it.
He "loves free markets," but the path to free markets lies through more vigorous and intrusive regulation?
Dorgan doesn't have a clue what a free market is, apparently. And he is ignoring all the lessons learned over the past 30 years about all of the markets that have been freed through DEregulation. Read More...
|
|
|
| The following op/ed appeared on American.com, a publication of the American Enterprise Institute. Milton Friedman, Technology Maven By Jens F. Laurson and George A. Pieler Tuesday, February 13, 2007 Milton Friedman lives on, despite his demise: he’s the rightful patron saint of blogging. In the market of ideas, blogs fulfill the revolutionary promise of information technology. They enable anyone with enough digits and internet access to publish their thoughts, articles, essays, rants, and babble to a potentially unlimited readership. The unregulated nature of on-line publishing (China’s best efforts notwithstanding) has brought forth a dazzling quantity and array of thought-forums from which readers can chose. Read More...
|
|
|
From the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI)
Number 4.06
February 15, 2007
Who Should Determine What's on TV?
A few weeks ago, Free Press, a politically-liberal "media reform" group, held its National Conference for Media Reform. Rarely have so many been so sure that they know best what should be on television or the radio.
Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich said that his new House Government Reform subcommittee would focus on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and
"hold hearings to push media reform right at the center of Washington.”
What is driving Kucinich?
"We know the media has become the servant of a very narrow corporate agenda,"
he said, Read More...
|
|
|
IPI's Director of the Center for Technology Freedom Bartlett Cleland has an op/ed in today's Hill newspaper focusing on some of the most pressing concerns in the world of technology and public policy, such as global broadband, copyright, child safety and a handful of Web 2.0 issues. The op/ed comes the day before one of Washington's premiere tech conferences known as the "State of the Net" conference (sponsored by the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee)
Cleland challenges our nation's leaders to understand the importance of getting technology issues right for economic security reasons and to guarantee that our civil rights are not eroded electronically:
Read More...
|
|
|
Will the President address technology or telecom issues in his State of the Union Speech tonight? Probably not, says IPI's Bartlett Cleland in an article in today's E-Commerce Times.
"If you think back to the last several addresses, going back through the Clinton administration -- if you take all the tech conversation from the last 14 or so State of the Unions and put it all together, you wouldn't even get enough for a single speech," Cleland told the E-Commerce Times.
There will most likely be issues that could be important to the tech community discussed in the speech and the Democratic response, Cleland noted. For instance, it's almost certain that Bush will mention immigration policy, but likely without addressing the part of that policy that affects tech businesses. Read More...
|
|
|
From the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI)
Number 4.02
January 18, 2007
By now it is well known that the web search company Google is behind the massive "net neutrality" campaign. Based on the fear that consumers will be harmed if telecom and cable companies negotiate preferential arrangements to certain customers, the net neutrality campaign seeks legislation and regulation that would reduce Internet providers to a “dumb pipes” existence and would preclude them trying to provide value-added services to their customers.
There are any number of arguments against network neutrality regulations, and we’ve made them in the past. But what’s of most interest to us today is the hypocrisy of Google in the net neutrality campaign, arguing that other companies should not be allowed to do the very things that Google is already doing. Read More...
|
|
|
Nice finish, Verizon.
In several previous blog entries I've been documenting the details of the Verizon FiOS rollout in my rural town.
We've been living with the service for several weeks now, and I'm planning to describe in detail how pleased we are with the service and bandwidth.
But this entry is simply meant to point out what I think is true class on the part of Verizon.
For the last two years, as I have spoken and given testimony on the importance of states lowering barriers to video competition, time and time again opponents have talked about the need for local control of the franchise process in order to protect the interests of their citizens. Read More...
|
|
|
The hotel taxers are at it again. This time it's the local tax authorities in Belleville, IL. But it's been an issue in many states across the U.S. including Texas, Florida, New York, and Georgia.
In an op/ed today in the Belleville News-Democrat, IPI's Director of Technology Bartlett Cleland reveals why this tax is "ludicrous":
"Suppose you were to find a great back-to-school sale on jeans for your kids -- $20, reduced from $25 -- but the taxman demands you pay the sales tax on $25." "Or how about this: Hard times forces your company to reduce your salary from $50,000 to $40,000, but the tax collector demands income tax on the whole $50K." What is going on? Read More...
|
|
|
Suppose you were to find a great back-to school-sale on jeans for your kids — only $20, reduced from $25 — but the taxman demands you pay the sales tax on $25.
Or how about this: Hard times forces your company to reduce your salary from $50,000 to $40,000, but the tax collector demands income tax on the whole $50K. What is going on?
Thousands of Americans negotiate lower prices for hotel rooms by going to online hotel-booking companies such as Hotels.com and Travelocity.com. They pay for the room, along with the various state and city taxes for that negotiated price, and everyone is happy, right?
Wrong.
Several jurisdictions are considering taking a case to court to force those hotel-booking Internet companies to pay the occupancy tax on the “retail” room cost, rather than what people actually pay.
Read More...
|
|
|
I've been posting some comments and photos showing those who are curious what the whole process looks like. I've blogged about the process of bringing the fiber to your home, and I've posted pictures of what the equipment looks like. Today's installment focuses on what went before all of that, going back about 9 months when my neighborhood began to first show signs of the impending FiOS rollout.
Warning: It's conduit-heavy. Perhaps not as interesting as previous posts (which perhaps were not themselves terribly interesting).
But there are pictures! Read More...
|
|
|
Now that the FCC general counsel has ruled that Commissioner Robert McDowell can step in and break the 2-2 stalemate on the Bell South/AT&T merger even though he had earlier recused himself, perhaps the FCC will end this painful ordeal of competing special interest groups, concur with the Justice Department, and issue its approval.
In such proceedings the FCC too frequently is used as a glorified debating society for special interests, and frankly this has no place in the merger approval process. Using the merger approval process to promote unrelated policy objectives only harms the industry and does nothing to protect competition or consumer interests.
If the Justice Department (which is responsible for enforcement of U.S. antitrust laws) has found no reason to hold up the merger then Read More...
|
|
|
From the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI)
Number 3.46
December 14, 2006
May the Ghost of the Economy Future Yet to Come Visit Washington
Washington, DC shows every evidence of still being haunted by the past economy, huddling under the sheets to hide from the economy future.
Everyone recognizes that the main driver of our economy is the technology industry, yet politicians continue to play to the industries that are the hallmarks of yesterday’s economy, in some cases outright disadvantaging our future economy.
Consider just two of the many available examples – Government understanding of technology, and a rusty old tax code that all but invites future economy to leave the US.
Read More...
|
|
|
More on Michigan's telecom legislation.
Apparently when the franchise reform bill (HB6456) was under consideration in the Michigan legislature, Senator Patty Birkholtz was prepared to offer a net neutrality amendment but decided not to do so. And, according to a letter that Governor Jennifer Granholm sent to Google cofounder, Larry Page, she will sign the bill as is without holding it hostage to the net neutrality issue.
Granholm suggested that the net neutrality issue be dealt with in its own right in legislation next year but my guess is that if they had the votes they would have attached it to HB6456. So the net neutrality issue failed this time, but unfortunately is not yet dead in Michigan.
Read More...
|
|
|
The Michigan Legislature has now passed municipal franchise reform making them the eleventh state to take such action (Louisiana also passed a bill but Governor Blanco vetoed it!). This trend continues to demonstrate that the states are more effective and efficient in getting reform legislation done in a timely manner.
Congress had their chance last year but diddled away the opportunity by getting bogged down in the net neutrality debate. The prospects for Congressional action on franchise reform is dim for the coming year. But that may be all right given the movement of the states on the issue. Read More...
|
|
|
In an earlier blog entry I began describing the details of the rollout of Verizon's high-speed FiOS service to my rural town of Copper Canyon, Texas, and the details of my home installation.
Remember, FiOS is fiber-to-the-home (FTTH). Amazing.
Anyway, just 7 days after the phone call when I signed up, and only 4 days after Verizon trenched and laid fiber about 925' to my house, the installation crew came out to complete installation to my home.
That's very impressive and quick installation.
Problem was, I was in London at the time. I was just sure it would all go horribly with me not around to tell them where I wanted equipment mounted and to help them configure the router. But it all went swimmingly.
Care for a photo tour?
Read More...
|
|
|
From the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI)
Number 3.45
December 7, 2006
Do We Still Need Universal Service?
Unlike the rollout of most other technologies, when electricity and telephone service were rolled out to the nation, government programs were created to make sure that everyone had access to these critical technologies. In the telephone world, this commitment is called “universal service.”
The idea of universal service was promulgated in the days when a single telephone company served the nation. Their slogan was "one system, one policy, universal service." In order to achieve universal service, a complicated system of cross-subsidies was created. Read More...
|
|
|
I live in a fairly rural town in Denton County, Texas called Copper Canyon.
From a telecom standpoint, Copper Canyon is served by Verizon. But, up to now, neither cable nor DSL have been offered in Copper Canyon. I've always gotten a kick out of mentioning in testimony and op/eds that I live in a "historically underserved" area.
In fact, until about 3 years ago, I was still using ISDN at home to get the fastest Internet service available in our area. I was told by a local Verizon technician that I was probably the last person in Texas still using ISDN . . . but it's the best we could do.
About a year ago we were told that Copper Canyon was on the list for buildout of Verizon's FiOS fiber-to-the-home system. Ever since, I've been chomping at the bits to get FiOS installed in my home.
Read More...
|
|
|
Back on October 27th, I did a very sarcastic blog entry on the CEA's new "Digital Freedom Campaign." In my blog posting, I noted the presence of:
an African-American man with a rope tied around my hands, designed to evoke uncomfortable historical images of slavery and bondage.
Well, he's gone now. Only Bag Girl and Duct Tape Guy remain.
Good move. Read More...
|
|
|
From the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI)
Number 3.43
November 16, 2006
A Nation of Laws—Or Corporate Pardons?
On October 20, the 11th Circuit, United States Court of Appeals issued a permanent injunction against EchoStar Communications for illegally retransmitting local broadcast network signals. Breaking this law (Title 17 of the US Code) requires the “death penalty”—that the violator can no longer send a signal to anyone receiving a “distant network signal” (people outside of a certain broadcast radius of a market). This permanent injunction takes effect December 1, 2006.
This means that on December 1, EchoStar (DISH Network) will have to cut off distant network programming to 850,000 customers. And those customers aren’t going to like it.
Read More...
|
|
|
Tony Healy writes:
A FOSS project has run into trouble precisely because a commercial firm argues that the FOSS project's free provision of their source code invalidates any claim to copyright. The commercial firm's lawyer argues that the only valid recourse available to the FOSS project is under contract law, not copyright.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/13/238201 Read More...
|
|
|
From the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI)
Number 3.42
November 9, 2006
Consumers Benefitting from Communications Competition
For decades, deregulation opponents predicted the devastating effect that divestiture and deregulation would have and yet, the market place has once again proved that competition inevitably accrues to the consumers’ benefit—in a big way and a recently released study by Microeconomic Consulting and Research Associates, Inc. (MiCRA) concurs.
With cable lines accessible to almost 99% of all U.S. households, and as a result of deregulation, cable companies are competing aggressively with telecom companies for voice service.
Read More...
|
|
|
From the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI)
Number 3.41
November 2, 2006
Google the Term "Hypocrite"
In January of this year, the search engine company Google negotiated an arrangement with wireless phone manufacturer Motorola to "integrate a Google icon onto select devices so that users can connect directly to Google anytime, anywhere at the click of a button."
Sounds good to us. Sounds an awful lot like two companies trying to please consumers and doing so through the right of contract.
In February, Google did the same thing with Sony Ericsson,Read More...
|
|
|
In another IP enforcement case, a 23 year-old is going to prison for providing infringing works to a BitTorrent site. Now, it is truly heart-rending to see such a young person go to prison, at least Read More...
|
|
|
I have nothing against free and open source software (FOSS). My belief has always been that if people want to freely band together and put a lot of work and creativity into a valuable product and then Read More...
|
|
|
The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has announced the new Digital Freedom Campaign.
Now, who could possibly be opposed to so such a warm, fuzzy thing like "digital freedom"?
But digital freedom shouldn't mean the right to steal digital content, any more than "financial freedom" doesn't mean the right to steal money. Read More...
|
|
|
So, last night my wife says to me, "Hey, come over here and tell me what this is on my computer." I looked where she was pointing on her laptop, and she was pointing to a new button that had appeare Read More...
|
|
|
We've been told for months now by consumer groups and by some of our politicians in Washington that what consumers want from cable is "ala carte" pricing--in other words, they want to be able to pay for the channels they want, and they don't want to have to pay for channels that they don't want. I Read More...
|
|
|
Some weeks ago I wrote an op/ed in the San Jose Mercury News where I posited a future where critical applications over the Internet were not dependable because of net neutrality regulations. Specifi Read More...
|
|
|
I did an interview a couple of weeks ago with a reporter from KERA, the public radio station in Dallas, and the story ran last week. Here's a transcript. A representative quote: Tom Giovanetti, Institute for Policy Innovation: The one thing that we've learned from the Internet is that content is k Read More...
|
|
|
Today the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a Naderite, left-leaning consumer group, has released a study called "Following the Money (II): The Role of Intermediaries in Adware Advertising." It's really not a big deal to anyone, probably other than to CDT and to some of the companies men Read More...
|
|
|
I sure hate to see such nuttiness as this in The Hill, but I'm growing accustomed to reading nutty op/eds on the topic of net neutrality, which is turning out to be an inherently nutty issue. The Hi Read More...
|
|
|
I have a rather hard-hitting op/ed in today's San Jose Mercury News opposing network neutrality regulations. Here's the text, for when the link goes down. Network neutrality? Welcome to the stupid Read More...
|
| |
Home
Author: Tom Giovanetti || Location: Lewisville, Texas, USA