Sept 21, 2009 (Network Neutrality)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY SEPTEMBER 21, 2009
Our busy week begins in Austin with a FCC National Broadband Plan field hearing -- but there's lots more. http://bit.ly/KkKuI
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
President Defends Health Care Reform In Broadcast Blitz
The Presidential Records Act of 1978 meets web-based social media of 2009
Update on the Trusted Internet Connections Initiative
INTERNET/BROADBAND
The Internet is proof that government doesn't bungle everything
Obama Opening Door To Technology Innovators
FCC Seeks to Protect Free Flow of Internet Data
FCC 'Net Neutrality' Rules Expected to Advance on Vote
'Incumbents Do Not Have a Veto!'
Perusing BTOP Apps: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
FCC Seeks Comment on Broadband Access for People with Disabilities
How valuable is broadband to you?
The broadband numbers racket
Rural Cable Providers Chase $1.3 Billion in Broadband Stimulus
With Broadband, Quality Should Trump Penetration
POLICYMAKERS
Wilson: multiplatform, locally-focused, noncommercial media can fill journalistic vacuum
Heat over FCC hires
Staff Changes for FCC Commissioner McDowell
Taking Stock Of Two Now At The Top (NAB & YVB)
TELECOM
Verizon Boss Hangs Up on Landline Phone Business
Apple and Google tell the FCC different stories about Google Voice
'Social' phones to reveal all about your caller
TELEVISION/RADIO
Former FCC Commissioners Weigh In On Profanity Issue
DTV woes still abound
CONTENT
Google Working to Revise Digital Books Settlement
US urges court to reject Google book deal
Heirs file claims to Marvel heroes
MORE ONLINE ...
World's talent opts to leave USA
How standards will shape the grid
Newspapers Have Not Hit Bottom, Analysts Say
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
PRESIDENT DEFENDS HEALTH CARE REFORM IN BROADCAST BLITZ
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Ceci Connolly, Michael Shear]
President Obama sought to blanket the airwaves with an impassioned defense of his health-care reform effort Sunday during back-to-back broadcasts of taped interviews on five morning news programs. In interviews conducted Friday in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, President Obama acknowledged being "humbled" by the challenge of "breaking through" in the complicated and emotional battle over health-care reform. The president's talk show grand slam, conversations with CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS and Univision was a remarkable — and remarkably overt — display of media management. No other president has been a guest on so many Sunday talk shows at once, which signaled how much President Obama wanted to reclaim the health care debate and persuade skeptics that his plans would not increase taxes on the middle class. But for so well-spoken and confident a president, the lack of spontaneity on Sunday was striking. So was the homogeneity: President Obama appeared on Univision, but he drew the line at Fox. Chris Wallace of "Fox News Sunday" bemoaned the presidential slight, asking, "Whatever happened to reaching out to all Americans?" He told Bill O'Reilly that the White House aides were "a bunch of crybabies." Apparently, the feeling is mutual. "We figured Fox would rather show 'So You Think You Can Dance' than broadcast an honest discussion about health insurance reform," a White House deputy press secretary told ABC News on Saturday. "Fox is an ideological outlet where the president has been interviewed before and will likely be interviewed again; not that the whining particularly strengthens their case for participation any time soon."
http://benton.org/node/28034
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THE PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT OF 1978 MEETS WEB-BASED SOCIAL MEDIA OF 2009
[SOURCE: The White House, AUTHOR: Macon Phillips]
[Commentary] Recently, we have seen a few stories questioning how the Presidential Records Act (PRA) intersects with Americans' use of modern social media, like Facebook and Twitter, to communicate with the White House. The PRA was written in 1978. It doesn't have a section on email. But everyone agrees that these electronic communications meet the Act's broad definition of presidential records, and that the White House is legally required to preserve them. The emergence of social media has created new forms of communication. Instead of sending an email, people often now post on someone's profile or comment on a video or photo that's been uploaded. When people want to tell the White House what they think, they'll often do the same thing on our social media pages.
http://benton.org/node/28006
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UPDATE ON THE TRUSTED INTERNET CONNECTIONS INITIATIVE
[SOURCE: The White House, AUTHOR: Federal CIO Vivek Kundra]
In November 2007, OMB announced the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) Initiative to optimize individual agency network services into a common solution for the Federal government. Agencies were required to develop and submit comprehensive Plans of Action and Milestones (POA&Ms) to reduce and consolidate the number of external access points, including Internet connections; and ensure that all external connections are routed through an OMB-approved TIC. Now agencies are asked to update and report formal Plans of Action and Milestones (POA&Ms) to the Department of Homeland Security by September 25, 2009, and provide updated status to DHS every six months thereafter, until completed.
http://benton.org/node/28005
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
THE INTERNET IS PROOF THAT GOVERNMENT DOESN'T BUNGLE EVERYTHING
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Michael Hiltzik]
Since it's so fashionable these days to question whether government can do anything right -- whether it's regulating banks, bolstering the economy or overseeing healthcare -- it's worth noting that we're about to celebrate the 40th anniversary of one of the most important federal initiatives of our time. The event was the launch of the Internet, which we date from Oct. 29, 1969, when a refrigerator-sized special-purpose computer in Leonard Kleinrock's engineering lab at UCLA transmitted its first message to a twin machine in Menlo Park, Calif. (The message was the first two letters of the command "Login.") That was the first exchange over what was then known as the ARPAnet, which evolved, after many intermediate steps, into what we know today as the Internet. Former-Pentagon research official Robert W. Taylor believes that, despite the Web's successful commercialization, it may be time for the government to play a stronger role. The corporations making billions of dollars from the Web haven't done their part to build up its capacity, so a shortage looms as customers increasingly use the network for bandwidth-hogging tasks like downloading movies. Instead, service providers are plotting to profiteer from the bandwidth scarcity by hiking user fees. "The telecommunications industry has promised us for years that if we only let them raise prices and do mergers, they'd increase bandwidth," Taylor said this week. "They haven't kept their promise." He thinks the proper model for the Internet, given its critical role in our lives today, is as a taxpayer-supported service available to everybody, rich or poor, at no charge. Both notions spring from his experience witnessing the interaction of government and private enterprise. What he learned then he still believes. "The idea that private industry can always do something better than the government is false and sad and divisive," Taylor observed at the University of Texas event. "People should know better."
http://benton.org/node/28032
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OBAMA OPENING DOOR TO TECHNOLOGY INNOVATORS
[SOURCE: InformationWeek, AUTHOR: Michael Hickins]
[Commentary] Big businesses like Verizon and AT&T might be gnashing their teeth about the Obama Administration's policies and priorities, but small businesses and innovators should be rubbing their hands with glee. After almost nine months of anticipating presidential appointments and confirmations, the likes of new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski have finally gotten down to work, and while there haven't been any significant reforms yet, the still-new Administration is sending signals that changes are finally afoot. Health care reform may or may not get bogged down in Congress, but federal agencies are beginning to put an Obama stamp in several other critical areas, from the wireless market to broadband penetration. The most visible example thus far is the broadband stimulus package, which gives the National Technology and Information Administration (NTIA) a mandate to dole out billions in grants to companies and public-private partnerships proposing to bring broadband where none had existed before.
http://benton.org/node/28024
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FCC SEEKS TO PROTECT FREE FLOW OF INTERNET DATA
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Saul Hansell]
In a move to make good on one of President Obama's campaign promises, Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, will propose Monday that the agency expand and formalize rules meant to keep Internet providers from discriminating against certain content flowing over their networks, according to several officials briefed on his plans. In 2005, the commission adopted four broad principles relating to the idea of network neutrality as part of a move to deregulate the Internet services provided by telephone companies. Those principles declared that consumers had the right to use the content, applications, services and devices of their choice using the Internet. They also promoted competition between Internet providers. In a speech Monday at the Brookings Institution, Chairman Genachowski is expected to outline a proposal to add a fifth principle that will prevent Internet providers from discriminating against certain services or applications. Consumer advocates are concerned that Internet providers might ban or degrade services that compete with their own offerings, like television shows delivered over the Web. He is also expected to propose that the rules explicitly apply to any Internet service, even if delivered over wireless networks — something that has been unclear until now.
http://benton.org/node/28023
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FCC 'NET NEUTRALITY' RULES EXPECTED TO ADVANCE ON VOTE
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
Apparently, the Federal Communications Commission's proposal of new rules to prevent companies such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from deliberately blocking or slowing certain Web traffic is expected to advance with three votes out of the five-member agency. The proposal, to be announced Monday by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, will include an additional guideline for carriers that they make public the way they manage traffic on their network. The additional guideline would be a "sixth principle" to four existing guidelines adopted in 2005 on Internet network operations. A fifth principle is expected to be announced by Genachowski on Monday during a speech at the Brookings Institute that would prohibit the discrimination of applications and services on telecommunications, cable and wireless Internet networks. Chairman Genachowski will be joined by fellow Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn in launching the rulemaking proceeding in October.
http://benton.org/node/28031
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'INCUMBENTS DO NOT HAVE A VETO!'
[SOURCE: BroadbandCensus.com, AUTHOR: Craig Settles]
[Commentary] 'Incumbents do not have a veto!' With those words, Assistant Secretary Lawrence Strickling, head of National Telecommunications and Information Administration, enables many broadband stimulus applicants and others worried about the incumbent challenge clause to breathe a little easier. And for those of us who've railed against this potentially destructive clause, there is also a bit of satisfaction for not giving up the fight. The NTIA and the Rural Utilities Service are giving infrastructure applicants the high ground and the presumption that you hold an unassailable position. The burden of proof to the contrary lies with the incumbent. If you've done your homework, and are continually gathering whatever data you can to reinforce the fact that people in your proposed coverage area don't have adequate broadband, you can better fight off any challenge.
http://benton.org/node/28022
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PERUSING BTOP APPS: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
[SOURCE: App-Rising.com, AUTHOR: Geoff Daily]
Looking at Broadband Technology Opportunities Program applications, Daily finds they fit in three categories: 1) The Good: there's a wealth of innovative models represented in these applications, many projects employing fiber, and a number of public networks. 2) The Bad: In both the public computing center and adoption sections, Daily thinks there's too much of an emphasis on buying computers and a bunch of the public computing center applications do nothing more than upgrade the machines at existing computing centers. 3) The Ugly: the audacious amount of money requested for satellite "broadband" as well as broadband over powerlines.
http://benton.org/node/28021
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FCC SEEKS COMMENT ON BROADBAND ACCESS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission]
Issues related to providing broadband access to people with disabilities are an integral part of the national broadband plan that the Federal Communications Commission is preparing. To build on the FCC's current record, the Commission has scheduled a second workshop entitled "Broadband Accessibility for People with Disabilities: Barriers, Opportunities, and Policy Recommendations." This full-day workshop will be held on October 20, 2009. The FCC would like to plan this workshop as collaboratively as possible with all of those who have a stake in ensuring that broadband is accessible and affordable to people with disabilities, including those in the disability community, network and service providers, equipment manufacturers, software producers, content providers, technologists, academics, representatives from trade associations and non-profits, and representatives from tribal, local, state and federal governments. To do so, the FCC has listed tentative panel topics and questions on which we would like to get feedback. The Commission invites suggested modifications to the panel topics, additional questions, and suggested speakers and ask that these comments be submitted as soon as possible. The FCC also invites specific answers to the questions.
http://benton.org/node/28020
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HOW VALUABLE IS BROADBAND TO YOU?
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Scott Wallsten]
[Commentary] "How valuable is broadband to you?" The answer to that question is crucial for informing data-driven broadband policy. While those of us who spend most of the day online in one form or another are tempted to respond that it's "invaluable," we're hoping to answer the question with a little more precision. Knowing how much people value broadband would be necessary, for example, for designing an efficient subsidy program for low-income people or for predicting the number of subscribers to a new network in an unserved area. Valuing broadband is complicated because people use it so differently and because it comes in so many flavors. How much do people value different attributes of broadband, like speed, latency, or the simple "always on" aspect that was broadband's selling point in its early days? For people who are already online, how much more do they value speeds beyond what they currently have? Similar questions are relevant for content. How much do people value different services and online content? How do those answers differ among different groups of people?
http://benton.org/node/28019
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THE BROADBAND NUMBERS RACKET
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Thomas Hazlett]
[Commenatry] Cherry picking broadband penetration numbers to imply the US is slipping into Third World status is fine for a quickie term paper, at least if Wikipedia goes down. But adults ought sort through the multi-dimensional complexity of the real world. Properly adjusted, the US is between eight and tenth in broadband adoption, finds Federal Communications Commission economist Scott Walls ten, who also shows that US speed and pricing are competitive with most other advanced economies. Moreover, the e-Readiness Index of The Economist ranks the US number 1. French and Japanese networks languished early in the World Wide Web era, while unregulated US cable TV operators pioneered innovations in residential broadband. DSL growth in America then surged when it, too, was deregulated. In a December 2008 Review of Network Economics study, Anil Caliskan and Hazlett show that by year-end 2006 there were 25 million DSL households, some 10 million more than predicted by the regulated, pre-2003 trend. Controlling for other factors, there was no "loss for competition and innovation," but a strong broadband deployment boost. This is not an arbitrary international ranking but a natural experiment, rich with implication for regulators. Such inquiries into the effect of policy measures are vital. No matter where a country ranks, better policies will help citizens, consumers, innovators, and the economy. To carefully evaluate the alternatives is not to be anti-technology, but pro-science. America's high-tech economy deserves no less.
http://benton.org/node/28018
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RURAL CABLE PROVIDERS CHASE $1.3 BILLION IN BROADBAND STIMULUS
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Bernie Arnason]
Approximately 83 small, independent cable companies have applied for $1.3 billion in funding from the broadband stimulus program the American Cable Association reports. Companies including NPG Cable, Wave Broadband, Boycom Cablevision, and NewWave Communications applied for both middle and last mile broadband projects. "ACA urges NTIA and RUS to recognize that ACA members have been reliable providers of advanced communications services in rural areas and represent the best of hope of extending broadband into the most economically and technically challenging areas in the country. We encourage the agencies to approve all of our members' applications," says ACA President and CEO Matthew Polka.
http://benton.org/node/28017
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WITH BROADBAND, QUALITY SHOULD TRUMP PENETRATION
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Kevin Walsh]
[Commentary] With governments around the world spending billions of dollars trying to prop up ailing economies, many are taking advantage of this flood of stimulus money to address perceived shortcomings in broadband penetration. On the surface, this makes sense — most agree that high-speed Internet access infrastructure is a vital, high-tech equivalent to the public works projects that might have consumed such taxpayer largess in the past. But closer inspection raises questions as to whether or not "penetration" is the right metric to evaluate the health of broadband infrastructure. A case can be made that it is now time to shift our focus from promoting penetration to improving broadband quality.
http://benton.org/node/28016
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POLICYMAKERS
WILSON: MULTIPLATFORM, LOCALLY-FOCUSED, NONCOMMERCIAL MEDIA CAN FILL JOURNALISTIC VACUUM
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
A Q&A with new Corporation for Public Broadcasting chairman Ernest Wilson III, the dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. A CPB board member since 2000, Prof Wilson thinks a multiplatform, locally-focused noncommercial media have an opportunity to fill a journalistic vacuum created by the decline of traditional news outlets.
http://benton.org/node/28015
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HEAT OVER FCC HIRES
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Kim Hart]
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officials are feeling heat from the left over an economist who was hired to help improve the nation's high-speed Internet service despite dismissing concerns that U.S. broadband access lags behind other nations. Scott Walls ten, a senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute, joined the FCC's Broadband Task Force last month. He previously worked at the Progress and Freedom Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, where he often took the position that the U.S. broadband market is in good shape and does not need to be addressed by policymakers. Liberal public interest groups say that's a curious background for someone whose job is to create policy to increase broadband access.
http://benton.org/node/28014
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STAFF CHANGES FIR FCC COMMISSIONER MCDOWELL
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
Federal Communications Commission member Robert McDowell announced that Christine Kurth will join his staff as Policy Director and Wireline Counsel. Nick Alexander, who has served as Commissioner McDowell's Legal Advisor for wireline issues since July 2008, will be joining the leadership team of the Wireline Competition Bureau. Kurth was most recently Republican Staff Director and General Counsel for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and joined the Committee in 2005 as Deputy Staff Director. For the last six years of her Capitol Hill career, she has led or been intimately involved in drafting and negotiating legislation to keep up with the ever-changing communications landscape. Laws enacted during her tenure included Internet Tax moratorium, broadband mapping, public safety interoperability, online safety, spectrum relocation, and the digital television transition. [more at the URL below]
http://benton.org/node/28013
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TAKING STOCK OF TWO NOW AT TOP
[SOURCE: TVNewsCheck, AUTHOR: Harry Jessell]
[Commentary] Who are these guys? On paper, former-Sen Gordon Smith (R-OR) is exactly what the National Association of Broadcasters needs -- somebody who can get the right meetings with the right people on Capitol Hill. NAB members may also appreciate that Smith is a businessman, too. After practicing law for a spell in New Mexico and Arizona, he returned to Oregon to run the family-owned Smith Frozen Foods. While a senator, Smith joined Sen John Kerry (D-MA) in sponsoring a bill that would open up spectrum to unlicensed wireless devices. In other words, he was not on broadcasters' side of the red-hot white spaces debate. But on the positive side, that means Smith won't have trouble dealing with Democrats, which is a good thing. One of former National Association of Broadcasters head David Rehr's problems was that he had trouble connecting with Democrats. In his pre-NAB glory days, Rehr was close to Tom Delay, the one-time House Majority Leader and, in the minds of many Democrats, the devil incarnate. TVB's Gary Belis says Lanzano will be its first president to come directly from the agency ranks. It's a good move. The TVB president's principal job is convincing national advertisers and their media planners and buyers that they ought to be pouring more money into national and local spot. Who better to make the case than a recent member of the club? It's the same logic that NAB used in hiring Smith. Lanzano is also a forward-thinking executive.
http://benton.org/node/28012
See also:
Ex-Senator Smith Is New NAB President
Lanzano Tapped As New TVB President
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TELECOM
VERIZON BOSS HANGS UP ON LANDLINE PHONE BUSINESS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Saul Hansell]
Ivan Seidenberg, the chief executive of Verizon Communications one of the largest descendants of the old Bell System -- said his company is simply no longer concerned with telephones that are connected with wires. Not only does Verizon control the largest mobile phone company in the country, it has also largely moved away from copper wires. Verizon is selling off most of its operations in rural areas and is spending billions to wire most of the rest of its territory with its fiber optic network, or FiOS. FiOS, of course, offers voice calling as well as video and Internet service, but from now on, traditional phone service will be more of an add-on than the centerpiece of Verizon's offerings to consumers (much as voice service is treated today by cable firms).
http://benton.org/node/28009
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APPLE AND GOOGLE TELL FCC DIFFERENT STORIES ABOUT GOOGLE VOICE
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: W.J. Hennigan]
Google and Apple can't seem to agree on why the new Google Voice application for the iPhone doesn't appear in Apple's App Store. The Federal Communications Commission posted a previously confidential letter today by Google that said the Google Voice app was rejected. "Apple's representatives informed Google that the Google Voice application was rejected because Apple believed the application duplicated the core dialer functionality of the iPhone," the letter said. In the letter, Google says that Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, told Google's senior vice president, Alan Eustace, that Apple declined the application during a July 7 phone conversation. But Apple maintains that it never rejected Google Voice for the iPhone and that the two Silicon Valley companies are still in talks about the service. Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said Apple was studying Google Voice and, as of today, it hasn't been approved for the App Store. "We do not agree with all of the statements made by Google in their FCC letter," Kerris said in a statement. "Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application and we continue to discuss it with Google."
http://benton.org/node/28026
See also:Google's Letter to the FCC re: iPhone
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'SOCIAL' PHONES TO REVEAL ALL ABOUT YOUR CALLER
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Chris Nuttall]
Forget caller ID. A coming wave of "social" mobile phones is likely to tell you everything you ever wanted to know and more about the person calling you. An application called Robo.to, available in the fourth quarter on the iPhone and handsets that run Google's Android operating system, offers a stream of information about callers, including personal videos, photos and their current location. It is an example of the "social address book" - the reinvention of a core handset feature that carriers will leverage to earn fresh revenues and win back consumer attention lost to iPhone applications and media companies' services. With Robo.to, when the phone rings, a user can see a video recorded by the caller as a "status update" that shows their mood and where they are. The screen can also feature their latest Twitter messages, their name and title from the Linkedin professional network, recent photos posted to the Flickr photo service and a map of their location.
http://benton.org/node/28025
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TELEVISION/RADIO
FORMER FCC COMMISSIONER WEIGH IN ON PROFANITY ISSUE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Former Federal Communications Commission members Newton Minow, Mark Fowler, and James Quello have filed a brief with the Second Circuit arguing that the FCC is chilling speech, effectively turning over indecency monitoring to the Parents Television council, and that the entire indecency enforcement regime should be rethought in a world where broadcasting is hardly uniquely pervasive. While they said that they had "some sympathy" for the FCC's content concerns, they appeared to have no sympathy for its method of addressing them. "[T]he FCC's enforcement policies have destroyed any expectations some of us had for moderation and restraint in this endeavor," they said, "and caused us to rethink our earlier involvement in this censorial regime." Having done that re-thinking, the petitioners say that not just the FCC's crackdown on fleeting expletives to other recent enforcement actions."Invalidating the fleeting expletive policy alone would only slightly raise the temperature of the chill on broadcast speech," they told the court. "Broadcasters would gain some protection against the occasional 'oops' moment on live broadcasts, but the Commission still would be free to roam the landscape of broadcast programming in search of indefinable words and images that it deems "indecent" pitting its "artistic judgment" against that of broadcast programmers." They also want the court to consider the continued disparate treatment of broadcast media vs. pay media like cable and satellite. "If such special treatment was ever justified because of the unique influence or pervasiveness of broadcasting, changes in the electronic media environment have made it no longer even remotely credible." Parents Television Council President Tim Winter responded saying that their brief was not accurate. The former chairmen had said that the FCC had abandoned its former, more restrained policy toward indecent speech. But PTC said that the difference was that there was only one "F word" on broadcast TV in 1998, for example, while it appeared "no less than 1,147 times on 184 different programs in 2007."
http://benton.org/node/28008
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DTV WOES STILL ABOUND
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Peter Svensson]
Think the digital TV transition is over? Not quite. Many viewers have found that they can't pick up certain stations after the switch, even with the right TVs or converter boxes. The stations are still trying to figure out ways to help them tune in. The main problem is that when the last major stations turned off their analog TV on June 12 to broadcast entirely in digital, some of them moved their digital signals from the UHF frequency band (channels 14 to 69) to VHF (channels 2 to 13). To most viewers, these channels are just different numbers on the remote. But as signals in the airwaves, they have very different characteristics. VHF hadn't been used much for digital signals, and there were indications that there would be problems with the switch, partly because viewers had inadequate indoor antennas. Still, the switch went ahead. Since then, at least 20 VHF stations have asked the Federal Communications Commission to move their digital signals back to UHF, and more would like to do so. However, the government has sold off some of the UHF band to cell phone carriers, leaving less space for TV channels. Another portion is planned to be used for emergency services, which was another reason for the digital TV transition.
http://benton.org/node/28027
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CONTENT
GOOGLE WORKING TO REVISE DIGITAL BOOKS SETTLEMENT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Miguel Helft]
For months, Google and its partners in a class-action settlement that would allow the company to create a vast digital library appeared unmoved by a rising tide of opposition. Google and its settlement partners — the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers — argued that the agreement would not harm competition, and said they were confident that it would be approved in its current form by a federal court. But the Justice Department, in a filing on Friday, made clear that the parties were busily negotiating modifications that would address some of the concerns raised. Those negotiations are likely to accelerate now that the Justice Department has said that it too believes the settlement raises serious legal issues and has urged the court not to approve it without changes. Legal experts say the new round of discussions, and the government's intervention, are almost certain to delay an agreement that Google and the other parties were eager to see ratified quickly.
http://benton.org/node/28029
See also: US urges court to reject Google book deal
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HEIRS FILE CLAIM TO MARVEL HEROS
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Ben Fritz]
Walt Disney Co. may not get full ownership of many of Marvel Entertainment's most famous superheroes if new copyright claims by the family of the late artist Jack Kirby have merit. [more at the URL below]
http://benton.org/node/28028
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