Feb 12, 2010 (More on Google Net)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2010
Things are sure to heat up again next week http://bit.ly/bzM8po
NEWS FROM THE HILL
Democrats rush to curb corporate election spending before Nov. vote
R&D and Jobs Bill | Senate jobs bill drops SHVERA
GOOGLE NET
Google's Dig at Telecom Giants | How Much Will Google's Fiber Network Cost? | After Facebook, Google Looks to Eat Comcast's Lunch | Google Is NOT Getting Into The Network Business | Google's Gonna Do What?! | Disruptive nudge: Google fiber
INTERNET/BROADBAND
US ranked second on useful connectivity scorecard
AT&T, Verizon May Have to Share Internet Lines Under FCC Plan
Study Backs High-Speed Internet Competition
Inside the Broadband Stimulus Workshops
Partner with Care for Broadband Projects
Wi-Fi rides to wireless networks' rescue
Wi-Fi Turns Rowdy Bus Into Rolling Study Hall
PRIVACY
Appeals court to review standards for cell phone data requests by government
Cellphones and Privacy
Google seeks to quell Buzz privacy outcry
Facebook Hit With More Privacy Lawsuits In The Wake Of Changing Users' Settings
CONTENT
The Information Divide Between Traditional And New Media
The Content Glut: Why It Stinks To Be "King"
Google Defends Book Settlement, Setting Stage for Court Hearing
Gripes over Google Books go technical
Music Labels Ask Blogs to Post Songs to Promote Artists, Ask Google to Erase Blogs for Posting Songs
Groups Ask Court To Protect Sales of Used Books, CDs, DVDs, Software
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
China Alarmed by Security Threat From Internet
Google's convoluted search for China compromise
Politicians, the press, and foreign policy
Berlusconi silences TV critics ahead of elections
OPEN GOVERNMENT
White House looks to IT to provide efficiencies, report says
More Tools for Sifting Through Government Data
OSTP Launches New Web Site
TELECOM
FCC will not reconsider new time limits on cell-tower sitings
OWNERSHIP
When the Night Meets the Morning Sun
Motorola to Split in Two Publicly Traded Companies
Google Acquires Aardvark For $50 million
HEALTH IT
Internet role in consumer healthcare reigns supreme | Health IT educators must also make the grade | Patients say docs going digital | Medicines not working? There's an app for that
MORE ONLINE
Chicago Tribune sued for patent infringement over feature in job listings | Gay TV Now: Lesbian Portrayals | Minority Media Council Donates Funds to Howard University | Slight dip in Google's January search market share | Smart grid or green grid? | Spending on wireless data, mobile phones to increase, report finds | Total Viewers Of Online Video Increased 5% Year-Over-Year
NEWS FROM THE HILL
LEGISLATION TO COUNTER CITIZENS UNITED DECISION
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Jared Allen]
Democrats are hoping to fast-track a set of sweeping new campaign finance regulations to prevent the Supreme Court's landmark Citizens United decision from affecting the November midterm elections. Sen Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Rep Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) on Thursday unveiled the majority party's legislative response to the Citizens United case, which they and other Democrats -- including President Barack Obama -- have sharply criticized as one that will "open the floodgates" to corporate financing of federal elections. Opting against a constitutional amendment to undo the court's rejection of existing laws that ban certain political spending by corporations, Democrats are proposing to ban donations by foreign-influenced and taxpayer-assisted corporations, as well as a series of tough new disclosure requirements on corporations that would still be allowed to steer money toward political action groups.
benton.org/node/32198 | Hill, The | B&C
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R&D AND JOBS BILL
[SOURCE: CongressDaily, AUTHOR: Juliana Gruenwald]
As expected, the Senate Finance Committee's draft jobs bill released Thursday includes language that would provide a one-year extension of the research and development tax credit, retroactive to Dec. 31, 2009, when it expired. The measure also would provide an extension of satellite television licensing provisions that expire on Feb. 28. Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Finance ranking member Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a joint statement that "action on the expired provisions is long overdue. Timely action on incentives for economic activity and job creation also is needed." The R&D tax credit and other business tax breaks expired at the end of 2009 when the Senate failed to take up legislation extending those provisions, which the House passed. The issue is a key priority for technology and other companies that do research in the United States. Tech groups have been urging lawmakers to make the R&D credit permanent and update it to keep pace with research incentives offered by other countries.
benton.org/node/32197 | CongressDaily
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SENATE JOBS BILL DROPS SHVERA
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Kim Hart]
The Senate's jobs bill was to be the vehicle for the much-delayed renewal of DISH Network's and DirecTV's licenses to reach 1.7 million people. But after the Senate Finance Committee Thursday morning released a draft of its massive jobs bill containing provisions to renew the law for another five years -- until Dec. 31, 2014 -- the section was stripped out in the afternoon, along with several other tangential riders. They were dropped to make the underlying jobs legislation "more targeted" so it can move more quickly. The provisions would have renewed the Satellite Home Viewer Extension and Reauthorization Act (SHVERA) which provides satellite providers' ability to import distant TV network affiliates to viewers who can't receive their local affiliates through broadcast or cable service. Satellite companies' right to send these signals to customers were set to expire at the end of 2009. But in December, Congress extended SHVERA by 60 days. The satellite licenses have to be reauthorized by Congress every five years. Congress is running out of time to approve the provisions in the jobs bill. If the licenses expire, about 1.7 rural satellite customers could lose access to programming from the likes of NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX.
benton.org/node/32196 | Hill, The | Broadcasting&Cable | CongressDaily | ModernHealthcare.com
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GOOGLE NET
GOOGLE'S DIG AT TELECOM GIANTS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Martin Peers]
[Commentary] Google's plan to build a gigabit-a-second broadband network serving 50,000 to 500,000 people predictably won plaudits from the Federal Communications Commission and public interest groups. But if Google truly wants to help speed up universal high-speed Internet access, it will need to do much more. After all, building a fast network isn't the challenge. Verizon Communications already is operating one that runs at 2.5 gigabits a second, offering television, Internet and phone. The maximum Internet speed it offers is 50 megabytes per second, but it easily can turn that up. It is spending $23 billion over several years to pass 18 million homes in largely built up areas. The real problem is financing fiber networks for rural or underpopulated areas, where the cost can reach $4,000 per connected home, versus $1,400 in a suburban area, estimates Mark Horinko, president of N4Group.com, which builds broadband networks. Verizon's costs are at the low end of the range. Yet serious doubts remain on whether it can generate sufficient returns from the network. No wonder publicly held firms have avoided spending even more money on rural areas. The question is how the FCC responds. Some in the telecommunications industry already are worried the FCC, as part of an aggressive push for net neutrality, is contemplating reclassifying Internet providers as common carriers. That classification, dating from the 1930s, would have far-reaching implications. Among other things, the FCC then could require network operators to open up networks for resale by competing service providers. The worry is that the FCC sees Google's willingness to build an open network as reason to require the same of others.
benton.org/node/32204 | Wall Street Journal
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HOW MUCH WILL GOOGLE'S NETWORK COST?
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Om Malik]
Google's proposed fiber network won't be cheap. It will pass between 20,000 and 200,000 homes and it will cost Google between $3,000 and $8,000 per home, or roughly $60 million to $1.6 billion, depending upon the final size and footprint of the network. If Google reaches, say, 100,000 homes, it would cost the company about half a billion dollars. Google's final tab will depend on where it decides to build out the network -- Calix Networks says population density is the single most important factor in calculating the cost of fiber connection per home.
benton.org/node/32195 | GigaOm
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GOOGLE TO EAT COMCAST'S LUNCH
[SOURCE: The Atlantic, AUTHOR: John Hudson]
Tech bloggers are expecting big things from Google's proposed high-speed network:
Don't Underestimate This Move, writes Mark Sullivan at PC World: "This is Google we're talking about. It has massive influence in business, and, increasingly in regulatory circles. The announcement comes right on the heels of the federal government releasing the first round of funding for broadband networks to rural and under-served areas. It appears to be intended as an adjunct to the FCC's own Broadband Plan, as if to say: 'See, you can do it like this.'"
Self-Interest Rightly Understood, writes John Paczkowski at All Things Digital:"[This is] an altruistic goal, but a selfishly altruistic one. By providing Internet speeds of 1Gbps — more than 100 times faster than what most of us are used to, Google will drive further usage of its various services and the contextual ads it peppers them with. At the same time, it will humiliate the telcos into improving their own networks and — given Google's stated focus on 'openness and choice,' perhaps even change market dynamics."
Google On-Demand Here We Come, writes James Turner at O'Reilly Radar: "Once Google has a pipe into the house, they can easily become a player in VoIP and landline telephone service, as well as cable TV and on-demand. Of course, these areas are fraught with regulatory issues. Many towns require cable providers to enter into individual franchise agreements in order to provide service, which can be a nightmare when you multiply it times N towns. But it's much easier to offer when you have a bit pipe already in place. And a 1Gb service will allow for HD or even Blu-Ray 3D service on-demand to the house."
Finally a Challenge to Comcast, writes John Cook at TechFlash: "Broadband Internet customers love to rail against Comcast, one of the dominant providers of Internet service in the Pacific Northwest. But customers who are dissatisfied with Comcast service or prices eventually could have an alternative. And it is coming from none other than Google."
benton.org/node/32194 | Atlantic, The | ars technica | nextgov | BlackWeb 2.0
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GOOGLE NOT GETTING INTO NETWORK BUSINESS
[SOURCE: Tales from the Sausage Factory, AUTHOR: Harold Feld]
[Commentary] The telecom world is abuzz with Google's announcement it will build high-speed networks. So what does Google want? Not to be a network operator. Google has a history of stepping up to do things that further its core business when no one else wants to step up, as witnessed most recently by their submitting a bid to serve as the database manager for the broadcast white spaces devices. But what it actually wants to do is modify the behavior of the platforms on which it rides to better suit its needs.
benton.org/node/32193 | Tales from the Sausage Factory
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GOOGLE'S GONNA DO WHAT?
[SOURCE: Fighting the Next Good Fight, AUTHOR: Craig Settles]
[Commentary] By getting an extensive feel for fiber deployment, they'll get a better sense of where the economic value to Google lies. Galen Updike, Telecommunications Development Manager at the State of Arizona's Government Information Technology Agency (GITA), recently made an interesting point. It's darn near impossible for private sector companies to financially benefit from broadband's economic development benefits to communities. That means someone has to do some serious eyes-wide-open examination of this nut to figure out how to crack it. However, there's serious upside to being the nutcracker. Google could provide investments and strategic relationships to those entities that become the actual network builders and service providers. In the end, these deals could work out very well for Google. And frankly, they work out best for consumers and businesses too because you don't want your content provider and your access provider to be one and the same. That's what leads to monopoly and duopoly strangleholds on markets, and goes to the core of why many of us are fighting for net neutrality.
benton.org/node/32192 | Fighting the Next Good Fight
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DISRUPTIVE NUDGE
[SOURCE: Susan Crawford blog, AUTHOR: Susan Crawford]
[Commentary] Here's why Google's announcement is significant:
We'll learn so much about how much it really costs to bring high speeds to communities. We won't have to rely on the carriers' doomsaying about these expenses ("Hundreds of billions of dollars!").
We'll learn what applications people want to use. Right now the network providers can say that the market isn't clamoring for high speeds - but that may be because high speeds aren't available.
We'll learn how easy it is to have competitive providers attach to these fiber networks. Until just a few years ago, all of our general purpose networks were required to allow this kind of attachment. Then the US abandoned this approach at the behest of our incumbents while other countries moved down this path with great success.
We'll see this model supported by a great brand. Several municipalities are doing this, but the Google move will get more attention.
We'll stop being content with minimal baseline speeds for America.
benton.org/node/32191 | Susan Crawford blog
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
US RANKED 2ND ON USEFUL CONNECTIVITY SCORECARD
[SOURCE: Connected Planet, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
The United States is one of the highest, but no longer the highest ranking country in terms of "useful connectivity," according to a new report authored by Professor Leonard Waverman of the University of Calgary in conjunction with consulting group LECG and commissioned by Nokia Siemens Networks. The study, now in its third year, aims to provide relative measures of useful connectivity for 50 countries. The term "useful connectivity" is defined as a combination of infrastructure, complementary skills, software and informed usage that makes information and communications technology (ICT) a driver of productivity and economic growth. The U.S. received a score of 7.77, based on six rankings, each of which rates the top performer in a category as a 10, with all other countries rated in relation to the top performer. The six criteria included business, government and consumer infrastructure, as well as business, government and consumer usage and skill levels. The U.S. which was ranked number one in last year's study, was number two this year, after Sweden, which had a ranking of 7.95.
benton.org/node/32190 | Connected Planet | BroadbandBreakfast.com
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AT&T, VERIZON MAY HAVE TO SHARE INTERNET LINES
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Todd Shields]
AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. would be forced to lease fast Internet lines to rivals providing Web services to small businesses under a proposal being weighed by the Federal Communications Commission. The idea, proposed to the FCC by computer-services company Cbeyond Inc., has support from the Small Business Administration, which said it could spur job creation. The plan would add to competition for business clients, who are also being courted by cable providers led by Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc. Letting competitors lease lines into businesses may boost Internet adoption, help small businesses grow and aid job creation, said Colin Crowell, an aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. "That is certainly something that we'll look very closely at, and has a lot of appeal as part of a national strategy," said Crowell. The change may be proposed as part of the FCC's national plan for increasing the use of high-speed Internet, or broadband, that is to be delivered to Congress in March, Crowell said.
benton.org/node/32205 | Bloomberg
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STUDY BACKS HIGH-SPEED INTERNET COMPETITION
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Press release]
Public Knowledge, along with five competitive telecom carriers, released an important economic analysis showing that decreased regulation of local telephone companies has resulted in less investment by those companies not more as the companies claimed would happen. The study finds that that investment rose in the five years immediately following the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, as did employment in the telecom sector. However, the study found that in the years since 2001 when many of the competitive policies put in place were negated, principally the rules that required telephone companies to allow competitors to use their networks. The paper recommended reinstating a "competition-friendly regulatory regime" to give competitors access to "reasonably priced wholesale broadband facilities."
benton.org/node/32189 | Public Knowledge | Economics and Technology | TechDailyDose
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INSIDE BTOP/BIP WORKSHOPS
[SOURCE: Government Technology, AUTHOR: Andy Opsahl]
With the final funding window for broadband stimulus applicants opening on Feb. 16, groups submitting proposals should pay attention to the guidance offered at workshops being hosted around the country by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Rural Utilities Services (RUS). The two federal agencies are disbursing $7.2 billion set aside in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for broadband projects. The NTIA and RUS have conducted seven workshops, so far, with two more scheduled -- one in Fayetteville, N.C., and another in Atlanta. NTIA administrator Lawrence Strickling recently described his routine thought process when reviewing applications to a room of workshop attendees in Denver. "When these projects are brought to me, I very much am looking for the management experience of the team that's putting it together, the budget they've put together and the reasonableness of the assumptions they're making," Strickling said. "We want to see that this is a project that will stand on its own once the federal money is gone." Strickling said inclusion of private companies with experience doing similar projects to those proposed would signal that competency to him. For the second funding window, the agency will focus its dollars on middle-mile proposals.
benton.org/node/32188 | Government Technology
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PARTNER WITH CARE FOR BROADBAND PROJECTS
[SOURCE: Daily Yonder, AUTHOR: Craig Settles]
There's a new set of rules in place for Round 2 of the competition for federal broadband money (also known as NOFA 2). Some communities have decided to sit out the race and find, or raise, funds in other ways, but others are strapping on their skates and heading back out on the NOFA-2 ice. NOFA 2 has given top priority to middle-mile projects (infrastructure projects that primarily connect data centers to each other rather than delivering broadband to end-users.) And it's also been announced that NOFA 2 will look with favor on applications that partner public and private interests. Communities that are responding with plans for public-private technology partnerships should not take such efforts lightly or pursue them in haste. This promising approach is also fraught with challenges great enough to knock you off track. Whether any applicant writes a proposal to get broadband stimulus and other government grant money or creates a standard business plan to secure traditional commercial funding, a broadband project will have to show how the network will be sustained financially after it's built. Communities need to ask themselves: What's the return on investment under normal, best case, or worst case scenarios? Understanding these forecasts is key to financial sustainability.
benton.org/node/32187 | Daily Yonder
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WI-FI RIDES TO WIRELESS RESCUE
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Marguerite Reardon]
Good old Wi-Fi could be the fix to an impending explosion of data on wireless networks. Nearly three years after Apple introduced the game-changing iPhone, wireless operators around the globe are feeling the effects of the wireless data tsunami that is well under way. Even networks that don't support the iPhone are feeling the pinch as a generation of new wireless devices offering bandwidth-hungry Web applications are hitting networks. The result, as many iPhone users in New York City and San Francisco will tell you, is a network that drops calls and offers wireless Net surfing at the speed of a turtle. Savvy smartphone subscribers with Wi-Fi-enabled devices have already been seeking out Wi-Fi hotspots for their Internet surfing, music-streaming, and video watching. But as more devices, such as the Apple iPad come online and the forecast for wireless data shoots through the roof, wireless operators are looking at Wi-Fi as a way to offload some data traffic from their overburdened 3G networks. And as wireless data is expected to continue to grow rapidly over the next several years, they're looking at Wi-Fi as a part of their long term wireless strategies as well, even as they build out 4G wireless networks.
benton.org/node/32201 | C-Net|News.com
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WI-FI TURNS BUS INTO STUDY HALL
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Sam Dillon]
Students endure hundreds of hours on yellow buses each year getting to and from school in Vail, a desert exurb of Tucson (AZ), and stir-crazy teenagers break the monotony by teasing, texting, flirting, shouting, climbing (over seats) and sometimes punching (seats or seatmates). But on this chilly morning, as bus No. 92 rolls down a mountain highway just before dawn, high school students are quiet, typing on laptops. Morning routines have been like this since the fall, when school officials mounted a mobile Internet router to bus No. 92's sheet-metal frame, enabling students to surf the Web. The students call it the Internet Bus, and what began as a high-tech experiment has had an old-fashioned -- and unexpected -- result. Wi-Fi access has transformed what was often a boisterous bus ride into a rolling study hall, and behavioral problems have virtually disappeared. Internet buses may soon be hauling children to school in many other districts, particularly those with long bus routes. The company marketing the router, Autonet Mobile, says it has sold them to schools or districts in Florida, Missouri and Washington (DC).
benton.org/node/32200 | New York Times
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PRIVACY
COURT TO REVIEW CELL PHONE DATA REQUESTS
[SOURCE: ComputerWorld, AUTHOR: Jaikumar Vijayan]
In a case with broad privacy implications, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Thursday will hear arguments on the minimum legal standards that prosecutors need to meet when requesting cell phone location data for law enforcement purposes. The case's prosecutors have argued that to ask for data they only need to show "reasonable cause" to believe that cell phone records are relevant to an ongoing investigation. But several lower court judges and a coalition of privacy groups are arguing that authorities need to be held to the more stringent "probable cause" standard when asking for such information. The case is important because it is the first time a federal appellate court has been asked to decide on the legal standard the government needs to use when requesting cell phone data, said Jim Dempsey, vice president for public policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) in Washington. The CDT has filed an amicus brief in the case. "We think the location information generated by your cell phone paints a very complete picture of your life even if you are not making a call," Dempsey said. "The premise of our argument is that cell phone tracking data is uniquely pervasive, persistent, intrusive and revealing."
benton.org/node/32186 | ComputerWorld | TheHill | C|Net
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CELLPHONES AND PRIVACY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] Cellphones have long been a fixture of life, becoming more powerful and more "aware" of their locations every year. Phone companies and software developers jump on each advance to provide new services. But the law is behind the technology. Many people have no idea how much data their cellphones collect about them. Phones, for example, report back to the carriers on where the users are at any given time — in some cases even when the phone is not in use. When you carry a cellphone, you are "essentially carrying a tracking device," says Jennifer Granick, the civil liberties director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Those records are a treasure trove for law enforcement. The police can ask phone companies to monitor the movements of a suspect in real time. Or they can request stored records on a customer's movements in the past weeks, months or even years. It is this historical data that is at issue Friday in a federal appeals court in Philadelphia. Information about a person's movements is by nature extremely private. It can reveal where they attend religious services and what political meetings or protests they are involved in. It can provide evidence of marital infidelity. If the courts allow the government to obtain these records without probable cause, the impact on ordinary people's freedom will be substantial.
benton.org/node/32203 | New York Times
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GOOGLE SEEKS TO QUELL PRIVACY OUTCRY
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Richard Waters]
Google sought on Thursday night to quell an outcry over the privacy settings in its new Buzz social networking service, which critics have claimed exposes personal information about users without their approval. The Internet company acknowledged the concerns raised by the service, launched just two days before, and announced changes designed to stem the fears, though these did not directly address all the complaints from some critics. The outcry has centered on the way Buzz automatically creates a social network for new users by drawing on the people they communicate with most frequently over Gmail, Google's e-mail system. This list of personal e-mail contacts is then made public over Buzz by default, although users can choose to override the system to hide it.
benton.org/node/32202 | Financial Times
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CONTENT
THE INFORMATION DIVIDE
[SOURCE: paidContent, AUTHOR: Brian Solis]
In the era of the real-time web, information travels at a greater velocity than the infrastructure of mainstream media can support as it exists today. As events materialize, the access to social publishing and syndication platforms propels information across attentive and connected nodes that link social graphs all over the world. Current events are now at the epicenter of global attention as social media makes the world a much smaller place. Indeed social media is changing, documenting, and also making history, revolutionizing once invincible industries that are now paralyzed by confusion, fear, and ignorance. Although they're reacting now, it will take more than the iPad, Kindle, Nook and other digital readers to revitalize the business of media. News no longer breaks, it tweets -- demonstrating the efficiency, momentum and influence of the human network. With every new iterative update, social graphs transform into a highly organized information distribution system that resembles an "Amber Alert" network for the social Web with far greater speed, reach, impact and resonance. We no longer find information; it finds us. And, trending topics become touchpoints to the state of events as they unfold.
benton.org/node/32184 | paidContent
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IT STINKS TO BE KING
[SOURCE: MediaBizBlogger, AUTHOR: Tom Cunniff]
[Commentary] Content isn't King. It's common as dirt, and worth about as much. Accountants at News Corporation, The New York Times, Time Warner and CBS have been forced to write down tens of billions of dollars in assets. The costs of producing and distributing content have shrunk to essentially zero. There are no barriers to entry for Web publishers: in half a day you can set up a WordPress blog and start running Google ads. The result? The world is absolutely drowning in content, and the laws of supply and demand are kicking in, hard.
benton.org/node/32183 | MediaBizBlogger
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GOOGLE DEFENDS BOOK SETTLEMENT
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Lorraine Woellert]
Google urged a federal judge to accept a $125 million settlement that would allow it to distribute digital books. The agreement won't hurt competition in the growing digital books market, the company said in a filing last night with a U.S. district court. The company sought to counter objections by the U.S. Justice Department and others that the class-action settlement grants Google rights that go beyond the disputes raised in the lawsuit. The settlement "is not 'a bridge too far'," Google said in a filing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Terming the settlement "remarkably creative," the filing said it "will open the virtual doors to the greatest library in history, without costing authors a dime they now receive or are likely to receive if the settlement is not approved." A rejection of the settlement "will keep those library doors locked while inviting costly, fragmented litigation that could clog dockets around the country for years," the filing said. The filing represents the final written word in the case before District Court Judge Denny Chin holds a hearing on Feb. 18 and reiterates arguments Google has previously made in support of the settlement.
benton.org/node/32199 | Bloomberg
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GOOGLE BOOKS AND COPYRIGHT
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Larry Downes]
The debate of Google Books raises concerns about US copyright law. There are millions of out-of-print books still protected by copyright, and negotiating separate deals with the rights holders would be complex and expensive. But that's not the most serious issue. As the Justice Department acknowledges, any company hoping to offer digital access to works published in the last century faces the initial, and perhaps impossible, challenge of actually identifying who currently holds the right in the first place. As it notes, "for many works, especially out-of-print works, rights clearance may not be possible as a practical matter." What the government agency doesn't mention is that the source of this "orphan works" problem is the government itself. Over the last hundred years, legislators have repeatedly extended the "limited" copyright monopoly and applied those extensions retroactively. But given the short commercial life of most printed books, many rights holders made no provision for inheritance or transfer of the remaining term of their copyrights--terms that may have even been extended after their death. The result is that millions of out-of-print books with no real hope of returning to print have gone into a kind of limbo. They are still protected by copyright, but no one knows who owns the rights.
benton.org/node/32182 | C-Net|News.com
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GOOGLE AND COPYRIGHT
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Michael Weinberg]
[Commentary] Today's news that Google shut down music blogs that were accused of copyright infringement is rightfully getting plenty of coverage. Mostly, it is being held up as another in a long line of examples of problems with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice-and-takedown system. The notices that Google relied on to delete the blogs were woefully incomplete. Google should not have acted until it had proper notices from rights holders, including the name of the actual work allegedly infringed. Since many of the notices did not even include this information, there was no way for the bloggers to file a DMCA counternotice. It is important that this story is being used to point out problems with the DMCA, and with Google's policies for dealing with DMCA complaints. What it equally important, if less commented on, is what it can tell us about copyright filtering.
benton.org/node/32181 | Public Knowledge
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CAN CONSUMERS STILL SELL USED GOODS
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Press release]
A pivotal court case being heard in the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals, San Francisco, could determine whether consumers will continue to have the right to buy and to sell used items like books, music, movies or software programs. In the case, Thomas S. Vernor vs. Autodesk, six public-interest and advocacy groups filed a friend-of-the-court brief asking that the traditional rights of consumers be upheld. Vernor, who sells items on eBay, was charged with copyright infringement by Autodesk, which objected to his selling some copies of the company's software he had purchased from a third party. Autodesk said Vernor couldn't resell the items because they were licensed, not sold. Vernor won his case in 2008 in the U.S. District Court, Seattle, and Autodesk appealed. The groups filing the brief, Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontier Foundation, American Library Association, Association of College and Research Libraries, Association of Research Libraries, Consumer Federation of America and U.S. PIRG, said that a decision in favor of Autodesk would overturn more than a century of copyright law while harming consumers.
benton.org/node/32180 | Public Knowledge | Read the brief
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
CHINA ALARMED BY INTERNET SECURITY THREAT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Sharon LaFraniere, Jonathan Ansfield]
While much of the rest of the world frets about Chinese cyberspying abroad, China is increasingly alarmed about the threat that the Internet poses to its security and political stability. In the view of both political analysts and technology experts here and in the United States, China's attempts to tighten its grip on Internet use are driven in part by the conviction that the West -- and particularly the United States -- is wielding communications innovations from malware to Twitter to weaken it militarily and to stir dissent internally. State media have vented those concerns more vociferously since Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last month criticized China for censorship and called for an investigation of Google's assertion that its databases had been the target of a sophisticated attack from China. "China wants to make clear that it too is under serious attack from spies on the Internet," said Cheng Gang, author of the Global Times article. Despite China's robust technological abilities, its cyberdefenses are almost certainly more porous than those of the United States, American experts say. To cite one glaring example, even Chinese government computers are frequently equipped with pirated software from Microsoft, they say. That means many users miss out on security upgrades, available to paying users, that fix security breaches exploited by hackers.
benton.org/node/32207 | New York Times
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GOOGLE'S CONVOLUTED SEARCH FOR CHINA COMPROMISE
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: ]
Shedding China's shackles on free speech is proving to be easier said than done for Google. The company is still censoring its results in China a month after Google's leaders took a public stand against Chinese laws that require the removal of links to Web sites that the government deems subversive or offensive. Citing the sensitivity of the talks, Google officials won't say how the negotiations have been going since the company issued its Jan. 12 threat to shut down its China-based search engine and possibly leave the country altogether. Google is demanding that the government tear down the so-called "Great Firewall" that seeks to keep China's citizens from finding politically sensitive information and images. Google's willingness to keep its censored search engine running for now is a signal that Chinese leaders haven't been as unyielding in the private talks as they have in public statements demanding obedience of the law, said Internet analyst Colin Gillis, who follows Google for BGC Financial.
benton.org/node/32206 | Associated Press
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POLITICIANS, THE PRESS, AND FOREIGN POLICY
[SOURCE: Foreign Policy, AUTHOR: Stephen Walt]
[Commentary] Over the past few years, media critics like Glenn Greenwald, Mark Danner, and Michael Massing have exposed some of the sloppiness, incestuousness, and group-think that routinely afflicts mainstream media coverage of world events, especially in the realm of foreign policy and national security. Even "faux news" outlets like Jon Stewart's Daily Show have contributed to greater awareness of media failings, mostly by pointing out biases and inconsistencies in a ruthlessly funny fashion. Yet no matter how useful such critiques are, they need to be complemented by more systematic scholarly studies of the complex relationship between media coverage, public opinion, and actual foreign policy decisions. On that topic, Matthew Baum and Tim Groeling have recently published an excellent book entitled War Stories: The Causes and Consequences of Public Views on War (Princeton University Press). Drawing on a wide array of empirical evidence (including opinion surveys, media content, and foreign policy decisions), they argue that the interaction between elites, media, and public opinion is a three-way process in which each group's behavior is essentially strategic. Politicians try to use media to advance their aims; the media picks stories in order to maximize audience (or in some cases, to advance an ideological agenda), and therefore tend to favor stories that are novel or surprising (like when a prominent senator criticizes a president from his own party). Similarly, the public does not just consume the news passively; readers and viewers use various cues to gauge the credibility of different sources.
benton.org/node/32179 | Foreign Policy
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BERLUSCONI SILENCES CRITICS
[SOURCE: The Independent, AUTHOR: Michael Day]
Silvio Berlusconi's supporters in the Italian parliament last night outraged opposition MPs and journalists with a controversial clampdown on political talk shows ahead of next month's regional elections. The ruling PDL Party's majority on the parliamentary watchdog that oversees public broadcaster RAI forced through rules that mean the state broadcaster's most popular talk shows will have to scrap their political content or face a transfer from mid-evening to graveyard shifts. Programmes such as Ballarò and Annozero, which have frequently held Mr Berlusconi to account for alleged sex scandals and even Mafia links, will be the main victims of the month-long clamp down that prompted accusations of censorship. Political content will be allowed but only if all 30 or so parties standing in the elections are represented on every show, which programme-makers said would make their formats unworkable. The rules will apply from 28 February until 28 March, when the country's regional elections are held. Government supporters said the rules were needed to ensure political neutrality during the election campaign. Marco Beltrandi of the PDL said: "The rules mean that the analysis programmes can choose. They can give political platforms [to everyone] or be broadcast at different times and in different ways."
benton.org/node/32178 | Independent, The
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OPEN GOVERNMENT
FINDING IT EFFICIENCIES
[SOURCE: nextgov, AUTHOR: Jill Aitoro]
President Obama's budget request focuses on ways to cut information technology costs through consolidation and modernization efforts that will increase efficiency, according to a report released by IT research firm Government Insights. "The presidential budget is a good gauge into where the federal government spending priorities are headed and which programs are favored," the report stated. "However, throw in the volatile nature of the current public mood and the pressure on a Congress up for election, and this could be a more interesting year than usual." The fiscal 2011 budget submitted to Congress last week includes $79.4 billion in IT spending across all agencies, a slight decrease from the $80.8 billion budget in fiscal 2010. The proposed budget is a 1.2 percent increase from the White House's fiscal 2010 IT budget request of $78.4 million. According to the report, the fiscal 2011 budget request represents 7,463 IT programs and investments, many of which seek to decrease infrastructure costs.
benton.org/node/32177 | nextgov | IDC Government Insights | CongressDaily
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MORE TOOLS FOR SIFTING THROUGH GOV DATA
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Nick Bilton]
As the government continues to open more information, new tools to prevent data overload problems will become invaluable. Sunlight Labs is part of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit organization with a goal of digitizing government data and building Web sites to help make the current data deluge more manageable. The foundation hopes to help solve some of these data overload problems with new tools. It will organize government data sets and try to give more context to this information.
benton.org/node/32176 | New York Times
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TELECOM
CELL-TOWER SITINGS
[SOURCE: American City & County, AUTHOR: Peter Barnes]
The Federal Communications Commission has denied a request to modify deadlines for new wireless infrastructure applications the Commission imposed on local governments last fall. However, another challenge to the FCC order still awaits a decision. The new deadlines require local land-use authorities to rule on new tower applications within 150 days and co-locations within 90 days. On Jan. 29, the FCC denied a motion for reconsideration filed by the National Association of Counties (NACo), the National League of Cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the American Planning Association and the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors. Specifically, the association's motion addressed a 30-day deadline for local governments to determine if a cell-tower application is complete before the clock starts ticking on the review process. The next challenge to the new rules comes from Arlington, Texas, which has appealed the entire ruling in federal court.
benton.org/node/32171 | American City & County
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OWNERSHIP
COMCAST-NBC, PROMISES AND THE MORNING AFTER
[SOURCE: Riedel Communications, AUTHOR: Bunnie Riedel]
[Commentary] How do we know that the promises made by Comcast and NBC to ensure their marriage will be broken? Because cable operators break promises, contracts, rules and laws all the time. Why? Because they know that hardly anybody is going to enforce contracts and regulatory agencies have a tendency to sit on their hands and frequently won't enforce their own state laws. Case in point: Over three years ago, the Indiana legislature passed a state law that included the provision for local communities to petition the Indiana Utilities Regulatory Commission (IURC) for more PEG channels and for funding. Since that time no petitions have been filed. Why? Because the IURC has yet to create the petition process. Now, more than ever, we need the Community Access Preservation Act (H.R. 3745, the CAP Act). And now more than ever we need a strong PEG presence at the FCC. For that reason, I and several of my colleagues have formed a new organization, American Community Television or ACT. We have formed it as a 501 (c) (4), American Community Television, so that we will face no limits on our lobbying activities. And that is our only interest, lobbying and helping others lobby.
benton.org/node/32174 | Riedel Communications
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MOTOROLA SPLIT
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Hugo Miller]
Motorola will split in two in the first quarter of 2011, combining the mobile-phone and set- top box divisions into one publicly traded company and the enterprise mobility and networks units into a second business. Sanjay Jha, head of the handset business, becomes chief executive officer of the mobile phone and set-top box company, effective immediately, Motorola said. Greg Brown, co-CEO of Motorola, will lead the other business. Motorola had delayed a planned spinoff of the handset business in October 2008, amid the global recession. The company, which has lost market share to rival handset makers such as Apple Inc., is betting that a combination of the two consumer-focused businesses will win back customers.
benton.org/node/32173 | Bloomberg | C|Net | Crain's Chicago Business
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GOOGLE ACQUIRES AARDVARK
[SOURCE: TechCrunch, AUTHOR: Michael Arrington]
Aardvark CEO Max Ventilla has confirmed that Google has signed a deal to acquire the social search service for around $50 million. Aardvark, founded by ex-Googlers, has raised around $6 million in venture capital to date. The service lets users ask questions and get immediate responses from their friends and friends of friends.
benton.org/node/32172 | TechCrunch
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HEALTH IT
INTERNET ROLE IN CONSUMER HEALTH
[SOURCE: HealthcareITNews, AUTHOR: Bernie Monegain]
The Internet has considerably more influence over consumer health decisions and actions than traditional channels like print, TV and radio, according to a new report from Manhattan Research. The report points out that though the Internet's role in healthcare has soared over the past decade, healthcare professionals still have the strongest effect on consumer health behavior. "With all the changes in media and healthcare, we think it's critical for marketers to take a step back and check their assumptions around the relative influence of various health sources on consumer behavior," said Monique Levy, senior director of research at Manhattan Research and lead author of the report. "We found many interesting results that can help marketers better align their marketing strategies in 2010. For example, despite the buzz around social media, editorial health content still has significantly more influence over consumer health actions than various forms of social media."
benton.org/node/32170 | HealthcareITNews | Manhattan Research
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Just 5 days 'til Pitchers and Catchers report!