December 2011

NAB's Gordon Smith: We're Fine with House Version Of Spectrum Bill

National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith said he recognizes that spectrum auctions are a "footnote" in the debate over the end-of-the year legislative package currently being debated and negotiated on Capitol Hill. "But we happen to be a footnote that is a pay-for," said the former Oregon senator, "and that is pretty valuable right now on Capitol Hill."

Smith was referring to the fact that the auctions are slated to provide $15 billion or so for deficit reduction after broadcasters are compensated for giving up or repacking spectrum and an emergency broadband communications network is paid for. Smith said he expected spectrum auctions would be included in whatever must-pass bill passes. He said NAB is OK with that so long as broadcaster protections in the current House-passed version of the legislation is preserved, particularly including one directing the FCC to resolve issues with stations on the border with Canada and Mexico. He also said he appreciated the Senate version, but that the "last pieces" NAB needed to give consumers service without interference and broadcasters to move without any more "detriment" than they included in the switch to digital, was provided in the House bill, which had more protections for broadcasters.

Bloggers Recall the Year in Pictures

Retrospectives are always popular this time of the year, and the blogosphere last week shared one of the first collections of the year in photos.

The No. 2 subject on blogs from December 5-9 was BuzzFeed's 45 Most Powerful Images of 2011. Largely the province of news magazines in an earlier media era, the internet-based BuzzFeed, has now moved into the scene, ranking and sharing some of the most dramatic news events of the year. The photos selected ranged from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan to students being pepper-sprayed at UC Davis, from the tornado in Joplin, Missouri to the drought in East Africa. The images were so popular they resulted in BuzzFeed's biggest traffic day ever, according to the site's founder, Jonah Peretti. A week after its posting, the page of images had been viewed almost eight million times.

The biggest referrer to the page, by far, was Facebook, which was responsible for over half of the referrals; over 4.5 million clicks came from the social networking behemoth. At a distant second was Reddit, an aggregation site where users post links and then "up vote" posts to give them higher billing on the site, referring about 253,000 people to the images. Twitter was not as much of a driver though certainly had some influence. The network referred about 191,000 visitors over the week's time and the story was tweeted about 43,000 times.

Should Copyright Be Allowed to Override Speech Rights?

[Commentary] Free speech has remained a quintessential American ideal, even as our society has moved from the ink quill to the touch screen. But as the Internet paves new avenues for speech, Congress seems to be remembering only some of the lessons of our tradition.

While lawmakers continues to understand the potential threat from defamation laws, proposed legislation on copyrights shows that many in Congress are willing to overlook threats to free speech similar to those that overzealous defamation laws undoubtedly create. Congress is considering passing major legislation to change the definitions of online infringement. While supposedly aimed at foreign "rogue sites" like the Pirate Bay in Sweden, the legislation's new definitions would alter the copyright safe-harbor and make platforms for user-generated speech -- including Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube -- liable for copyright infringement committed by users. These sites would have to adopt Big Brother technologies to monitor all their users' activities in order to make sure no user is sharing the latest release from the Twilight series. Making matters worse, the mechanisms for enforcement include cutting off all access to funding, removing sites from search engines, and blocking website addresses in technical ways that threaten the Internet's security and universality. All of this is done in the name of reducing copyright infringement online. Because of the threat to online speech platforms, companies like Tumblr and civil liberties groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Fight for the Future coordinated an "American Censorship Day" in November in protest. Even the European Parliament has launched criticism rooted in speech concerns across the Atlantic Ocean.

House Judiciary Committee Has More Work to do With SOPA Markup

After a 12-hour hearing that saw a parliamentary inquiry prompted by a tweet and some heated exchanges, the House Judiciary Committee still had more work to do in marking up the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

"It is going to be a long, hard day [Friday]," said Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX), who said the markup would wrap up Dec 16. The bill is expected to be voted out of committee. Bill critics fired round after round at the bill, but pushed mostly for delay so that there could be more hearings, and more negotiation, and more "nerds" brought in to give legislators a clearer sense of how the bill could affect cybersecurity, for one thing, and the open Internet for another.

Lawmakers want House Judiciary Committee to slow online piracy bill

Opponents of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) urged House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) to hold additional hearings on the bill rather than report it out of committee during a Dec 15 markup.

During a lively and lengthy markup featuring passionate arguments from both sides on the controversial online piracy legislation, opponents argued the committee has yet to hear from technical experts on the potential consequences of the bill for security and free speech. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) compared the bill to performing surgery on the Internet without having a doctor in the room and said the committee has moved far too quickly on such sweeping legislation. Google has emerged as one of the biggest corporate critics of SOPA with co-founder Sergey Brin now likening the proposal to Internet censorship practices in China and Iran. Brin took to the Google+ social networking site to post his opinion. He also opposes the Senate’s version of the measure, known as the Protect Intellectual Property Act. Supporters of SOPA, including Chairman Smith and Intellectual Property subpanel Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), argued a manager's amendment offered on Dec 12 addresses many of the concerns outlined by tech companies.

Ranking member John Conyers (D-MI) suggested opponents were trying to delay the legislation via roughly 60 amendments but said it wouldn't work. "If someone thinks a bill of this magnitude is going to stall because we got tired, they got the wrong think coming," Rep Conyers said.

Top Internet engineers warn against SOPA

Some of the original engineers of the Internet called for lawmakers to scrap anti-piracy bills, saying the proposals would pose major technological barriers for the Web and stifle new innovations.

Engineers have warned that the bills have been introduced without enough consideration of how laws would affect the Internet. Vint Cerf of Google, domain name system software author Paul Vixie, and Internet routing engineer Tony Li were among 83 high-profile engineers who signed an open letter to Congress in opposition to the House Stop Online Privacy Act and Senate Protect Intellectual Property Act. “If enacted, either of these bills will create an environment of tremendous fear and uncertainty for technological innovation, and seriously harm the credibility of the United States in its role as a steward of key Internet infrastructure,” the engineers wrote. Most concerning are proposals in both bills for law enforcement to take down sites that are dedicated to the illegal trade of copyrighted material. By striking down domain names, the legislative proposals would fragment the Internet’s global domain system, they say. They also fear the bills would lead to censorship and put undue burden on Web sites.

The nightmarish SOPA hearings

[Commentary] Last night I had a horrifying dream that a group of well-intentioned middle-aged people who could not distinguish between a domain name and an IP address were trying to regulate the Internet. Then I woke up and the Judiciary Committee’s SOPA hearings were on. It’s exactly as we feared.

For every person who appears to have some grip on the issue, there were three or four yelling at him. “I’m not a nerd,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D- CA). “I aspire to be a nerd.” “I’m a nerd,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). If I had a dime for every time someone in the hearing used the phrase “I’m not a nerd” or “I’m no tech expert, but they tell me . . .,” I’d have a large number of dimes and still feel intensely worried about the future of the uncensored Internet. If this were surgery, the patient would have run out screaming a long time ago. But this is like a group of well-intentioned amateurs getting together to perform heart surgery on a patient incapable of moving. “We hear from the motion picture industry that heart surgery is what’s required,” they say cheerily. “We’re not going to cut the good valves, just the bad — neurons, or whatever you call those durn thingies.” This is terrifying to watch.

Court prepares to hear challenges to FCC's Universal Service order

A judicial panel randomly selected the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver (CO) to hear challenges to the Federal Communications Commission's order earlier this year to convert a multibillion-dollar telephone fund into a subsidy to expand Internet access.

The panel consolidated 13 separate lawsuits from telephone companies and state public utility commissions into one proceeding. The lawsuits all allege that the agency's order was "arbitrary and capricious" and a "departure from reasoned decision-making." Groups filing challenges include AT&T, C Spire Wireless (formerly Cell South), Halo Wireless, the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association and the Choctaw Telephone Company. Public utility boards in Pennsylvania, Vermont and Ohio have also joined the suit.

Apps That Bring Local Information to Underserved Communities

Thirteen software applications have won a combined $100,000 in prizes as part of the Apps for Communities Challenge, a first-of-its-kind, nationwide contest for “apps” that deliver personalized, actionable information to people least likely to be online.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Knight Foundation National Program Director Damian Thorman announced the winners at the Silicon Valley offices of venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who served as one of the challenge’s judges. Among the grand prize winners are apps that help people find jobs, connect the homeless with services and let public transportation riders know when their bus is arriving. The challenge is part of the Federal Communications Commission and Knight Foundation’s efforts to foster digital inclusion and promote broadband adoption. The contest sought to take advantage of the local, public information coming online - on topics from education to health care, child care, government services and jobs – and make it easily accessible to the public. Contestants were asked to turn that information into content, apps and services that expand people’s choices on critical issues.

The ‘Apps for Communities’ grand prize winners are:

Grand Prize: Yakb.us, (www.yakb.us) Ryan Resella: Provides bus riders with arrival times – in English and Spanish – when a five-digit bus stop number displayed onsite is texted to the local transit agency. YAKB.us is currently being used in Arlington County and Charlottesville, Va. And Santa Clarita, Calif.
Second Grand Prize: Homeless SCC (http://homeless-scc.org) Curtis Chang: Connects homeless people and families with services according to their specific needs and eligibility. The web-based app, being used in San Jose, Calif., also tracks when an agency makes a referral, as a way to help agencies increase their efficiency.
Third Grand Prize: Txt2wrk (http://www.txt2wrk.net) Elise Ackerman, Jonathan Chan, Dave Chiu, Lawson Kight, Roger Ly and Alex Tam: Helps parolees, the homeless and other job seekers compete on a more level playing field by allowing them to apply for jobs online thorugh a text-to-speech delivery of job postings on any mobile phone. Job seekers are alerted to new job postings, can listen to job descriptions, and apply for jobs – all without a connection to the Internet.

The runners-up, winning $1,000 each, are:

Access Together (www.accesstogether.org) John Schimmel: Enabling people with disabilities, their family and friends to crowdsource a community’s accessibility information.
PhillySNAP (www.phillysnap.com) Katey Metzroth, Mark Headd, Deng-Shun Chang, and Tim Wisniewski: Connecting low-income, technologically isolated Philadelphia residents with fresh local food sources.
Places Kids Go: (www.placeskidsgo.com) Ningning Lin, Jerry Lin and Andrew Chen: Simplifying searches for children’s activities in San Jose, Calif.
PREPPED kids (www.preppedkids.org) Damien Leri, Ian Bennett, and Stanton Wortham: Helping low-income families in Norristown, Pa. more easily access preschool and pediatric services in their local communities.
Talk with Sam (www.talkwithsam.com) Vikram Pant: Providing residents with the ability to see – and comment on – the bills of elected officials near them, based on their location.

In addition, the challenge offered bonus prizes in a variety of categories to help underserved
populations:

Best Design and Visualization - $10,000 Bonus: Homeless SCC, Curtis Chang
Most Replicable Application -$10,000 Bonus: Access Together, John Schimmel
App with the best use of SMS - $5,000 Bonus: txt2wrk, Elise Ackerman, Jonathan Chan, Dave Chiu, Lawson Kight, Roger Ly and Alex Tam (see description above)
App that best impacts people with limited digital proficiency - $5,000 Bonus: Prepped Kids
App that best impacts people with limited English literacy - $5,000 bonus:: Off to Market (http://mertonium.com/off-to-market/), John Mertens: Using SMS to help people find fresh food in their area.

Standardizing Program Reporting Requirements for Broadcast Licensees

On November 10, 2011, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a Notice of Inquiry in the Matter of . In the Standardizing Reporting Notice of Inquiry (NOI), the FCC seeks comment on a proposal to replace the issues/programs list that television stations are required to place in their public files with a streamlined, standardized disclosure form that will be available to the public online.

Comments in the proceeding are due January 17, 2012; reply comments are due January 30, 2012.

Benton

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