December 2011

One of the criticisms of the digital locks used by broadcasters and Hollywood studios is that, in trying to squelch piracy, they can interfere with fair uses of copyrighted material by other artists. And under federal law, it's illegal to circumvent those locks.

Chicago-based Kartemquin Films and other documentary filmmakers won a temporary exemption from that law a year and a half ago, with the help of students at the USC Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic and lawyers from Donaldson & Callif of Beverly Hills. Now the clinic and the firm are seeking to extend the exemption to all filmmakers and authors of multimedia e-books. The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act made it illegal to circumvent "technical protection measures" on DVDs and other digital media. That created a dilemma for filmmakers who wanted to use a snippet from an earlier movie on DVD: Even if the use wasn't infringing, they could still be sued for going around the locks. So even though circumvention tools are widely available online (despite the fact that they're illegal to make or distribute), filmmakers used them at their peril. That's why documentarians sought an exemption from the Copyright Office in 2009. Recognizing the potentially chilling effects of the anti-circumvention provision, lawmakers had included in the 1998 law a requirement that the office consider granting relief every three years to those whose non-infringing uses were adversely affected. The exemption documentarians won in July 2010 applies only to DVDs, and it expires next year. In seeking a new exemption, the filmmakers are focused on two problems, said Jack Lerner, a law professor at USC who directs the Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights has written the Federal Communications Commission to ask that it focus on diversity in its quadrennial media ownership rules review.

In its letter, the conference (a coalition of 200-plus diversity groups) said that the FCC currently has "no meaningful policies to address racial and gender inequities in media ownership" and has "ignored the impact of its media ownership rules on those inequities." It pointed to the Third Circuit remand the court's admonition that the FCC was "punting yet again" on diversity. "As media consolidation grows, people of color and women become less significant players in the media ecosystem. The Commission must acknowledge that fact and take action to remedy it," the coalition said. Groups also signing on to the letter included the Communications Workers of America, National Urban League, NAACP, NOW and the UCC Office of Communication.

In addition, on Dec 1, more than 50 groups representing a wide range of women’s, media and social justice organizations, including Free Press, sent a letter to the FCC urging the agency to make diversity issues a priority in its upcoming review.

[Commentary] SNL Kagan has supplied some ammo for stations to take into their next retransmission negotiations with cable and satellite operators. It's a report showing growth of the cash flow margins of cable networks, and it's the retrans equivalent of the Predator drone.

What it shows is just how fat cable networks have become. According to its research, more than 30 networks have margins of 50% or more topped by Nickelodeon, with a 64.6% margin and the Food Network at 60.5%. Next in line: NBCU's CNBC World and CNBC at 59.9% each; Viacom’s VH1 Classic at 59.3%; Discovery Communications’ TLC at 58.7%; The Disney Channel at 57.7%; Scripps’ HGTV at 57.1%; the Discovery Channel at 57%; and AMC Network's AMC at 55.4%. The average margin of all cable networks in 2010 was 41%, which SNL researchers found "amazing, given the fact that there are a number of networks with negative cash flow margins and emerging networks with low margins in the mix. "In addition, sports networks typically have lower cash flow margins than general entertainment and other genres," the reports says. "ESPN, for instance, which makes up almost 15% of industry revenue, has a cash flow margin of just 25.3%." And the gilded gated community of cable's super rich is expanding. By 2015, the number of 50%-margin-plus networks will nearly double to 58, the report says. And there will be another 61 with margins between 40% and 50% and 32 in the 30%-40% range. So, when your local cable operator gags on your asking $1 per sub per month (which is the least you should be getting) and says he can't afford anything close to that, show him the SNL Kagan report and point out that it isn't your neighborhood broadcasters who are getting rich off of his subscribers, but those remote cable networks that, by the way, only have a fraction of the audience that you have. The reason that the cable networks can post such margins despite their paltry ratings is because cable and satellite operators mindlessly pay them programming fees that have no relation to the audiences they are delivering.

Public safety is a bit more sophisticated, and methods of communication much faster. Law enforcement tools have evolved from wanted posters to police radio, patrol cars and social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Community policing today has also expanded through social networking to locate missing children, alert neighbors of suspicious activity and even inform the public about crimes committed in their neighborhoods. But social networking is a tool that cuts both ways. Flash mobs organized online in Philadelphia swarmed stores to shoplift and attack pedestrians; pedophiles use social networking platforms to share photos and video; and terrorists recruit members and plan attacks via these tools. Even the courts have been affected. Jurors have disregarded instructions and have conducted online research, shared their opinions on Twitter from the jury box, and even posted biased comments on their Facebook pages.