January 23, 2012 (SOPA and PIPA dead, for now)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2012
PIRACY
SOPA and PIPA dead, for now
Speaker Boehner interjected on piracy bill
Senate Majority Leader Reid Statement On Intellectual Property Bill - press release
Comment Of Senator Patrick Leahy On Postponement Of The Vote On Cloture On The Motion To Proceed To The PROTECT IP Act - press release
An Astounding Week In PIPA/SOPA Comes To A Close - analysis
From the Benton Blog: Biggest Day Ever of Online Protest in English - analysis
5 Lessons From The SOPA/PIPA Fight - analysis
Why doesn’t Washington understand the Internet? - op-ed
US website blackout draws praise in China [links to web]
Hollywood regroups after losing battle over anti-piracy bills [links to web]
MPAA chief still wants action on piracy
Consumer group accuses Hollywood of 'threatening politicians'
White House declines MPAA's call to hold piracy summit [links to web]
Sen Wyden: Piracy debate shows Web is catalyst for change
Winners and losers in online piracy battle - analysis
Web freedom vs. Web piracy - editorial [links to web]
A Clash of Media Worlds (and Generations) [links to web]
Playing the influence game: How tech companies won anti-SOPA fight [links to web]
Moore's Law Trumps More Law - editorial [links to web]
Potential SOPA/PIPA Revisions [links to web]
Report: SOPA/PIPA Web Protest Generated More Online Chatter Than Super Bowl [links to web]
Europe Says It Won’t Adopt ‘Bad’ Digital Policy Like SOPA [links to web]
MegaUpload case proves we don’t need SOPA or PIPA - analysis
Megaupload shows online copyright protection is needed - editorial [links to web]
Antipiracy Case Sends Shivers Through Some Legitimate Storage Sites
Government takedown of Megaupload leads to new fears
How can the US seize a "Hong Kong site" like Megaupload? - analysis
Follow the traffic: What MegaUpload’s downfall did to the web [links to web]
Megaupload site wants assets back, to fight charges [links to web]
Google cut off Megaupload's ad money voluntarily back in 2007
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
Verizon, Comcast Send Marketing Deals to FCC in Airwaves Review
LTE-Advanced: Think of it as broadband for cars [links to web]
Will Apple put Siri in everything? [links to web]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Green Bay Packers a Model for Broadband Fundraising - op-ed
House Commerce Committee Annual Report Highlights Net Neutrality, Spectrum - press release
Rural Groups Urge FCC to Look Beyond Cuts and Caps for USF Reform
TELEVISION
A Commercial, Sandwiched Between Lines of Dialogue on ‘Hawaii Five-0’ [links to web]
Bloomberg jabs at Comcast on anniversary of NBC deal approval [links to web]
Vermont Legislators Say Protecting Broadcast Signals is Critical [links to web]
Hispanic TV Gets Crowded
Desperate in TV Fight, Some Knicks Fans Buy Tickets [links to web]
MEDIA & ELECTIONS
Gingrich Bets on Attack Mode Against News Media
MORE ON CONTENT
Tablet and E-book reader Ownership Nearly Double Over the Holiday Gift-Giving Period - research
Reading the Fine Print on Apple’s Book-Making Software [links to web]
What Apple Is Wading Into: A Snapshot Of The K-12 Textbook Business [links to web]
LABOR
How the US Lost Out on iPhone Work
STORIES FROM ABROAD
New EU privacy rules worry business
Vodafone Wins India Tax Case [links to web]
News International faces FBI phone hacking probe [links to web]
MORE ONLINE
Sharing a Screen, if Not a Classroom [links to web]
Cracking Teenagers’ Online Codes [links to web]
The War on Political Free Speech - op-ed [links to web]
Google Ignites Online Battle - research [links to web]
PIRACY
SOPA, PIPA DEAD
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Jennifer Martinez]
House and Senate leaders abandoned plans to move on SOPA and PIPA — the surest sign yet that a wave of online protests have killed the controversial anti-piracy legislation for now and maybe forever. SOPA sponsor Rep Lamar Smith (R-TX), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said his committee won’t take up the bill as planned next month — and that he’d have to “wait until there is wider agreement on a solution” before moving forward. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), meanwhile, said he was calling off a cloture vote on PIPA he’d scheduled for Jan 24. The double-barrel decisions to punt on the bill capped an extraordinary week of public pressure — and an extraordinary reversal of fortunes for Hollywood, whose lobbyists seemed to think they were on cruise control to passage of bills aimed at protecting their content from online thieves.
benton.org/node/111274 | Politico | Los Angeles Times | The Hill | The Hill | USAToday | GigaOm | Politico
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BOEHNER’S ROLE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Molly Hoope]
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to shelve the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) halted work on the controversial bill after mass protests on the Web swelled opposition on Capitol Hill. Asked whether he was behind Smith’s decision, the Speaker said: “I suggested to him that it’s time to build more consensus. … He agreed.” Speaker Boehner said Chairman Smith needs to find consensus on his committee before moving ahead. “This proposal, while well-meaning, has some difficulties, and I expect the chairman, like any chairman, to build more consensus before trying to move this bill out of the committee,” Speaker Boehner said. The Speaker made the remarks at a press conference on the second day of a weekend retreat with fellow House Republicans in Baltimore.
benton.org/node/111273 | Hill, The | The Hill – Smith shelves SOPA
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REID’S STATEMENT
[SOURCE: United States Senate Democrats, AUTHOR: Press release]
In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT I.P. Act. There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved. Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs each year, with the movie industry alone supporting over 2.2 million jobs. We must take action to stop these illegal practices. We live in a country where people rightfully expect to be fairly compensated for a day’s work, whether that person is a miner in the high desert of Nevada, an independent band in New York City, or a union worker on the back lots of a California movie studio. I admire the work that Chairman Leahy has put into this bill. I encourage him to continue engaging with all stakeholders to forge a balance between protecting Americans’ intellectual property, and maintaining openness and innovation on the internet. We made good progress through the discussions we’ve held in recent days, and I am optimistic that we can reach a compromise in the coming weeks.
benton.org/node/111272 | United States Senate Democrats
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LEAHY’S STATEMENT
[SOURCE: Office of Senator Patrick Leahy, AUTHOR: Press release]
The United States Senate has identified a problem directly affecting American jobs, American workers and American consumers. When I first came to Congress, it was the practice of the Senate to debate competing ideas to address such a problem; regrettably, that is not the practice today.
The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously reported the PROTECT IP Act in May. Since then, I have worked with both Senators and stakeholders to identify concerns and find meaningful ways to address them. Only when the Senate considers this legislation can we do so. In the meantime, more time will pass with jobs lost and economies hurt by foreign criminals who are stealing American intellectual property, and selling it back to American consumers. I remain committed to addressing this problem; I hope other members of Congress won’t simply stand on hollow promises to find a way to eliminate online theft by foreign rogue websites, and will instead work with me to send a bill to the President’s desk this year.
I understand and respect Majority Leader Reid’s decision to seek consent to vitiate cloture on the motion to proceed to the PROTECT IP Act. But the day will come when the Senators who forced this move will look back and realize they made a knee-jerk reaction to a monumental problem. Somewhere in China today, in Russia today, and in many other countries that do not respect American intellectual property, criminals who do nothing but peddle in counterfeit products and stolen American content are smugly watching how the United States Senate decided it was not even worth debating how to stop the overseas criminals from draining our economy.”
benton.org/node/111269 | Office of Senator Patrick Leahy
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AN ASTOUNDING WEEK
[SOURCE: Tales of the Sausage Factory, AUTHOR: Harold Feld]
[Commentary] January 20 brought a dramatic conclusion to an extraordinary week and the culmination of months of amazing activism on PIPA/SOPA. A month ago, hardly anyone had heard of PIPA and a few more had heard of SOPA and its passage was regarded as virtually assured. On Jan 20, Harry Reid (D-NV) finally threw in the towel and called off Tuesday’s scheduled cloture vote. In the House, Lamar Smith and Marsha Blackburn, the last SOPA holdouts, threw in the towel and promised to go back to the drawing board and totally rework their approach. Yes, the ill-grace with which the chief Democratic architects of PIPA in the Senate have responded, coupled with Chris Dodd’s increasing resemblance to Muppet Movie villain Tex Richman by openly threatening on Fox News to stop campaign contributions to any politician who didn’t keep pushing PIPA, make it clear PIPA’s sponsors (in both the legislative and financial sense) are as utterly unrepentant as they are in common sense. So yes, they will come back and try again and all the usual caveats that responsible people seem compelled to add to any moment of real triumph.
benton.org/node/111267 | Tales of the Sausage Factory | Public Knowledge
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BIGGEST ONLINE PROTEST
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
[Commentary] Daily Headlines readers know we devoted lots of digital ink this week to the ongoing debates over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) [#SOPA and #PIPA, if you’re Tweeting at home]. Last week, we ended our weekly round-up saying, “The developments on these two bills are likely to be one of the most-watched issues as Congress returns to Washington.” We’re proud to announce we are an early nominee for “Understatement of the Year.”
http://benton.org/node/111205
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5 LESSONS
[SOURCE: Slate, AUTHOR: Matthew Yglesias]
[Commentary] I think we can learn a few lessons here, many of which illustrate the main conclusions of Baumgartner et. al.'s excellent book Lobbying and Policy Change: Why Wins, Who Loses, and Why.
Lobbying isn't all about money: Hollywood badly outspent Silicon Valley on this issue and still lost. This is completely typical. There's no evidence that better-funded groups systematically win policy fights.
But money matters a lot: That said, it's extraordinarily difficult to get on the agenda if you don't have some money to spend. The fact that Silicon Valley firms like Google now have Washington offices and are clearly capable of offering both campaign contributions and the "legislative subsidy" of policy analysis to people who champion their causes was critical to getting opposition off the ground.
In America, always bet on change not happening: To pass something, you need to run the table -- committees, two different houses of congress, the president -- while to block something you only need one stopping point.
Polarization is an illusion of agenda-control: The parties are polarized in part because the leadership deliberately promotes a polarizing agenda. Leaders deliberately put issues that unite their caucuses on the agenda. When happenstance causes the agenda to be dominated by something outside the main structure of partisanship, the polarization dynamic breaks down.
Public engagement matter: Members of Congress, just like regular people, only have deep commitments to a few priorities. When they suddenly learn that they've misjudged how many of their constituents care about something and which side they're on, they're happy to change positions.
benton.org/node/111264 | Slate
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WHY DOESN’T DC GET THE WEB?
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Rebecca MacKinnon]
[Commentary] In late 2010, on the eve of the Arab Spring uprisings, a Tunisian blogger asked Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah what democratic nations should do to help cyber¬activists in the Middle East. Abdel Fattah, who had spent time in jail under Hosni Mubarak’s regime, argued that if Western democracies wanted to support the region’s Internet activists, they should put their own houses in order. He called on the world’s democracies to “fight the troubling trends emerging in your own backyards” that “give our own regimes great excuses for their own actions.” The ominous developments that Abdel Fattah warned about are on display in Washington today in the battle over two anti-piracy bills. This fight is just the latest example of how difficult it is for even an established democracy to protect both intellectual property and intellectual freedom on the Internet — all while keeping people safe, too. It is a challenge that Congress has historically failed to meet. But Washington is waking up to the new reality: Politics as usual is not compatible with the Internet age, especially when it comes to laws and regulations governing the Web. And the Internet’s key players — along with millions of passionate users who have tended to view Washington as disconnected from their lives — are realizing that they can’t ignore what happens on Capitol Hill. Both sides must now face the long-simmering culture clash between Washington and the Internet, with implications that go far beyond a temporary Wikipedia blackout.
Washington targets isolated, static problems. On the Web, everything is connected and changing quickly.
Lobbyists exert huge influence in Washington. Major Internet players were late to the game.
To stay safe in real life, we give up some liberty. Online, we’re not ready to sacrifice freedoms.
Washington is driven by geography. The Internet is global.
benton.org/node/111262 | Washington Post
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DODD WANTS ACTION
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Gautham Nagesh]
Motion Picture of America Association CEO Chris Dodd reacted to the shelving of controversial online anti-piracy legislation by renewing his call for Congress to pass stronger laws to protect American creators from copyright violations by foreign websites. Dodd's statement came shortly after both House and Senate leadership indicated they would be delaying the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act, respectively, a significant blow to Hollywood and the rest of the entertainment industry, which lobbied heavily in favor of the bill. "With today’s announcement, we hope the dynamics of the conversation can change and become a sincere discussion about how best to protect the millions of American jobs affected by the theft of American intellectual property," Dodd said. "The threat posed by these criminal operations has been widely acknowledged by even the most ardent critics. It is incumbent that they now sincerely work with all of us to achieve a meaningful solution to this critically important goal.”
benton.org/node/111257 | Hill, The
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MPAA THREATENING POLITICIANS?
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Consumer group Public Knowledge accused the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and its head, former Sen. Chris Dodd, of trying to intimidate lawmakers into supporting a pair of controversial anti-piracy bills. In recent days, Dodd and other top Hollywood figures have threatened to cut off campaign donations to politicians who do not support their effort to crackdown on online copyright infringement. "Those who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake," Dodd said on Fox News.
"Threats like that are no way to conduct the serious, sober discussions needed to figure out exactly what ails the movie industry and to come up with solutions," Harold Feld, legal director of Public Knowledge, said in a statement. "It was Hollywood’s arrogance in pushing bills through Congress without proper vetting that caused them to be withdrawn; these threats also are not helpful to figuring out what ails the industry and how to solve their issues. As the Blackout Day showed, that type of thinking is how the old politics works."
benton.org/node/111254 | Hill, The | National Journal
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WEB CATALYST FOR CHANGE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Gautham Nagesh]
The leading opponent of the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate said the decision to shelve the bill shows the Internet has the ability to affect change in Washington. "The events of the last week demonstrate clearly that the Internet is the catalyst for the important changes Americans want in government," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), referencing the week of online protests against PIPA and its House counterpart the Stop Online Piracy Act. “Senator Reid’s decision to pull PIPA from the floor is the right one. Legislation impacting the future of the Internet is simply too important to get wrong," he said. "The problem with the approach taken by PIPA and the House, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is that it treats the Internet as if its only purpose was to promote infringement," Sen Wyden added. "That approach not only resulted in remedies that would have done irreparable harm to online innovation, openness and free speech, it neglects the considerable opportunities presented by today’s digital economy." Sen Wyden said proponents of PIPA and SOPA were correct in that online piracy is a problem, they just chose the wrong method to tackle that problem. He said his OPEN Act is a good place to restart the conversation on the issue, but he wants to ensure all sides are able to weigh in with their views. Sen Wyden noted OPEN employs a "follow the money" approach by cutting off revenue streams to bad actors, a tactic approved by Google and other Web firms. He said his bill would not support a private right of action, censorship or do any damage to the architecture of the Internet. "There is no question PIPA was a censorship bill," Sen Wyden said. "I think Congress ought to focus on doing no harm."
benton.org/node/111251 | Hill, The | ars technica
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WINNERS AND LOSERS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
The debate over online piracy isn’t over, but some clear winners and losers emerged from this week's dramatic showdown.
Winners include Google, which has helped rewrite the rules on political advocacy. Google used traditional lobbying tactics, such as meeting with lawmakers, to make its case. But it was the company's dramatic participation in Wednesday's Web protest that helped beat back the piracy bills. Other winners: Rep Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR), the two main opponents to the bills; and Reddit – the quirky discussion board and news aggregator caught the attention of Washington. It was the first major site to announce that it would blackout in protest of the piracy bills before other big names, such as Wikipedia, joined in.
Losers include bill sponsors Rep Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Sen Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the respective chairs of the Judiciary Committees, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Chamber of Commerce.
The outcome is more mixed for President Barack Obama. He pleased Internet activists and tech companies when his Administration released a statement expressing concerns with the piracy bills. But he also disappointed Hollywood, which has also been one of his party’s most important allies. Movie studio chiefs said they were disappointed, and one executive told Deadline.com he will not "give a dime anymore" to President Obama. Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch, who has never been much of an Obama fan, accused the president of throwing in his "lot with Silicon Valley paymasters.”
benton.org/node/111249 | Hill, The
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MEGAUPLOAD AND SOPA
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Mathew Ingram]
[Commentary] It’s ironic that only a day after a massive, coordinated protest against the SOPA and PIPA anti-piracy bills that have been making their way through both houses of Congress, one of the best arguments against these laws was provided by the federal government itself, in a raid on the file-sharing service known as MegaUpload. Not only did the authorities manage to shut down the site and arrest its founders without the need for either SOPA or PIPA, but the facts of the case raise even more red flags about what the government — and private companies — would be able to do to similar services under the proposed legislation.
benton.org/node/111245 | GigaOm
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MEGAUPLOAD AND THE CLOUD
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Nicole Perlroth, Quentin Hardy]
If Megaupload is guilty, then who among its brethren is innocent? Federal authorities shut the Web site of Megaupload, a file-sharing service, and accused its operators of copyright infringement and running a vast “Mega Conspiracy.” They could face 20 years in prison. But Megaupload was not the only such service on the Web. Many companies have crowded into the online storage market recently, most of them aimed at consumers and businesses that want convenient ways to get big data files out of their teeming in-boxes, off their devices and into the cloud — perhaps so that friends or co-workers can download them. They include MediaFire, RapidShare, YouSendIt, Dropbox and Box.net. And there are similar services from Amazon, Google and Microsoft. All of these market themselves as legitimate ways to store content online. But they are inherently ideal for anyone looking to illegitimately upload and share copyrighted video and audio files. Most companies rarely, if ever, inspect individual files to see if the material they store on behalf of users violates copyrights, unless they are notified by someone claiming infringement.
benton.org/node/111308 | New York Times
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NEW FEARS
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Byron Acohido]
The government takedown of Megaupload, a popular file-sharing site, has stoked simmering fears that hard-line enforcement of copyright infringements could profoundly disrupt Internet commerce. File sharing has become a major way corporations collaborate with employees and partners and interact with customers. It fuels the sharing of rich content across Internet-connected devices in the home and office and distributed to mobile devices and has emerged as a major component of cloud computing, the delivery of content and services across the Web. "If legitimate content is housed on the same service that might have infringing content, it gets sucked into this vortex and it's gone," says Dennis Fisher, security blogger at Threatpost.com. "I don't know how much the government or these companies (advocating strict anti-piracy enforcement) have thought this through. I would guess not a lot."
benton.org/node/111243 | USAToday
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HOW CAN THE US DO THAT?
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Nate Anderson]
The Megaupload takedown, and the arrest of its key employees, might seem to vindicate late 1990s worries about the Internet and jurisdiction. Does putting a site on the 'Net, though it might be hosted anywhere in the world, subject you simultaneously to the laws of every country on earth? Why would Megaupload, based in Hong Kong, be subject to US copyright laws and to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act?
"Because events on the Net occur everywhere but nowhere in particular," wrote law professors David Johnson and David Post in a 1996 Stanford Law Review article, "no physical jurisdiction has a more compelling claim than any other to subject these events exclusively to its laws." The flip side was that every jurisdiction might make a claim—after all, Internet publishing is "borderless," right?
But there were some principles useful for thinking through questions of jurisdiction. For instance: where did the actual harm occur? As law professor Jack Goldsmith countered in another well-known law review article from the time ("Against Cyberanarchy"), Internet issues aren't unique from traditional international harms. "Both involve people in real space in one territorial jurisdiction transacting with people in real space in another territorial jurisdiction in a way that sometimes causes real-world harms," he wrote. "In both contexts, the state in which the harms are suffered has a legitimate interest in regulating the activity that produces the harms." Surely there must be limits, though. It would be absurd for some resident of Australia to build a perfectly legal site for other Australians but to be arrested and extradited to the US for violating US law. But it's not so absurd once a "nexus" has been established between our mythical Australian and the US.
benton.org/node/111240 | Ars Technica
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GOOGLE AND MEGAUPLOAD
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Nate Anderson]
The federal government's 72-page indictment of file hosting site Megaupload is stuffed with odd bits of information. Take page 34, for instance, which features a single paragraph about Google's AdSense program. It reads:
“On or about May 17, 2007, a representative from Google AdSense, an Internet advertising company, send an e-mail to [Megaupload founder Kim] DOTCOM entitled "Google AdSense Account Status.” In the e-mail, the representative stated that “[d]uring our most recent review of your site,” Google AdSense specialists found “numerous pages” with links to, among other things, “copyrighted content,” and therefore Google AdSense “will no longer be able to work with you.” The e-mail contains links to specific examples of offending content located on Megaupload.com. DOTCOM and his conspirators have continued to operate and financially profit from the Megaupload.com website after receiving this notice.”
Sometime later, Megaupload launched an internal advertising agency so that it collect even higher amounts of cash from placing ads on its download pages. But the paragraph is more interesting for what it tells us about Google. Policy wonks may remember that the company has been absolutely vilified in recent months for taking advertising money from pirates, counterfeiters, and other unsavory characters. The implication—and sometimes it's far more than an implication—is that Google opposed recent legislation like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) only because it couldn't pass up the sweet nectar of forbidden cash.
benton.org/node/111236 | Ars Technica
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
VERIZON-CABLE COMPANIES FILE MARKETING DEALS
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Todd Shields]
Verizon Wireless and cable companies led by Comcast filed agreements with the U.S. government to sell each other’s services, and said the deals shouldn’t be part of a regulatory review of their $3.6 billion airwaves sale. The companies submitted copies of the marketing agreements to the FCC under confidentiality protections to avoid delay in reviewing the airwaves sale, and to fulfill an agency request. The marketing arrangements announced alongside the airwaves sale last month don’t require approval by the Federal Communications Commission, the companies said in the filing. The proposed sale to Verizon “appears to be only one small part of what could be a significant realignment of the competitive landscape,” companies including mobile carriers T- Mobile USA and Sprint Nextel, and satellite-television provider DirecTV said in a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.
The competitors asked Chairman Genachowski to require Verizon Wireless and the cable companies to divulge the marketing agreements, according to the letter, which was also signed by Washington-based policy groups Public Knowledge and Media Access Project. The companies’ filing “will eliminate a controversy that surely would have taken place had they not done so,” Harold Feld, legal director for Public Knowledge, said. “No one should accept the companies’ claim that the arrangements are outside of the FCC’s jurisdiction,” Feld said. “They clearly are” within the agency’s purview, he said.
benton.org/node/111234 | Bloomberg | Reuters
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TELEVISION
HISPANIC TV
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Sam Schechner, Suzanne Vranica]
News Corp. is teaming up with a Colombian television broadcaster to create a Spanish-language broadcast network for the US, attempting to challenge Univision and Comcast's Telemundo. MundoFox, owned by News Corp.'s Fox International Channels and Colombia's RCN Television SA, reflects a rush by media companies to cash in on the booming U.S. Hispanic population—one of the few significant growth opportunities for media companies in the US. The TV dial already is crowded with dozens of Spanish-language networks.
benton.org/node/111296 | Wall Street Journal
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MEDIA & ELECTIONS
GINGRICH ATTACKS MEDIA
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Jeremy Peters]
They were Newt Gingrich’s other adversaries in the South Carolina primary and they helped define his surge to victory as much as Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul did. John King of CNN, Juan Williams of Fox News and Brian Ross of ABC News all ended up being hit by Gingrich in his relentless criticism of the news media last week, part of an anti-elite, anti-establishment campaign that is rallying conservative voters around him. With momentum on his side, Gingrich kept up the attacks on Jan 22, accusing David Gregory, the moderator of NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” of distorting his record. When Mr. Gregory pointed out that some critics had referred to the former speaker’s consulting work as lobbying, he snapped at him. “David, you know better than that. I was not a lobbyist,” he said. “I was never a lobbyist. I never did any lobbying. Don’t try to mess these things up.” Gingrich also pointed out that bashing the news media, as he did in two debates last week, was endearing him to voters.
benton.org/node/111309 | New York Times
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MORE ON CONTENT
TABLET AND E-BOOK READER OWNERSHIP
[SOURCE: Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, AUTHOR: Lee Rainie]
The share of adults in the United States who own tablet computers nearly doubled from 10% to 19% between mid-December and early January and the same surge in growth also applied to e-book readers, which also jumped from 10% to 19% over the same time period. The number of Americans owning at least one of these digital reading devices jumped from 18% in December to 29% in January. These findings are striking because they come after a period from mid-2011 into the autumn in which there was not much change in the ownership of tablets and e-book readers. However, as the holiday gift-giving season approached the marketplace for both devices dramatically shifted.
benton.org/node/111288 | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
THE PACKERS AND BROADBAND
[SOURCE: Government Technology, AUTHOR: Craig Settles]
[Commentary] All of you who believe in broadband’s impact on economic development (or are a little jealous of stories like this about Chattanooga’s 1 gigabit network), should look to the Green Bay Packers of the NFL for the key to financing your broadband network. The franchise raised $70 million to rehab its football stadium (Lambeau Field) by selling 280,000 stock shares to individuals at $250 a pop. They pulled off this amazing feat in just five weeks! The Green Bay Packers are a nonprofit corporation owned by local residents and businesses. Packers pride enabled Green Bay to outdo tech companies that can’t get an initial public offering off the ground, let alone raise $70 million. If Green Bay can do all this for a football field, can’t your hometown or county convince constituents to raise just a few million for a broadband network? What if you create a nonprofit organization similar to the Packers, but with the goal being to build a broadband network, and then sell stock that:
gives constituents ownership of a vital community asset;
makes the benefits of broadband available to everyone in the community at affordable prices;
potentially makes some amount of money for investors when the network makes a profit; and
creates a mechanism for raising additional money for economic development projects.
benton.org/node/111223 | Government Technology
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HOUSE COMMERCE ANNUAL REPORT
[SOURCE: House of Representatives Commerce Committee, AUTHOR: Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI)]
House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) sent his Republican colleagues a report on Committee’s accomplishments in the 2011. He said that in every area of the Committee’s jurisdiction – including communications – it has passed legislation to promote the American economy. “Every Subcommittee and every Member has been involved in this effort,” he said.
On April 8, 2011, the House approved H.J.Res. 37, a resolution that will overturn the Federal Communication Commission’s “network neutrality” rules. The bill, authored by Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, rejects these controversial regulations that put the government in charge of how network traffic is managed and what kinds of partnerships can be formed to serve consumers. Network neutrality rules may cost between 500,000 and 700,000 jobs by 2015, and result in up to 1.45 million fewer jobs in the economy by 2020. Chairman Walden also introduced FCC reform legislation and the Jumpstarting Opportunity with Broadband Spectrum (JOBS) Act which authorizes the Federal Communications Commission to auction airwaves that will significantly expand the availability of wireless broadband for consumer use and produce $16.5 billion in proceeds for the federal taxpayer. In December, the bill was approved by the Communications and Technology Subcommittee and passed the House as part of H.R. 3630, the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2011. Getting it to the President’s desk is a top priority for 2012.
benton.org/node/111226 | House of Representatives Commerce Committee
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USF REFORM
[SOURCE: Telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
In comments filed with the Federal Communications Commission, four rural telco organizations urged the FCC not to adopt certain Universal Service reforms proposed in a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) released late last year. The National Exchange Carrier Association, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies and the Western Telecommunications Alliance argued that Universal Service reforms adopted thus far for rural carriers “have consisted entirely of caps, cuts and phase-outs to cost recovery components.” The groups urged the FCC to focus on developing “sufficient, predictable and meaningful” Universal Service and inter-carrier compensation (ICC) mechanisms to support broadband services in areas served by rural carriers. In the comments, the groups ask the FCC at a minimum to provide Universal Service support for “stand-alone broadband offerings, middle mile costs and conversions to IP-enabled switching.”
benton.org/node/111216 | telecompetitor
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LABOR
HOW US LOST THE IPHONE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Charles Duhigg, Keith Bradsher]
It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products. Apple has become one of the best-known, most admired and most imitated companies on earth, in part through an unrelenting mastery of global operations. Last year, it earned over $400,000 in profit per employee, more than Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil or Google. However, what has vexed President Obama as well as economists and policy makers is that Apple — and many of its high-technology peers — are not nearly as avid in creating American jobs as other famous companies were in their heydays. Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 overseas, a small fraction of the over 400,000 American workers at General Motors in the 1950s, or the hundreds of thousands at General Electric in the 1980s. Many more people work for Apple’s contractors: an additional 700,000 people engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple’s other products. But almost none of them work in the United States. Instead, they work for foreign companies in Asia, Europe and elsewhere, at factories that almost all electronics designers rely upon to build their wares.
benton.org/node/111311 | New York Times
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STORIES FROM ABROAD
NEW EU PRIVACY RULES
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Stanley Pignal, Maija Palmer]
Businesses are bracing for a radical overhaul of European Union privacy rules to be unveiled this week, which some fret could result in costly burdens and large fines for errant companies. The European Commission will on Jan 25 propose far-reaching changes to rules dictating how companies handle any personal information, the first time EU regulations first crafted in 1995 are updated. The proposals will impose a single set of privacy standards in the EU’s 27 countries for the first time, overriding often divergent national rules. Though watched particularly keenly by technology companies such as Google and Facebook, who store large amounts of personal data, the new EU privacy rules will impact the entire corporate landscape.
benton.org/node/111297 | Financial Times
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