With a national tragedy on the scale of the mass shooting in Newtown (CT), the public has come to expect a constant flow of information about the who, what and why of the day’s events. Unfortunately, the frantic pace often comes at the expense of fact checking. From the shooter’s identity to the number of deaths, misinformation about the tragedy’s events spread like wildfire from the social Web to leading media outlets.
[Commentary] At the global treaty conference on telecommunications, the United States got most of what it wanted. But then it refused to sign the document and left in a huff. What was that all about? And what does it say about the future of the Internet — which was virtually invented by the United States but now has many more users in the rest of the world?
It may mean little about how the Internet will operate in the coming years. But it might mean everything about the United States’ refusal to acknowledge even symbolic global oversight of the network. The events in Dubai raise the curious prospect of a treaty largely negotiated to suit the United States’ position and applying mostly to developing countries, many of which seemed perfectly happy with the outcome.
A United Nations treaty conference in Dubai highlighted divisions among countries on how the Internet and content that flows over it should be governed. The United States fought against treaty proposals that sought to give the United Nations International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and national governments a greater role in overseeing the Internet. That stance pitted U.S. delegates against Russia, China and a group of countries from Africa and the Middle East, which submitted a proposal to the conference record this week that called for governments to have equal rights over managing the Internet. Although the conference ended, some observers say the battle over how the Internet should be run is just starting to heat up.
When it comes to Internet outrage, this was no SOPA.
For the past couple of weeks, Google and other Internet companies have protested a United Nations conference over concerns that a new treaty will lead to censorship of the Web. Despite their campaigns, they weren’t able to drum up the kind of widespread indignation that elevated the Stop Online Piracy Act to national prominence earlier this year, according to studies of online discussions commissioned by Bloomberg. For the SOPA blackout on Jan. 18, as any proud netizen will recall, Google self-censored its logo, and Wikipedia obscured its encyclopedic entries. Other companies published blog posts opposing the proposed anti-piracy legislation. The gestures resulted in a firestorm that included 5.1 million Twitter messages during the week of the blackout, according to Topsy, a social-media research firm. Compare that to the 65,300 tweets — containing terms related to the World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai — posted during the first week or so of the UN event. Even SOPA, nearly a year after the protests, is getting more attention, with 87,073 tweets during the same time period, according to Topsy.
Recorded music royalties are set to rise in coming years for Sirius XM Radio, the only satellite radio service in the United States, as a result of a judgment by a panel of federal judges.
The three-judge panel, known as the Copyright Royalty Board, said that the rate paid by satellite radio for the use of sound recordings, currently 8 percent of the company’s gross revenue, would climb to 9 percent in 2013, and then rise 0.5 percentage point each year until reaching 11 percent in 2017. That money will be paid to SoundExchange, a nonprofit group that distributes digital royalties to record labels and musicians. The decision does not cover royalties to music publishers and songwriters, which are negotiated directly. It also does not cover rates for Internet radio, which are in place through 2015 and work under a different, per-stream model. Sirius’s royalty rate, the subject of nearly two years of litigation, was widely expected to rise. The last time the Copyright Royalty Board set rates for satellite radio, in late 2007, Sirius and XM were still struggling as separate companies; they merged the next year and still nearly went bankrupt before getting a $530 million loan from Liberty Media in 2009.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is expected to soon overhaul regulations aimed at protecting the privacy of children when they are online.
At a recent event on Capitol Hill, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said he hopes to announce his update to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) this coming week. The agency proposed a draft revision in August, but companies including Facebook, Google and Disney warned that the changes would burden websites, stifle online commerce and infringe on constitutionally protected free-speech rights. Although the agency is likely to tweak some of its proposals, observers expect the FTC to move ahead with a substantial overhaul of COPPA.
[Commentary] Gmail went down for 18 minutes during prime e-mail checking hours on the West Coast thanks to a routine software update conducted Dec 10. But in an era of continuous code deployment Google’s midmorning update isn’t unusual — it’s the future.
The rationale for doing these sorts of continuous deployments vary, but most fall into four categories.
[Commentary] Closed and proprietary networks and platforms like Facebook and Apple and Amazon are appealing in many ways because they are so easy to use, but in depending on them for so much of our online lives, we give up many of the benefits of the open web.
Here’s what we’re giving up:
[Commentary] It’s easy to borrow a book from the library, rent a DVD or sell CDs to a local record store. Why, then, is it so hard to do the same when this content is in digital form?
One reason is that laws that govern how we sell our stuff aren’t very compatible with digital content. As awareness of these issues builds, a war is brewing – with retailers and publishers on one side, and libraries, consumers, and startups on the other. To break the impasse, libraries are pushing for Digital First Sale rights in the law. Libraries recently joined together with other, better-heeled entities in a lobbying group called the Owners’ Rights Initiative (ORI). The ORI, which launched back in October, is a “strange bedfellows” coalition of library trade associations, companies such as Chegg (used textbooks) and Redbox (DVD/Blu-ray kiosks) that could expand into resale of digital content, several companies that sell used IT equipment, and last but not least, eBay. The ORI’s slogan is “You bought it, you own it.” Digital music resale and library e-book lending are just two of what will undoubtedly be many digital content distribution models that will touch on the issue of Digital First Sale – a law that, like other aspects of copyright, seems increasingly irrelevant as content moves from physical products to formless bits. As the controversies and lawsuits grow, the inadequacy of the status quo will be increasingly clear.
[Bill Rosenblatt is an authority on digital rights management and President of GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies]
Apparently, federal regulators may end a two-year antitrust probe of Google’s search business by letting the company make voluntary changes, such as limiting use of restaurant and travel reviews from other websites and letting search ad campaigns be easily ported to rival search services.
The Federal Trade Commission is also preparing to enter into a settlement with Google on a related case over how the company uses its acquired stockpile of patents against competitors, as POLITICO reported last week. Under the patent agreement, Google will curtail using key patents it picked up when it purchased Motorola Mobility to block competitors infringing those patents from getting their products to the market, although there are exceptions, sources said. By allowing Google to voluntarily address some complaints about use of its dominant search and search advertising businesses, the company would avoid a consent decree that could be enforced by the FTC over time. That is sure to upset Google critics and complainants, who will see it as more of a slap on the wrist. However, the FTC does have authority to pursue cases against companies that violate their own stated policies.
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