John Eggerton

Fox has been seeking a preliminary injunction and argues the district court was wrong, and in fact abused its discretion, in not finding Dish's allegedly infringing AutoHop DVR service culpable of irreparable harm, and denying the injunction, as did the Ninth Circuit on appeal in January 2014.

At issue are PrimeTime Anytime and AutoHop, key features of the Hopper Whole-Home HD DVR. Fox, which sued for breach of contract and copyright infringement, appealed the denial of the injunction, and argument was held on July 7 in the circuit's Pasadena courtroom.

Fox was looking to use broadcasters' recent victory in the Aereo case in the Supreme Court to buttress its argument, including pointing out that Dish had argued that it was merely an equipment provider, an Aereo argument that the Supremes rejected. It also pointed out the Supremes had reflected Aereo's argument (which it said was Dish's as well) that a performance was not public under the Copyright Act if each sub watches a unique stream.

Broadcasters and cable operators are on the same page when it comes to providing captions for online video clips: Online clips should not be held to the same quality standard as full-length captions on TV programming, and the clip requirement for time-sensitive clips should not kick in before mid-to-late 2017.

That is according to arguments made to Federal Communications Commission staffers by National Association of Broadcasters and National Cable & Telecommunications Association execs as the FCC prepares to vote at its July 11 public meeting on extending closed captioning requirements to online clips.

Both associations were concerned with time-sensitive clips, like breaking news, and advanced clips, like online promos for shows that have not aired yet. NCTA said programmers need flexibility to experiment with new ways of providing captions for clips, including voice recognition technology. NAB says broadcasters are working on ways to automate the captioning process to speed it up.

The National Association of Broadcasters has told the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit that the four challenges to the Federal Communications Commission's decision to make most TV joint sales agreements attributable as ownership interest should not be moved to the Third Circuit. That was the court that initially remanded the FCC's decade-old ownership rule revise back to the commission, where issues related to deregulation and diversity have yet to be resolved.

Prometheus Radio Project, which initially challenged the rule changes back in 2003, is one of the four challengers to the rules this time around as well (joined by Free Press, NABET, CWA and others) and filed in the Third Circuit. The DC circuit got the consolidated cases via lottery, which is how the court system decides when challenges are filed in multiple venues, but Prometheus petitioned to move the case to the Third, citing the precedent of the original challenge and decision out of that court.

NAB is challenging the FCC's decision to make joint sales agreements (JSA's) of over 15% attributable as ownership interests, saying the decision was arbitrary and capricious.

US Mayors want to take cable operators out of the equation when it comes to deciding how Public, Educational and Government (PEG) channels use their money, which comes from franchise fees.

At the United States Conference of Mayors annual meeting, the mayors agreed on a resolution asking Congress to change the law that now requires those monies to be used only for capital expenditures and not ongoing operations unless a franchisee agrees. They argue that restriction on the use of PEG money has led to the closing of more than 100 PEG access centers -- where the community can produce programming -- and to hundreds of PEG channels going dark in the last decade.

Sens Al Franken (D-MN) and Dean Heller (R-NV) are not satisfied with a new report from the Obama Administration on government surveillance programs, and say their Surveillance Transparency Act is still needed.

Their problem is that the report identifies the number of people targeted, not the number from whom information was collected. It also does not identify how many of those who had info collected were American, and how much of that wound up being reviewed by the government.

The pair said the report, issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, is only a "small step" toward the surveillance transparency they are looking for.

“I recognize that this report is being offered in good faith," said Sen Franken, who suggested good faith didn't cut it. "[I]t still leaves Americans in the dark," he said. "It doesn’t tell the American people enough about what information is being gathered about them and how it’s being used."

Sen Heller added: “The report released by the Administration represents some progress, but it does not do near enough to provide Americans with adequate information

Former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt is suggesting the FCC may want to strip Redskins owner Dan Snyder of his radio station licenses if he does not change the name of the team.

Hundt said that the FCC should "reevaluate" whether Snyder is fit to be a licensee, by which Hundt meant "a person of appropriate character," he said.

“The FCC should consider whether Mr. Snyder is fit to own radio station licenses given that he uses radio stations to broadcast an ethnic slur,” he said. “These licenses are owned by the public and they are given to individuals for the purpose of serving the public interest. The FCC does not give radio station licenses to felons; it doesn’t give radio station licenses to people of bad character. Historically, [the FCC] has been reluctant to give broadcast licenses to people who advocate racially intolerant positions.”

Broadcasters were breathing a big sigh of relief after the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Aereo was indeed providing a public performance of their work without compensation.

Their underlying challenge in the lower courts remains, and Aereo founder Chet Kanojia vowed to keep fighting.

But even though the Supreme Court reversal of the Second Circuit’s denial of an injunction against Aereo does not technically settle those lower court cases, it effectively does, with language that makes it clear what Aereo is and isn’t. What it is, says the court, is like a cable operator or other multichannel video programming distributor, and not simply a cool technology to access free stuff.

That could give the Federal Communications Commission some direction in its proceeding on how to define an over-the-top video service provider, and could also send the decision’s critics to Congress for help clarifying its impact on other technologies, as the court pointed out.

Political activist site Rootstrikers.org is seeking signatures on a petition to require the source of political ads to identify themselves in the Federal Communications Commission's political files.

That comes as the commission prepares on July 1 to require all stations to upload their political files to an online database, as the top stations in the top 50 markets have had to do.

"Disclosure of political ads offers our only glimpse into $300 million of secret money that floods our elections. But major TV executives refuse to obey the law," Rootstrikers wrote. "Others give misleading information on a loophole-ridden form created by industry lobbyists!"

The Federal Communications Commission has granted extensions for comments and reply comments on its media ownership item. The new dates are Aug 6, and Sept 8, respectively.

The FCC released its notice of proposed rulemaking on its quadrennial regulatory review April 15, with deadlines of July 7 and Aug. 4, but has just released new data on ownership diversity that could figure into comments on its rules.

In addition, The Coalition for Smaller Market Television Stations sought the extension saying it needed more time to respond to the questions teed up in the NPRM, which include on multiple ownership rules and shared service agreements -- the FCC wants to know whether it should make those attributable as it has joint sales agreements. It also points out that there are other comment deadlines in June and July.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Sunlight Foundation, and Greenpeace have teamed on a new online scorecard to grade members of Congress on their votes on communications privacy legislation the groups are monitoring.

The interactive site, http://StandAgainstSpying.org, will also encourage online activism targeted at those who don't make the grade. The goal is reform of the National Security Agency data collection apparatus and to "inspire constituents to hold their elected officials accountable on mass surveillance reform," including by encouraging Web surfers to tweet their members either thanking them or asking them to do more.

Of the 100 senators and 433 representatives graded, 241 of them (45%) received “A” grades, while 188 flunked. Another 77 members (14%) received question marks for "no measurable action." The site also includes an open letter to the President to end mass surveillance now, without waiting for Congress to act.