MEDIA & SOCIETY
2 More in Iran Are Detained In Crackdown On the Press (NYT)
Hollywood's Take On Lieberman Is That He Is Mostly An Ally (USA)
OWNERSHIPS
News Corporation to Pay $5.3 Billion for Chris-Craft (NYT)
UPN Might Be DOA After Murdoch Move (USA)
FCC keeps Probing Key Issues In AOL, Time Warner Deal (WSJ)
NTT to Move Ahead With Its Purchase Of Verio After Winning U.S.
Support (WSJ)
Minority Media Roundtable (NTIA)
JOBS
Negotiations in Telephone Strike Make Little Progress (NYT)
INTELLECTUALLY PROPERTY
Free-Lance Writers Sue Web Publishers, Demanding to Be Paid Back
Royalties (WSJ)
Yahoo! Wins Domain Name Rights In U.N. Ruling Against Cybersquatter
(WSJ)
PRIVACY
Verizon Web Site Exposed Some Private Information (WSJ)
MEDIA & SOCIETY
2 MORE IN IRAN ARE DETAINED IN CRACKDOWN ON THE PRESS
Issue: International/Journalism
Two Iranian journalists were detained over weekend the just as they were to
win awards from their peers. In the last 10 days, five journalists have been
jailed and the last major reform newspaper, Bahar, was shut down. There may
be a ray of hope in the country, however, as a moderate deputy judiciary
chief, Hadi Marvi, said today that some of the newspapers might be allowed
to publish again because there was disagreement over the closings within the
judiciary. He said many of the judges believed that the interpretation of
existing law under which the newspapers had been shut down "is not right."
[SOURCE: New York Times (A6)]
(http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/iran-writers-nyt.html)
HOLLYWOOD'S TAKE ON LIEBERMAN IS THAT HE IS MOSTLY AN ALLY
Issue: Political Discourse
While Hollywood celebrities were gathering to support Democratic candidates
this weekend, Sen. Joseph Lieberman was on ABC on Sunday declaring that
"there's still too much violence, too much sex, too much instability in
entertainment" and that "a Gore-Lieberman administration will be concerned
about what government can do within appropriate constitutional limits to
improve the moral future of America." Not all in the entertainment industry,
however, are alienated by Lieberman's point of view. Gary Ross, writer and
director of Pleasantville and other movies, says Lieberman is "only
expressing what a lot of parents are concerned about. I appreciate that he's
called for voluntary self-regulation. He's never called for censorship." And
while Gore campaign Chairman William Daley concedes that there is an
"undercurrent" of concern in the entertainment community, he remains
confident that the Hollywood community will continue to give and raise money
for the Democratic party.
[SOURCE: USAToday (6A), AUTHOR: Jill Lawrence]
(http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000815/2549419s.htm)
OWNERSHIPS
NEWS CORPORATION TO PAY $5.3 BILLION FOR CHRIS-CRAFT
Issue: Ownership/Television
As expected, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp will pay $5.3 billion for 10 TV
stations currently owned by Chris-Craft. News Corporation will own 33
stations after the purchase, with two each in five cities, including New
York and Los Angeles, the two biggest markets. But the company said
yesterday that it would sell about $650 million worth of its stations to
comply with Federal Communications Commission regulations that prohibit a
company's stations from reaching more than 35 percent of the nation's
television market. In an example of why the presidential election is
important, Media Access Project President Andrew Schwartzman points out that
in its current make-up, the FCC is unlikely to approve the sale. But the FCC
is likely to see a lot of turnover with a new Administration and
Republican-appointed commissioners would be more sympathetic to the proposed
deal. Mr. Schwartzman said that he viewed it as "an arrogant bet on the
outcome of the election."
[SOURCE: New York Times (C10), AUTHOR: Geraldine Fabrikant]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/081500news-chris.html)
UPN MIGHT BE DOA AFTER MURDOCH MOVE
Issue: Ownership/Television
Even after eclipsing rival WB last season, mini-network UPN appears to be
doomed. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has agreed to buy Chris-Craft
Industries, the owner of 10 TV stations, including eight UPN affiliates in
markets such as New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. It is expected that
Murdoch will eventually replace UPN's 10 hours of weekly programming on the
newly purchased stations with 20th Century Fox's TV shows. The stations,
however, must carry UPN programming until Jan. 15. If Murdoch does pull UPN
programming off of the Chris-Craft stations, it would reduce UPN's reach
from 87 percent to 67 percent of homes.
[SOURCE: USAToday (1D), AUTHOR: Gary Levin]
(http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000815/2549479s.htm)
FCC KEEPS PROBING KEY ISSUES IN AOL, TIME WARNER DEAL
Issue: Merger
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) addressed previous concerns and
new concerns regarding the proposed America Online/Time Warner merger in
questions submitted to the companies Monday. Reflecting comments filed with
the FCC and a recent hearing on the merger, the questions addressed the
company's plans to open its cable pipelines to multiple Internet-service
providers and to grant competitors' access to AOL's popular
instant-messaging network. The FCC's request, its third so far, asked for
documents supporting Time Warner's stated intent to get out of an exclusive
contract with Internet service provider Road Runner. The Commission
requested specifics on companies supplying competing instant-messaging
services. The Commission questioned whether or not AT&T cable systems would
carry AOL's Internet service, and whether Time Warner's cable system would
carry AT&T's local phone service. The Commission questioned whether the
merged company would give less prominence to programming from unaffiliated
video networks on an electronic AOL-TV programming guide. And the Commission
asked if there would be a difference for consumers when accessing content
from a partner of AOL's TV service, compared with a nonpartner. AOL TV is a
recently launched initiative that is aimed at allowing the viewer to surf
the Internet using a television and visit e-commerce and other sites related
to the programming.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (A6), AUTHOR: Jill Carroll]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB966305943192481322.htm)
NTT TO MOVE AHEAD WITH ITS PURCHASE OF VERIO AFTER WINNING U.S. SUPPORT
Issue: Mergers
A U.S. government panel that had been badly divided on national-security
implications over a Japanese phone company's purchase of a US Internet
Web-hosting concern has given a go-ahead of the deal. Nippon Telegraph &
Telephone (NTT) of Japan will pay $5.5 billion purchase of Verio Inc. of the
U.S. The FBI and the Justice Department labored all summer trying to address
concerns that the acquisition could expose the U.S. to a foreign-espionage
risk by giving NTT, which is controlled by the Japanese government, access
to U.S. wiretapping activity. The NTT deal marks the first time an Internet
acquisition has gone through a rigorous U.S. national-security review.
Experts say the agreement reached between NTT and the Clinton administration
sets an important benchmark for how law-enforcement agencies will deal with
future transactions involving foreign companies and large U.S. Internet
concerns. "Now that there's a standard and an acceptable norm, companies
will come in much more aware of what the law-enforcement requirements are,"
said Brett Lambert, an analyst with DFI International, a Washington
consulting firm.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (A3), AUTHOR: Neil King Jr. And David S. Cloud]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB966295916209183299.htm)
MINORITY MEDIA ROUNDTABLE
Issue: Ownership
The transcript of the Minority Media Roundtable is now available.
[SOURCE: NTIA]
(http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/minoritymediaroundtable/transcript.txt)
JOBS
NEGOTIATIONS IN TELEPHONE STRIKE MAKE LITTLE PROGRESS
Issue: Jobs
As workers wonder how long they can go without pay, Verizon is considering
bringing in managers from other regions of the country to relieve the 30,000
managers trying to fill in for the 86,000 striking workers. No easy solution
of the dispute is in sight. The biggest sticking point now involves
Verizon's ability to shift work from one region to another in an effort to
increase the efficiency of operations or reduce labor costs. Striking
workers are from a region of the country where union membership is higher as
are wages. "This is something we consider essential to the functioning of
our company on a competitive level," said Eric Rabe, Verizon's spokesman.
"This is about the workings of capitalism."
[SOURCE: New York Times (C8), AUTHOR: Simon Romero]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/081500verizon-talks.html)
See also
OLD LABOR TRIES TO ESTABLISH A ROLE IN THE NEW ECONOMY
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (B1), AUTHOR: Yochi J. Dreazen]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB96629795029290932.htm)
INTELLECTUALLY PROPERTY
FREE-LANCE WRITERS SUE WEB PUBLISHERS, DEMANDING TO BE PAID BACK ROYALTIES
Issue: Intellectual property
A group of free-lance writers filed a suit in federal court in San
Francisco, demanding to be paid back royalties from three major online
publishers. The writers are demanding payment for each time one of their
works is downloaded over the Internet. Although database operators
frequently pay publishers for access to articles and books and charge
customers to download them from thousands of publications, they typically
pay the writers nothing. According to the San Francisco suit, that violates
U.S. copyright law, because the authors contend that they never signed their
rights away and still own their work. The suit seeks class-action status on
behalf of all writers whose works are in the databases, potentially as many
as 10,000 writers, says Gary S. Fergus, an attorney with Brobeck, Phleger &
Harrison, the San Francisco law firm representing the free-lancers.
Freelance writers are among the least powerful and lowest-paid members of
the media.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (A3), AUTHOR: Jess Bravin]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB966297752469525649.htm)
YAHOO! WINS DOMAIN NAME RIGHTS IN U.N. RULING AGAINST CYBERSQUATTER
Issue: Intellectual Property
U.S. Internet company Yahoo! won the rights to 40 Internet addresses in two
rulings by United Nations arbitrators. A three-member panel awarded it the
names yahooemail.net, yahoofree.net, yahoofree.com and yahoochat.net,
registered by Jorge Kirovsky of Colonia, Uruguay. The domain names linked to
another site registered by Kirovsky -- yahoo.com.uy, a Spanish-language site
on pets. He also registered yahoochat.cl, yahoofree.cl and miyahoo.cl, which
connected to the same address, and established a business called yahoo
S.R.L. The arbitrators found that "Internet users are actually confused" by
the names, as the yahoo.com.uy site had received hundreds of e-mails
apparently intended for Yahoo. Mr. Kirovsky claimed the Yahoo trademark was
largely unknown in Uruguay and that it "is the name of a dog in Uruguay." In
a second case, Yahoo and its GeoCities subsidiary won 36 addresses from six
respondents with company addresses in the U.S. and Belize. The companies
did not contest Yahoo's complaint that the domain names -- most involving
misspellings, among them gecities.com, ayhoo.com and wwwgeocities.com --
were confusingly similar to its trademarks. The U.N. World Intellectual
Property Organization's procedure to curb "cybersquatting" was introduced
last year.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal AUTHOR: Associated Press]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB96628634765969163.htm)
PRIVACY
VERIZON WEB SITE EXPOSED SOME PRIVATE INFORMATION
Issue: Privacy
Already feeling the pinch in its customer service department due to the
strike, Verizon had to remove a self-help Web site on Sunday because it
exposed customers' private information. The company launched a new system
last week to enable customers to troubleshoot their own problems. But a
researcher discovered he could enter other customers' phone numbers and gain
access to personal data about them. A Verizon spokesman said few, if any,
records were compromised and that the actual exposed information was
minimal. "The only thing that was really exposed ... if you entered a number
for a non-listed account, you could get the name and address back," said
Frank Bennett, who oversaw development of evidence that any malicious user
used the technique to look up multiple records. The Web application in
question - the application. "And then only one at a time." There is no which
was developed months before the strike - allows customers to run a phone
line check through a Web browser. The service will be fixed and replaced by
Monday night, Mr. Bennett said.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (Interactive), AUTHOR: Bob Sullivan ]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB966287088798522931.htm)
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