BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2012
A quick look at next week’s events -- http://benton.org/calendar/2012-01-22--P1W/
PIRACY
GOP presidential candidates denounce Internet piracy bills
MPAA Calls for Hollywood and Silicon Valley to Meet
Can Internet Protests Get Political Results? Yes, They Can
Public Outcry Over Antipiracy Bills Began as Grass-Roots Grumbling
SOPA blackouts inspired protest around the world
On PIPA, Senate in talks to yank search
After Outcry, SOPA Backers Are Mainly Democrats
Senate Dems released from PIPA, sources say
PIPA on life support -- is SOPA next? [links to web]
A Compromise Makes Sense - op-ed
GOP leader McConnell asks Senate Dems to shelve anti-piracy bill
SOPA protest by the numbers: 162M pageviews, 7 million signatures
SOPA and PIPA opponents warn the bills are not dead yet
Could SOPA and PIPA interfere with State Dept.’s global Internet freedom agenda?
Rep DeFazio says piracy bill would be Patriot Act for the Internet
First Dem reverses course on piracy bill
GOP Sen. Ayotte withdraws support for piracy legislation
Louisiana Republicans oppose online piracy bill
Silicon Valley learns fast in game of lobbying
‘SOPA Blackout' is Web's political coming of age - analysis [links to web]
Why Should We Stop Online Piracy? - analysis
Justice Department Charges Leaders of Megaupload with Widespread Online Copyright Infringement - press release
Anonymous hackers claim to have crashed Justice Department website
Why the feds smashed Megaupload - analysis
Megaupload shutdown: SOPA supporters versus Alicia Keyes, P. Diddy? [links to web]
How Hollywood drives people to piracy - analysis [links to web]
Father of the web backs SOPA protests
MORE ON CONTENT
Apple Unveils App and Tools for Digital Textbooks
Apple’s New Math. Or: Why a $15 E-Book Equals a $75 Paper Book.
Apple Move Will Spark Flurry Of New Companies, Content In Education Market
Do we want textbooks to live in Apple’s walled garden? - analysis
Amazon Makes More Than $100 Off Each Kindle Fire
New Stats: 2011 Libraries’ Digital Checkouts Up 133% Over 2010 [links to web]
When Shopping Is Media, Retailers Become Content And Community Obsessed [links to web]
Novelist threatens Apple with US lawsuit [links to web]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Congress’s top 5 tech questions for 2012
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
Study: Wireless Development Key To U.S. Economic Recovery
UN sets stage for blazing fast new mobile devices
Pleading Cycle for Verizon Wireless Spectrum Transactions
Consumer Groups, Wireless Competitors: SpectrumCo. Purchase Part of Larger Transactions
Cellphone makers can expect poor reception in 2012 [links to web]
Icahn Said to Purchase LightSquared Debt in Bet on Collapse [links to web]
Sprint pushes its wireless network for smart grid [links to web]
Tablet Users Spend 50% More Per Purchase Than Smartphone Owners [links to web]
PRIVACY
Facebook Actions: Building Up The Database Of You
Apple Argues Consumers Not Harmed By Alleged Privacy Violations [links to web]
For Online Privacy, Click Here
ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
Gingrich's attack on the media sets feisty tone for GOP debate
GOP presidential candidates denounce Internet piracy bills
TELECOM
AT&T price hikes and the economics of dumping your landline - analysis
OWNERSHIP
FCC Releases Proposed Media Ownership Rules Changes
The opposite of evil: Google named best place to work in America [links to web]
Who Owns My Ticket? - op-ed
TELEVISION
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting Awards Funds to Extend PBS NEWSHOUR Election Coverage to Diverse Audiences - press release [links to web]
ADVERTISING
ComScore Study: A Third of Ad Impressions Are Never Seen [links to web]
US Online Advertising Spending to Surpass Print in 2012 [links to web]
POLICYMAKERS
de Sa Leaving FCC - press release
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Murdoch Settles Suits by Dozens of Victims of Hacking
Revolution 2.0: Google Marketing Exec Wael Ghonim And The Facebook Page That Changed The World [links to web]
PIRACY
GOP CANDIDATES DENOUNCE PIRACY BILLS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Justin Sink]
The GOP presidential candidates denounced proposed Internet piracy laws in the House and Senate that would give the government the ability to block access to websites with copyrighted material. The Republican contenders each argued in the Jan 19 presidential debate that the proposed laws - SOPA and PIPA - were too severe in their effort to restrict the trade of copyrighted materials. Versions of the legislation proposed jail sentences and large fines for the distribution of songs, television shows, and movies online.
"The truth of the matter is the law as written is far too intrusive, far too expansive," Mitt Romney said. "It would have a depressing impact on one of the fastest growing industries… I'm standing for freedom."
Newt Gingrich said the bill "strikes me as exactly the wrong thing to do" and joked that he was being forced to choose between "the economic interest of Hollywood" and "virtually everybody who is technologically advanced."
Ron Paul pointed out that he was among the first Republicans to sign up in opposition to the bill. "I am pleased that the attitude has mellowed up here, because Republicans have been on the wrong side of this," Rep Paul said.
In the only real area of dissension, Rick Santorum said that while he agreed the proposed bill "goes too far," he did "not agree with everyone up here that there's nothing that can be done."
benton.org/node/111184 | Hill, The | The Hill - Romney | Politico
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MPAA CALLS FOR SUMMIT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Michael Cieply, Edward Wyatt]
Motion Picture Association of America Chairman Chris Dodd said he would welcome a summit meeting between Internet companies and content companies, perhaps convened by the White House, that could lead to a compromise on a federal law to control foreign online piracy. Looming Jan 24 is a cloture vote scheduled in the Senate, which appears to promise the death of the legislation in its current form. “The perfect place to do it is a block away from here,” said Dodd, who pointed from his office on I Street toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But the startlingly speedy collapse of the antipiracy campaign by some of Washington’s savviest players — not just the motion picture association, but also the United States Chamber of Commerce and the Recording Industry Association of America — signaled deep changes in antipiracy lobbying in the future. By Dodd’s account, no Washington player can safely assume that a well-wired, heavily financed legislative program is safe from a sudden burst of Web-driven populism.
benton.org/node/111179 | New York Times
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INTERNET PROTESTS
[SOURCE: The Atlantic, AUTHOR: Rebecca Rosen]
Jan 18 saw the biggest day of online protest in the English world in history, with thousands of websites temporarily dark and many more displaying prominent banners of opposition to the anti-piracy bills now in Congress. Many of the most-visited sites participated -- Google and Wikipedia most prominently -- and more than 25,000 WordPress blogs did as well, with another 12,500 sporting a "Stop Censorship" ribbon. The New York Times called the organization a sign of the tech industry's "coming of age." Today, as the Internet flits back to its normal operations, and the dust of the protests settles, here's an accounting of the day's effect.
When Wikipedia went back online, it announced an impressive figure: Its protest page had been viewed 162 million times -- that's more than five times the number of views English Wikipedia receives on a normal Wednesday.
By 4pm EST, there had been more than 2.4 million tweets about the bills.
Google searches for information about the bills surged.
Throughout the day, lawmakers were hearing it from constituents. In response, seven co-sponsors of the Senate bill withdrew their support.
The House bill, SOPA, now has far more opponents than supporters, and was already on its deathbed before yesterday's protest.
benton.org/node/111134 | Atlantic, The
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GRASS-ROOTS GRUMBLING
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Jenna Wortham]
When Wikipedia went dark and Google blacked out its logo on Jan 18, millions of people could not help but notice. For most, it was the first time that they had heard about two antipiracy bills. One puzzled Twitter user wrote: “Isn’t a SOPA some kind of food?” But that protest grew out of a much wider grass-roots movement — a collective flexing of Internet muscle that started in some of the less mainstream parts of the Web, like the social news site Reddit and the blogging service Tumblr, and in e-mail chains and countless message boards. It is no coincidence that these social sites were among those that, according to critics of the legislation in question, the Stop Online Piracy Act, and the Protect Intellectual Property Act had the most to lose if it passed. And by design they were able to take the message about the threat and make it go viral.
benton.org/node/111178 | New York Times
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PROTEST AROUND THE WORLD
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Deborah Netburn]
Millions of Americans responded to the historic SOPA and PIPA blackouts implemented by thousands of websites both large and small Jan 18, but Americans weren't the only ones moved to action. The whole world was watching, and the whole world chimed in. Activist website Avaaz, which has a worldwide member base of more than 10 million, asked its members to sign a petition from "concerned global citizens" urging members of Congress to vote against both PIPA and the SOPA. Avaaz reports that 1.8 million from 141 countries around the world signed its petition. The petition did especially well in Brazil, Spain, France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Canada and Mexico, but people in Jamaica, Morocco and Malaysia also lent their voices.
Here's a breakdown of some of the countries with the most signees.
USA: 211,158
Spain: 136,664
Brazil: 131,662
Germany: 128,523
Britain: 121,333
France: 110,968
Mexico: 107,485
Canada: 101,343
Argentina: 88,726
Netherlands: 29,746
South Africa: 17,953
benton.org/node/111133 | Los Angeles Times
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PIPA AND SEARCH
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Jennifer Martinez, Anna Palmer]
Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) are in discussions to exempt search-result blocking from the PROTECT IP Act, sources confirmed to POLITICO. Sen Kyl made the proposal to Sen Leahy on Jan 19. The measure is one of the biggest sticking points for the tech industry in a set of anti-piracy bills. Eager to strike a compromise, Sen Leahy has been hammering out a manager’s amendment to quell the blowback coming from the tech sector and other members prior to a cloture vote scheduled for the bill on Jan 24.
benton.org/node/111131 | Politico
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DEMS BACKING SOPA
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Amy Schatz]
The push for antipiracy legislation brought lawmakers together for much of the past year, but in the Senate at least, the support that remains after nationwide protests appears to be mostly from Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is moving ahead with plans for a test vote on the legislation Jan 24, but the Senate's top Republican, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), called for a postponement, citing "serious issues with this legislation." At least 14 Republican senators announced their opposition to the legislation this week as thousands of Internet sites, including online encyclopedia Wikipedia, went dark Wednesday to protest the bills. Seven Democratic senators said they either had serious concerns or couldn't support the legislation in its current form, adding their voices to a handful of Democrats who had previously opposed the bill.
benton.org/node/111181 | Wall Street Journal
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SENATE DEMS RELEASED FROM PIPA
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Jennifer Martinez, Jonathan Allen]
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid won't whip Democratic votes for an online anti-piracy bill, according to sources familiar with his plans. The decision deals a severe blow to movie, music and television producers, who had hoped to withstand a surprisingly strong Silicon Valley surge against the bill. It also casts serious doubt over whether the bill authored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) will be able to net the 60 votes needed to reach cloture.
benton.org/node/111130 | Politico
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A COMPROMISE MAKES SENSE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Susan Crawford]
[Commentary] The "content industry" establishment, led by the Motion Picture Association of America, has over the last 30 years been handed a series of statutory sledgehammers aimed at addressing copyright infringement. Now, with a pair of antipiracy bills pending in the House and Senate, the association appears to have drastically overreached. It looks as if the White House is seeking a compromise Stop Online Piracy Act/Protect Intellectual Property Act "follow the money" statute, which would avoid tinkering with the plumbing of the Internet or conscripting a broad group of online intermediaries into service as private police. Instead, this law would force payment processors to cut off services to sites that are found by a judicial officer to violate existing law. We've taken a similar step for gambling in the past, and this would be a far better way to proceed.
[Crawford is the (visiting) Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard's Kennedy School and a visiting professor at Harvard Law School]
benton.org/node/111128 | New York Times
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SKIP PIPA VOTE?
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called on Senate Democrats to shelve the Protect IP Act on Jan 19, one day after a massive Web protest against the controversial anti-piracy measure. “While we must combat the on-line theft of intellectual property, current proposals in Congress raise serious legal, policy and operational concerns," Sen McConnell said. “Rather than prematurely bringing the Protect IP Act to the Senate floor, we should first study and resolve the serious issues with this legislation. Considering this bill without first doing so could be counterproductive to achieving the shared goal of enacting appropriate and additional tools to combat the theft of intellectual property. I encourage the Senate Majority to reconsider its decision to proceed to this bill.”
benton.org/node/111127 | Hill, The
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PROTEST BY THE NUMBERS
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Timothy Lee]
Tens of millions of Americans, and millions more overseas, had their normal Internet routine disrupted Jan 18 as some of the Web's most popular sites, including Google, Wikipedia, and Craigslist, staged protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its companion PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). The organizations that staged these protests are beginning to release hard numbers on the response, and they are staggering.
The Wikimedia Foundation says it reached 162 million people with Wikipedia's 24-hour English-language protest of the antipiracy bills. Of those, more than 8 million readers in the United States took the opportunity to look up contact information for their members of Congress through the site. Presumably, that generated tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of calls to congressional offices.
Google did not black out its entire site as Wikipedia did, but it still generated at least 13 million page views to its anti-SOPA page and got 7 million people to sign its petition.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a liberal advocacy group, logged 200,000 signatures on its petition. The organization also says more than 30,000 Craigslist users called Congress through the PCCC's website.
Opponents of SOPA and PIPA also staged in-person protests around the country; two of the largest were in New York City and San Francisco.
benton.org/node/111125 | Ars Technica | LATimes
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SOPA/PIPA NOT DEAD YET
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Jim Puzzanghera]
A day after a widespread Internet protest, key opponents of SOPA and PIPA warned that the controversial online piracy bills are not dead yet and called for lawmakers to slow down and start over. "It's not dead at all," said Michael Petricone, vice president of government affairs for the Consumer Electronics Association, noting that the Senate was still scheduled to hold a procedural vote on the Protect Intellectual Property Act on Jan 24. At a Capitol Hill news conference, Petricone and others said opponents needed to continue to pressure Congress to remove the legislation from the fast track and start a more open process to craft a narrower bill that would not threaten collateral damage on legitimate websites. “You have all kinds of very substantive, very smart interests who are bringing up very substantive potential problems with this bill," Petricone said. "Why can’t we step back and get it right? This isn’t the Patriot Act; the country’s not going to blow up if we don’t enact this next week."
Lawmakers' ears were still ringing from the thousands of calls and emails that flooded into Capitol Hill after Wikipedia led about 10,000 websites in a 24-hour blackout Wednesday to protest the bills. At least five co-sponsors of the bills publicly pulled their support, with several others announcing they would not vote for the legislation without major changes.
benton.org/node/111124 | Los Angeles Times
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SOPA, PIPA AND THE FREEDOM AGENDA
[SOURCE: Center for Public Integrity, AUTHOR: Corbin Hiar]
Alec Ross, the State Department’s senior advisor for innovation, pointed out that that anti-piracy legislation could restrict the rights of Internet users across the country – and put U.S. diplomats in a very awkward position. “Any attempt to combat online piracy cannot have the unintended consequence of censoring legal online content,” Ross said, referring to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). He suggested that some measures in that bill could be inconsistent with the State Department’s Internet advocacy. The department’s global Internet freedom agenda was outlined by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a speech nearly a year before the uprising in Tunisia. In the wake of the Arab Spring revolutions that followed the overthrow of Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali – some of which were catalyzed or sustained by online communication — it has become a central tenant of the department’s so-called 21st Century Statecraft.
As Clinton explained back in January 2010, lawmakers should ensure that citizens have the right to access the open Internet: "Governments should not prevent people from connecting to the Internet, to websites, or to each other. The freedom to connect is like the freedom of assembly, only in cyberspace. It allows individuals to get online, come together, and hopefully cooperate." But this does not include the right to freely share copyrighted material online, she cautioned. "Those who use the Internet to … distribute stolen intellectual property cannot divorce their online actions from their real world identities. But these challenges must not become an excuse for governments to systematically violate the rights and privacy of those who use the Internet for peaceful political purposes." These principles could be could be compromised by the broadly written anti-piracy bills under consideration, opponents allege.
benton.org/node/111122 | Center for Public Integrity
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COMPARING SOPA TO PATRIOT ACT
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) would be like applying the Patriot Act to private Internet companies in a speech on the House floor Jan 18. "This legislation ... the fact that we are essentially creating the Patriot Act national security letter provisions for private companies to censor the Internet. We cannot let that happen," Rep DeFazio said. "We must stop this legislation." Rep DeFazio also said the bill would mimic how the "Iranian and the communist Chinese" censor the Internet.
The Patriot Act, passed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, expanded the government's domestic spying powers.
benton.org/node/111121 | Hill, The
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REP HOLDEN REVERSES ON SOPA
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Rep. Tim Holden (D-PA) became the first Democrat to drop his support for the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) on Jan 18 after a massive Web protest of the bill. Rep Holden was one of the earliest backers of the controversial legislation and is the first Democrat in either chamber to reverse course after thousands of sites, including Google, encouraged users to contact lawmakers about opposing the legislation.
benton.org/node/111120 | Hill, The
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SEN AYOTTE OPPOSED SOPA
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Freshman Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) became the fifth senator to drop her support for the Protect IP Act after a massive Web protest against the bill. "America’s innovators and consumers need to be protected from the very real problem of online piracy. However, the overwhelming input I’ve received from New Hampshire citizens makes it clear there are many legitimate concerns that deserve further consideration before Congress moves forward on this legislation," Sen Ayotte said
benton.org/node/111118 | Hill, The
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LOUISIANA REPUBLICANS OPPOSE SOPA/PIPA
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Gautham Nagesh]
Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) and Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) have joined the growing ranks of lawmakers coming out against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). Both lawmakers posted messages on their Facebook pages announcing their opposition to the bill. Rep Scalise, one of SOPA's original co-sponsors, said he will be removing his name from the legislation.
"I am committed to stopping online piracy, and will be removing my name from SOPA while I work to ensure that the freedom of the internet is preserved," Rep Scalise said.
"I won’t be supporting the Protect IP Act (PIPA or SOPA as it's called in the House of Representatives) because, though I've been pushing hard on both internet freedom and national security concerns, they still haven't been fully addressed," said Sen Vitter. "It's a real mistake to press forward with a flawed bill now. It will only endanger ever properly dealing with the very real problem of internet piracy."
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) also declared his opposition to SOPA and PIPA, calling them flawed bills that he can't support in their current form.
benton.org/node/111117 | Hill, The
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SILICON VALLEY LEARNS LOBBYING
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: April Dembosky]
During the ascent of the internet, Silicon Valley geeks tapped away at keyboards in northern California while Washington policy wonks debated welfare and taxes. Both groups happily ignored each other. The isolation served the Valley well at first as it spawned many tech powerhouses without government interference. But its absence from the political arena had consequences and, in the battle over proposed anti-piracy legislation, the techies are playing catch-up to their politically entrenched opponents in the entertainment industry. “It is the first time the tech community as a whole, including all the tech folks beyond Silicon Valley, have really come to realize how things work in DC,” said Alexis Ohanian, cofounder of web-linking site Reddit. “We spend our money innovating, not lobbying.” Media and entertainment companies are outspending tech companies at a ratio of four to one in the lobbying contest over the Stop Online Piracy Act – the 32 politicians backing the bill have received almost $2 million in campaign contributions from the film, music and TV industries, compared with little more than $500,000 that -politicians opposing the proposals have received from the computer and internet industries, according to MapLight, a campaign finance research company. Overall, financial contributions to politicians who support the bill outnumber contributions to politicians opposed to it by 13 to one, with $92.2 million spent in favor, compared with $7.2 million opposed, between January 1 2009 and June 30 2011, the latest data show.
benton.org/node/111115 | Financial Times
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WHY SHOULD WE STOP ONLINE PIRACY?
[SOURCE: Slate, AUTHOR: Matthew Yglesias]
Congressional bill names are a reliable indicator of the state of conventional wisdom in America. That Congress is weighing bills called the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act tells us that, at a minimum, the idea of stopping online piracy is popular. It shouldn’t be. There’s no evidence that the United States is currently suffering from an excessive amount of online piracy, and there is ample reason to believe that a non-zero level of copyright infringement is socially beneficial. Online piracy is like fouling in basketball. You want to penalize it to prevent it from getting out of control, but any effort to actually eliminate it would be a cure much worse than the disease. Much of the debate about SOPA and PIPA has thus far centered around the entertainment industry’s absurdly inflated claims about the economic harm of copyright infringement. When making these calculations, intellectual property owners tend to assume that every unauthorized download represents a lost sale. This is clearly false. Often people copy a file illegally precisely because they’re unwilling to pay the market price. Were unauthorized copying not an option, they would simply not watch the movie or listen to the album.
benton.org/node/111113 | Slate
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MEGAUPLOAD CLOSED
[SOURCE: Department of Justice, AUTHOR: Press release]
Seven individuals and two corporations have been charged in the United States with running an international organized criminal enterprise allegedly responsible for massive worldwide online piracy of numerous types of copyrighted works, through Megaupload.com and other related sites, generating more than $175 million in criminal proceeds and causing more than half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners, the U.S. Justice Department and FBI announced. This action is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States and directly targets the misuse of a public content storage and distribution site to commit and facilitate intellectual property crime. The individuals and two corporations – Megaupload Limited and Vestor Limited – were indicted by a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia on Jan. 5, 2012, and charged with engaging in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement. The individuals each face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on the charge of conspiracy to commit racketeering, five years in prison on the charge of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, 20 years in prison on the charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering and five years in prison on each of the substantive charges of criminal copyright infringement.
According to the indictment, for more than five years the conspiracy has operated websites that unlawfully reproduce and distribute infringing copies of copyrighted works, including movies – often before their theatrical release – music, television programs, electronic books, and business and entertainment software on a massive scale. The conspirators’ content hosting site, Megaupload.com, is advertised as having more than one billion visits to the site, more than 150 million registered users, 50 million daily visitors and accounting for four percent of the total traffic on the Internet. The estimated harm caused by the conspiracy’s criminal conduct to copyright holders is well in excess of $500 million. The conspirators allegedly earned more than $175 million in illegal profits through advertising revenue and selling premium memberships.
The indictment states that the conspirators conducted their illegal operation using a business model expressly designed to promote uploading of the most popular copyrighted works for many millions of users to download. The indictment alleges that the site was structured to discourage the vast majority of its users from using Megaupload for long-term or personal storage by automatically deleting content that was not regularly downloaded. The conspirators further allegedly offered a rewards program that would provide users with financial incentives to upload popular content and drive web traffic to the site, often through user-generated websites known as linking sites. The conspirators allegedly paid users whom they specifically knew uploaded infringing content and publicized their links to users throughout the world.
benton.org/node/111151 | Department of Justice | USAToday | B&C | WSJ | paidContent.org | Reuters
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ANONYOUS RESPONDS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Anonymous, the group of activist hackers, claimed to have crashed the Justice Department website in retaliation for prosecutors shutting down the popular file-sharing site Megaupload.com. "The government takes down Megaupload? 15 minutes later Anonymous takes down government & record label sites," the group wrote on its Twitter account. Anonymous also claimed to have crashed the websites of Universal Music, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which are some of the most vocal proponents of tougher copyright enforcement laws.
benton.org/node/111149 | Hill, The
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WHY FEDS TARGETED MEGAUPLOAD
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Nate Anderson]
Going after Megaupload, one of the most popular sites in the world, might seem a strange choice. (As an example of its scale, Megaupload controlled 525 servers in Virginia alone and had another 630 in the Netherlands—and many more around the world.) For years, the site has claimed to take down unauthorized content when notified by rightsholders. It has registered a DMCA agent with the US government. It has created an “abuse tool” and given rightsholders access. It has negotiated with companies like Universal Music Group about licensing content. But the government asserts that Megaupload merely wanted the veneer of legitimacy, while its employees knew full well that the site's main use was to distribute infringing content. Indeed, the government points to numerous internal e-mails and chat logs from employees showing that they were aware of copyrighted material on the site and even shared it with each other. Because of this, the government says that the site does not qualify for a “safe harbor” of the kind that protected YouTube from Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit. In addition, the government contends that everything about the site has been doctored to make it look more legitimate than it is. The “Top 100” download list does not “actually portray the most popular downloads,” say prosecutors, and they claim that Megaupload purposely offers no site-wide search engine as a way of concealing what people are storing and sharing through the site.
benton.org/node/111148 | Ars Technica
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TIM BERNERS-LEE BACKS PROTESTS
[SOURCE: Sydney Morning Herald, AUTHOR: Nate Cochrane]
Tim Berners-Lee says US government plan to censor the internet violates human rights. The father of the web has added his voice to the global chorus of outrage at US Government plans to censor the internet, saying its plans are undemocratic and violate human rights. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, urged people to let their feelings be known to block it before it is enacted. "It affects all the stuff on the internet working and something which would affect what you want to connect to, where you want to connect to," Sir Tim said. "If you're in America then you should go and call somebody or send an email to protest against these (censorship) bills because they have not been put together to respect human rights as is appropriate in a democratic country." Sir Tim's call to arms was met with rousing applause and hoots from 5000 delegates to IBM's annual Lotusphere conference, held in the southern, state of Florida.
benton.org/node/111174 | Sydney Morning Herald
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MORE ON CONTENT
APPLE AND DIGITAL TEXTBOOKS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Chen, Nick Wingfield]
Apple wants students to bid farewell to the days of lugging around backpacks of heavy textbooks, and to welcome the iPad tablet as their new all-in-one reading device. On Jan 19 the company released iBooks 2, a free app that will support digital textbooks that can display interactive diagrams, audio and video. At a news conference, the company demonstrated a biology textbook featuring 3-D models, searchable text, photo galleries and flash cards for studying. Apple said high school textbooks from its initial publishing partners, including Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, would cost $15 or less. “Education is deep in our DNA and it has been from the very beginning,” said Philip W. Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of marketing, at the event at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Apple also announced a free tool called iBooks Author, a piece of Macintosh software that allows people to make these interactive textbooks. The tool includes templates designed by Apple, which publishers and authors can customize to suit their content. It requires no programming knowledge and will be available Jan 19.
benton.org/node/111110 | New York Times | Wash Post | LATimes | USAToday | Bloomberg | WSJ | GigaOm | GigaOm 2
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APPLE’S NEW MATH
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Peter Kafka]
McGraw-Hill normally sells high school textbooks for $75 a pop. Now it says it will sell electronic versions of the same books, via Apple, for $15 apiece. How can the publisher make that work? “Volume,” says McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw, which is the usual answer for this kind of digital question. But there’s an important asterisk here, too. Normally, McGraw-Hill would sell its books directly to public schools, which would keep the texts for an average of five years. Under Apple’s new textbooks plan, though, McGraw-Hill will try something different: It will sell its books directly to each student (the student could either pay out of pocket, or the school could fund the purchase via a voucher/code), who will use the book for a year, then move on. They’ll be able to keep the digital text, but won’t be able to resell it or pass it along to another student, and McGraw-Hill anticipates that another set of students will buy new books the following year. So Terry McGraw figures that over five years he’ll generate the same total sales selling $15 e-books as he would selling $75 books. It’s not a total push, because in this model, Apple will take an undisclosed cut of sales — McGraw-Hill execs wouldn’t go into details, so let’s assume for now that it’s Apple’s standard 30 percent — but presumably McGraw-Hill can make some of that up by forgoing the costs of print and distribution.
benton.org/node/111109 | Wall Street Journal
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APPLE’S MOVE WILL SPARK MORE ACTIVITY
[SOURCE: paidContent.org, AUTHOR: Sarah Rotman Epps]
[Commentary] eTextbooks are a transitional product, accounting for only 2.8% of the $8 billion US textbook market in 2010. The vast majority of digital textbooks are not very innovative; they’re essentially print replicas with digital extensions like highlighting, search, and annotation. The iPad—which now outsells Macs in schools, according to Apple—is capable of much more than what has previously been produced, and Apple hasn’t been satisfied with the status quo. On Jan 19, Apple demonstrated iBooks2, a new textbook experience for the iPad; these new textbooks can be created using iBooks Author. iBooks2 will solve two product strategy problems for publishers:
Production cost. Companies like Inkling are doing quite well helping publishers take their education apps to the next level. The problem is that publishers’ content creation and production processes are still optimized for print, not digital, so working with Inkling is expensive (in terms of publishers’ labor, not necessarily Inkling’s fees). So most publishers opt to create a small number of new apps, and settle for digital replicas or “enhanced eBooks” of everything else.
Discoverability. When publishers do create digital products, they complain that students can’t find them. For example, on Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN), shoppers need to scroll past the regular eBook to find the enhanced one, and it’s not immediately evident that the enhanced product justifies the higher price. Apple’s iBooks2 now has a brand new textbook category, and will centralize distribution of iBooks and make products more discoverable than they are today.
benton.org/node/111107 | paidContent.org
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APPLE’S WALLED GARDEN
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Mathew Ingram]
Apple’s launch of a new suite of textbook-related services for the iPad is being widely celebrated, and with good reason. The ability to have beautiful, interactive and easy to use e-books on the tablet makes a huge amount of sense — as startups like Inkling have been arguing for a while — and Apple’s new book-authoring software could open up publishing to a much broader market. But as usual, all of this great design requires a major tradeoff: namely, that schools and publishers agree to be locked inside Apple’s walled-garden ecosystem. That might be fine for music and movies and games like Angry Birds, but is that really appropriate for educational material?
benton.org/node/111186 | GigaOm
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WHAT FIRE MEANS TO AMAZON’S BOTTOM LINE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: John Paczkowski]
The hardware and manufacturing costs of the Kindle Fire may exceed the device’s retail price, but Amazon is not losing any money on it. Every Kindle sold is another annuity revenue stream for the company, strengthening its core retail business. And according to RBC, that revenue stream is larger than you might expect. A new survey by the investment banking firm concluded that each Kindle Fire generates well over $100 in additional income, which more than makes up for the $2 to $3 Amazon reportedly loses on each sale. “Kindle Fire unit economics are likely to be more favorable than consensus expectations, based primarily on frequency of digital goods purchases,” RBC Capital analyst Ross Sandler said in a research note to clients. “Our assumption is that Amazon could sell 3-4 million Kindle Fire units in Q4, and that those units are accretive to company-average operating margin within the first six months of ownership. Our analysis assigns a cumulative lifetime operating income per unit of $136, with a cumulative operating margin of over 20 percent.” So: an additional $136 over the lifetime of the device. How are Fire owners spending that money? Mostly on e-books.
benton.org/node/111102 | Wall Street Journal
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
QUESTIONS FOR CONGRESS
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Derrick Harris]
The impending Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act have the Internet in a tizzy, but Congress has a lot more to think about on the technology front than just intellectual property. Even digging below the surface of the SOPA debate, you see that the issues at play — such as defining Internet borders and squelching innovation on the web — have broad effects that span everything from the digital divide to international commerce. Here are five questions Congress needs to answer in 2012:
Internet or Internets?
Who does SOPA really target?
Privacy or security?
Can we auction off spectrum already?
How can we connect rural America?
benton.org/node/111139 | GigaOm
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
WIRELESS AND THE ECONOMY
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Josh Smith]
Advances in wireless technology have created "cascades of innovation," and additional investment in new networks has the potential to help get the broader American economy back on track, according to a study released by the progressive think-tank NDN and the New Policy Institute. Researchers Robert Shapiro and Kevin Hassett concluded that transitions from early wireless networks to more advanced 3G and Internet technology led to some 1,585,000 new jobs from April 2007 to June 2011.
"Based on previous advances, the current transition to 4G technologies is likely to spur significant new job creation and growth which could help the American economy restore gains in incomes and business investment," the study predicted. For every 10 percent increase in the adoption of 3G and 4G technologies, the study estimated that the U.S. economy could gain 231,000 jobs in "less than a year."
benton.org/node/111105 | National Journal | read the paper
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UN SETS “TRUE 4G STANDARD”
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: John Heilprin]
A United Nations telecom meeting has approved the next generation of mobile technology, which experts say will make devices 500 times faster than 3G smartphones and eliminate the wait time between the tap of a finger and the appearance of a Web page. The technology will be used immediately for planning changes to equipment but it could take two years to show up on consumers smartphone, tablets and other devices because of the time it takes to get to production, International Telecommunication Union spokesman Sanjay Acharya said. The differences between present technology and the new standards for IMT-Advanced are like comparing dial-up Internet to fiber-optic cables, say officials at the UN agency responsible for information and communication technology. The IMT-Advanced system uses radio-frequency spectrum much more efficiently, and devices built with it will need less bandwidth to access the Internet, stream videos and transfer data. That means those devices could deliver blazing fast messages, video chats and even high-definition TV. The new standards for what some call "true" 4G, or fourth generation of mobile wireless standards, were approved by the ITU Radiocommunication Assembly at its meeting this week in Geneva. ITU set the requirements for 4G service in 2009.
benton.org/node/111145 | Associated Press
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PLEADING CYCLE
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Public Notice]
Petitions to Deny Verizon Wireless’ acquisition of SpectrumCo and Cox spectrum licenses are due February 21, 2012. Oppositions are due March 2 and Replies are due March 12, 2012. Preliminary review of the Verizon Wireless-SpectrumCo Application indicates that the proposed assignment of licenses to Verizon Wireless would result in Verizon Wireless acquiring either 20 or 30 megahertz of spectrum in 572 CMAs covering 259.7 million people (or approximately 84% of the U.S. population). Preliminary review of the Verizon Wireless-Cox Application indicates that the proposed assignment of licenses to Verizon Wireless would result in Verizon Wireless acquiring 20 megahertz of spectrum in 90 CMAs covering 30 million people (or approximately 10% of the U.S. population). [WT Docket No. 12-4]
In addition, Petitions to Deny Verizon Wireless’ exchange of Leap Wireless spectrum licenses are due February 21, 2012. Oppositions are due March 2 and Replies are due March 12, 2012.
benton.org/node/111142 | Federal Communications Commission | FCC – Leap
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VERIZON-SPECTRUMCO DEAL
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Consumer groups and wireless competitors have told the Federal Communications Commission that it needs to look beyond Verizon's planned purchase of spectrum from cable operators to a series of related deals and relationships among them. In a letter to the FCC on Verizon's application to assume the wireless spectrum licenses of SpectrumCo. and Cox, Public Knowledge, Sprint, T-Mobile, and others said that deal is part of a larger transaction between "actual and potential competitors." "Without the ability to review the larger transaction in its entirety, it is impossible to assess whether there will be public interest harms associated with the proposed transfer," they said. The groups pointed to the applications' assertions that SpectrumCo owners -- Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House -- have entered into "several agreements, providing for the sale of various products and services," including the ability to sell Verizon Wireless service on a wholesale basis, which would mean branding it as part of a cable quadruple-play bundle. They also point to Verizon and the cable companies' creation of a joint venture to develop technology to integrate wireless and wireline service.
benton.org/node/111112 | Multichannel News | read the letter to the FCC | Public Knowledge
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PRIVACY
FACEBOOK’S DATABASE OF YOU
[SOURCE: Fast Company, AUTHOR: EB Boyd]
Back in September, at its annual f8 developer conference, Facebook announced that it would be opening itself up to data from other apps, like Spotify and Runkeeper. Called "Actions," the system would allow the other apps to pass information about what you were doing in their worlds--like what songs you were listening to or what workouts you had done--back to the social network, to be recorded on users' profile pages and displayed to their friends. At the time, Facebook opened the system up only to a few select partners. Today, the company announced it would begin accepting applications from any other service that wanted to be considered for inclusion in the program. Over 60 other apps, that have been working with Facebook on the feature, will also now start sending their users' information to the social network--pending approval from individual users. Here's how the system works: Let's say you listen to a particular song on Spotify. That action, "listened to a song," gets passed back to Facebook (assuming you've given Spotify approval to do so). The action gets listed in your friends' Tickers, where all their friends' actions inside Facebook (like when they Like a page or comment on a picture) gets displayed in real-time. The action also gets listed on your Timeline as a permanent part of your history. (Though you can choose not to have that listed, or limit the people to whom it gets displayed.)
benton.org/node/111090 | Fast Company
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ONLINE PRIVACY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Tanzina Vega]
Something viewed online billions of times a month would seem to need no further promotion, but that assumption falls short when the something in question — a turquoise triangle in the upper right-hand corner of banner ads — is a critical piece of the debate about online privacy. On Jan 20 the Digital Advertising Alliance, a group of digital advertising trade organizations, will unveil its first ad campaign ever explaining what the icon is and how it helps users control ads they see online. The campaign, one of the largest domestic consumer privacy campaigns to date, comes as advertisers, technology companies and privacy advocates await a final report from the Federal Trade Commission on online privacy.
benton.org/node/111191 | New York Times
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ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
GINGRICH ATTACK’S MEDIA
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Justin Sink, Cameron Joseph]
A fiery attack by Newt Gingrich on the news media for raising questions about his acrimonious divorce set the tone for a bruising Republican presidential debate that featured tough critiques of the presumptive front-runners - and more gaffes for Mitt Romney. Gingrich was pressed by moderator John King to comment about recent interviews given by Gingrich's second ex-wife, Marianne, in which she said that Gingrich had requested an open relationship. "I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office. And I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that," Gingrich said, prompting a standing ovation from the crowd. "I am frankly astounded that CNN would take trash like that and use it to open a presidential debate," Gingrich added. The former House Speaker went on to denounce the story as "false" and accuse the media of raising the issue to protect President Obama.
benton.org/node/111185 | Hill, The
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TELECOM
AT&T AND YOUR LANDLINE
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
AT&T has raised prices on wireline phone users in California, which has consumer advocates crying foul. The rate hikes aren’t just being driven by greed on the part of Ma Bell, but by the more rapid disintegration of the wireline business, as customers abandon ship while providers are stuck maintaining a network for fewer customers who oftentimes pay less. The solution to this is to get Americans off the old copper networks, a goal of providers and the Federal Communications Commission. But between now and 2018, when an advisory council to the FCC hopes to kill off wireline service, AT&T still has assets to sweat and employees to pay, which means the laggards keeping their landlines will see the cost of their phone service rise.
benton.org/node/111103 | GigaOm
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OWNERSHIP
MEDIA OWNERSHIP RULES CHANGES
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Marlene Dortch]
This document solicits comment on proposed changes to the broadcast ownership rules. In addition, this document solicits comment on certain aspects of the FCC’s 2008 Diversity Order that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit remanded and directed the FCC to address in this proceeding. This document solicits comment also on potential changes to the FCC’s broadcast attribution rules.
The FCC must receive written comments on or before March 5, 2012 and reply comments on or before April 3, 2012. Written comments on the Paperwork Reduction Act proposed information collection requirements must be submitted by the public, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and other interested parties on or before March 19, 2012.
benton.org/node/111095 | Federal Communications Commission
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WHO OWNS MY TICKET?
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Albert Foer]
[Commentary] At this moment, all over the United States, consumers are buying tickets to games, concerts and other live events under the impression that they have the right to give away, donate or resell the tickets they purchase. They assume that they can do so whenever and with whomever they wish and (as long as they don’t violate the few remaining laws against scalping) at whatever price they choose. But those consumers may be mistaken. In recent years ticket sellers, along with promoters, producers, artists and sports teams, have increasingly taken a new approach to selling tickets. This approach, marketed in the name of innovation, convenience and protecting purchasers, restricts those fundamental freedoms long rightly taken for granted. The practice is so-called paperless ticketing: tickets are purchased by credit card, and to gain entry to an event, the buyer must present the same credit card and a photo ID. You cannot readily give your paperless concert ticket to a friend or sell it to a colleague or buy one for your grandchild to use. In no other format — traditional paper ticket, printable e-ticket or digital ticket delivered on a smartphone — are live-event tickets subject to such transfer restraints, and no product other than airline tickets (for which there is a security rationale) involves such restrictions.
benton.org/node/111192 | New York Times
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POLICYMAKERS
DE SA LEAVING FCC
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
Paul de Sa, Chief of the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis (OSP), will leave the Federal Communications Commission in February. Paul de Sa has been Chief of the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis since joining Commission in July 2009. He leads a group that includes economists, lawyers, technologists, and visiting academics who work on a variety of issues before the Commission, including merger reviews, broadband adoption and deployment, and spectrum policy.
benton.org/node/111141 | Federal Communications Commission
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STORIES FROM ABROAD
NEWS CORP HACKING CASE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Sarah Lyall, Ravi Somaiya]
Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has agreed to pay substantial damages to several dozen high-profile victims of phone and e-mail hacking, and lawyers for those victims said that they had seen documents showing that senior managers not only knew about the hacking but also lied about it and destroyed evidence as part of a cover-up. The High Court hearing on Jan 19 at which the settlements were detailed was a humiliating occasion for Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers, which published the now-defunct tabloid at the heart of the hacking scandal, The News of the World. In a courtroom so jammed with lawyers, victims and members of the news media that some people had to sit on the floor, News Group’s lawyer, Michael Silverleaf, repeatedly expressed the company’s “sincere apologies” for “the damage, as well as the distress” caused to victim after victim. The list of 37 victims settling with the company included politicians, celebrities, actors and sports figures, as well as people in their inner circles — employees, spouses, lovers. It is unclear how much News Group will end up having to pay after all the cases are finally settled, but the total bill for the 18 victims whose settlement details were disclosed Thursday reaches well above $1 million. According to the police, there may be as many as 800 victims.
benton.org/node/111193 | New York Times | WSJ | FT | FT – Jude Law | FT
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