BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for
FirstNet and the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council on today’s agenda http://benton.org/calendar/2013-09-23/
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Close Ties Between White House, NSA Spying Review
NSA posts opening for privacy officer
Rep Schiff pushes bill to create FISA privacy advocate
After NSA revelations, a privacy czar is needed - op-ed
Making the Case for NSA Surveillance—At Last - editorial
This is how the fear of government snooping takes its toll on tech companies
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
Chairman Rockefeller Calls on Motorola to Cease Campaign to Undermine FirstNet's Critical Mission - press release
INTERNET/BROADBAND
E-rate and the Lands the Information Age Forgot - analysis
The US's crap infrastructure threatens the cloud - op-ed [links to web]
What Europe can teach us about keeping the Internet open and free - analysis
Cyber war: Different look, same aim - op-ed [links to web]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
FCC grants approval of AT&T's Alltel acquisition despite concerns over local competition
Here’s why Verizon and AT&T don’t need to worry about suffering BlackBerry’s fate - analysis
Dr. Leslie Marx's expert analysis concludes that proposed FCC Incentive Auction restrictions would reduce revenues, risk auction failure - press release [links to web]
FAA Nears New Rules on Devices
Mapping out the world’s LTE coverage [links to web]
CONTENT
Give Yourself 5 Stars? Online, It Might Cost You
Music labels can press Vimeo on copyright claims — judge denies “safe harbor”
Vevo Will Block YouTube’s Offline-Video Viewing Feature [links to web]
Here’s what makes torture in video games worse than on TV [links to web]
Hollywood switches tactics in online piracy fight with Silicon Valley [links to web]
PRIVACY
How California’s imminent Do Not Track law falls short – and why it matters anyway - analysis
TELEVISION
Will Dish Network Dare to Drop ESPN?
TV And Digital Deliver One-Two Sales Punch: Study [links to web]
OWNERSHIP
FTC Puts Conditions on Nielsen’s Proposed $1.6 Billion Acquisition of Arbitron - press release
JOURNALISM
Refocusing on newsroom diversity
The Senate’s media shield bill protects bloggers, and they should support it - op-ed
A shield law is necessary to protect US journalists - Washington Post editorial [links to web]
POLICYMAKERS
Close Ties Between White House, NSA Spying Review
FCC staffer heads to lobby giant Akin Gump [links to web]
More Than 1 in 5 Cyber Jobs Vacant at Key DHS Division [links to web]
COMPANY NEWS
Ballmer calls Google a 'monopoly' that authorities should control [links to web]
US investment heroes: AT&T and Verizon lead the way - analysis [links to web]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Pakistan’s YouTube ban, one year later
Assad on Instagram Vies With Rebel Videos to Seek Support [links to web]
Google and Facebook face tougher EU tax and privacy rules [links to web]
Wang Jianlin Aims to Create Hollywood, China
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
CLOSE TIES BETWEEN WHITE HOUSE, NSA SPYING REVIEW
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Stephen Braun]
Stung by public unease about new details of spying by the National Security Agency, President Barack Obama selected a panel of advisers he described as independent experts to scrutinize the NSA's surveillance programs to be sure they weren't violating civil liberties and to restore Americans' trust. But with just weeks remaining before its first deadline to report back to the White House, the review panel has effectively been operating as an arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the NSA and all other US spy efforts. The panel's advisers work in offices on loan from the DNI. Interview requests and press statements from the review panel are carefully coordinated through the DNI's press office. James Clapper, the intelligence director, exempted the panel from U.S. rules that require federal committees to conduct their business and their meetings in ways the public can observe. Its final report, when it's issued, will be submitted for White House approval before the public can read it. Even the panel's official name suggests it's run by Clapper's office: "Director of National Intelligence Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies."
[more at URL belo]
benton.org/node/160623 | Associated Press
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NSA POSTS OPENING FOR PRIVACY OFFICER
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Kate Tummarello]
The National Security Agency has posted a job opening for a privacy and civil liberties officer. The position was recently mentioned when President Barack Obama outlined his plans to bring more transparency to the NSA surveillance programs. A White House press release said the agency was “taking steps to put in place a full time Civil Liberties and Privacy Officer.” The person in the “completely new role” will “serve as the primary advisor to the Director of NSA for ensuring that privacy is protected and civil liberties are maintained by all of NSA's missions, programs, policies and technologies,” according to the posting. Some worry that the creation of this role may not actually advance protections for privacy and civil liberties at the NSA. “While, in theory, a Privacy Officer should serve as an oversight mechanism, in practice the role is often responsible for providing a justification for invasive surveillance programs,” said Amie Stepanovich, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s Domestic Surveillance Project.
benton.org/node/160617 | Hill, The
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REP SCHIFF PUSHES BILL TO CREATE FISA PRIVACY ADVOCATE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) introduced legislation aimed at getting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to focus more on protecting privacy. Rep. Schiff's bill would allow non-government attorneys to argue in favor of stronger privacy protections in significant FISC cases. The FISC, which oversees National Security Agency surveillance programs, currently reviews only arguments from the government. The White House has endorsed the idea of having a privacy advocate at the FISC, and Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Tom Udall (D-NM) have introduced similar legislation.
benton.org/node/160608 | Hill, The
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PRIVACY CZAR NEEDED
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Charles Raul]
[Commentary] The United States has lots of good privacy laws, robust government enforcement and extensive litigation by private lawyers, but the federal government has no uber-guru in charge of US privacy policy. The lack of centralized leadership on this nonpartisan, hot-button issue explains why our country appears to be floundering around the National Security Agency (NSA) leaks and unready to deal with the ubiquitous deployment of technologies such as unmanned aerial drones and facial recognition. Heightened concerns over government surveillance have complicated efforts to harmonize international privacy rules. The post-Edward Snowden jumbling together of “national security” privacy and “consumer” privacy, along with the siloed nature of US regulation, has made it more difficult for Europeans, and Americans, to understand how the US system works. The absence of a high-level point person also undermines our country’s ability to engage European trading partners who invoke “privacy shortfalls” to deny business opportunities to US Internet companies. Only a White House appointee could prevent the looming digital trade war and data protection train wreck given the disparate interests and agencies involved on the US side. A privacy and data protection coordinator would primarily be a privacy architect and spokesperson. Answering to the president would ensure continued progress and meaningful accountability on the privacy concerns that are increasingly central at home and abroad.
[Raul is a lawyer in Washington who previously served as vice chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board]
benton.org/node/160634 | Washington Post
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MAKING THE CASE FOR THE NSA
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: L Gordon Crovitz]
[Commentary] Gen. Michael Hayden, a former chief of the NSA and CIA, recently criticized the media's treatment of the NSA documents stolen by Edward Snowden, the former contractor who fled to Russia. He called coverage "agendaed," citing especially the work of Glenn Greenwald in Britain's Guardian. Blaming the media puts journalists on the defensive, but Gen. Hayden is right. Greenwald has been clear that he writes to further an agenda. So do we columnists, but readers should know which they're getting. Intentionally or not, the early reporting of the Snowden documents left the impression that the NSA routinely monitors Americans' phone calls and emails. In fact, elaborate "minimization" rules limit surveillance to foreign suspects. The NSA is also accused of acting lawlessly. In fact, it operates under numerous openly debated and adopted laws such as the Patriot Act. Gen. Hayden said Americans should understand the limits on surveillance, but warned: "This is not ancient Athens; this is not a direct democracy. It is a representative democracy. So although I'm saying there are more things that should be made public, there will be some things only the [congressional intelligence] committees will know." There are costs to making such details public, but the benefit is that the better Americans understand how the NSA operates, the less they will see the U.S. as a "surveillance state." They will see serious efforts to protect privacy while still gathering and connecting the dots to prevent another 9/11.
benton.org/node/160633 | Wall Street Journal
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THIS IS HOW THE FEAR OF GOVERNMENT SNOOPING TAKES ITS TOLL ON TECH COMPANIES
[SOURCE: Quartz, AUTHOR: Adam Pasick]
Two very different technology offerings were dropped because of fears that the US and China might be trying to spy on the customers using them. In Baltimore, Maryland—just down the road from the headquarters of the National Security Agency in Ft. Meade—a US company called CyberPoint International lost a contract to provide a videoconferencing system to the federal government after US Customs determined that CyberPoint’s offering was in fact Chinese, substantially made by telecom equipment maker ZTE. A US House Intelligence panel has recommended that government agencies and contractors should avoid using equipment made by ZTE and its larger Chinese counterpart Huawei, because of fears that they might have ties to the Chinese military that could compromise the security of federal computer networks. ZTE and Huawei have strenuously denied the claims. China is already planning to probe EMC, IBM, and Oracle over “security issues,” according to the state-run Shanghai Securities News. Trade groups have projected that the NSA hacking could end up costing US technology firms billions in lost sales if their foreign clients suspect that the NSA will have surreptitious access to their systems. The allegations against ZTE and Huawei have not been backed up with any evidence that their products have any intentional vulnerabilities that hackers from China or elsewhere could exploit. But it is becoming very clear why American intelligence officials, knowing what their own spy agency has been up to, are so worried about China doing the same thing.
benton.org/node/160595 | Quartz
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EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
ROCKEFELLER CALLS ON MOTOROLA TO CEASE CAMPAIGN TO UNDERMINE FIRSTNET'S CRITICAL MISSION
[SOURCE: US Senate Commerce Committee, AUTHOR: Press Release]
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller IV(D-WV) is deeply concerned by reports that Motorola Solutions is engaging in efforts to undermine FirstNet, the nationwide, interoperable wireless public safety broadband communications system. Chairman Rockefeller authored the legislation creating FirstNet, which was signed into law last year, fulfilling one of the final recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. In a letter to Motorola Solutions CEO Gregory Brown, Chairman Rockefeller points to recent news reports that have suggested Motorola and its paid consultants have engaged in behind-the-scenes activities to undermine FirstNet. Chairman Rockefeller also calls on Motorola Solutions to work constructively with FirstNet to bring more competition to public safety communications. "Your company's actions to oppose this important effort to strengthen our Nation's public safety communications systems directly contradicts the intent of Congress, and it potentially endangers the success of a network that will benefit millions of law enforcement officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and other first responders," Chairman Rockefeller wrote.
benton.org/node/160616 | US Senate Commerce Committee | B&C
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
E-RATE AND THE LANDS THE INFORMATION AGE FORGOT
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
As the Federal Communications Commission considers proposals and recommendations to update its E-rate program, the Benton Foundation is paying close attention to the role of the E-rate in bringing high-capacity broadband to underserved populations, especially those who either have no access to broadband at home, or cannot afford to pay for it. The lack of fundamental telecommunications infrastructure throughout Tribal Lands and Native Communities in the US, and particularly on reservations, is an acute and nagging problem that a reformed E-rate program could do much to address. Members of federally-recognized American Indian Tribes and Alaska Native Villages, “[b]y virtually any measure, … have historically had less access to telecommunications services than any other segment of the population.” In starkest terms, these communities are the lands that the Information Age has forgot.
http://benton.org/node/160590
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WHAT EUROPE CAN TEACH US ABOUT KEEPING THE INTERNET OPEN AND FREE
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Brian Fung]
[Commentary] What would a more competitive broadband market look like? One way to find out is to look at what other countries have done. Experts point to Europe, where nations have committed themselves to something called local loop unbundling. That's a fancy term for when major network operators are required to share the infrastructure they built with other service providers. In France, unbundling dropped the costs of starting a new Internet Service Provider to attractive levels. Start-ups didn't have to worry about laying their own cables; they just piggybacked off the existing ones. As the market flourished with more ISPs, according to the New America Foundation's Danielle Kehl, some of those providers even began building their own Internet infrastructure that could compete with the big carriers. As a result, a 100 megabit-per-second, triple-play bundle now costs around $35 — which is 17 times as fast and roughly half as expensive as the most cost-effective Internet plan in the United States. The US market could have turned out much like that. In fact, with the telephone industry, it did. But then the Federal Communications Commission decided not to regulate broadband the same way. Whereas telecom providers had to practice unbundling, Internet providers didn't — the better to encourage them to build more infrastructure, or so the logic went. If all the companies expected to freeload, nobody would take the responsibility to lay the cables. Today, that means every ISP owns its own network. But it also means there are fewer competitors in the marketplace.
benton.org/node/160610 | Washington Post
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
FCC APPROVES AT&T-ALLTEL
[SOURCE: The Verge, AUTHOR: Carl Franzen]
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved AT&T's $780 million acquisition of rural network Alltel (owned by parent company Atlantic Tele-Network) after earlier delaying the move over competition concerns. The FCC still has some reservations about the deal, noting that "the proposed transaction will likely cause some competitive and other public interest harms in several local markets." AT&T is addressing these concerns by committing to:
deploy its own 4G HSPA+ service in Alltel cell areas within 15 months,
deploy 4G LTE service at all current Allied cell sites that will be integrated into the AT&T network, and at which AT&T holds AWS-1 or Lower 700 MHz Band B or C Block spectrum and where high speed backhaul service is currently available280 to AT&T within 18 months,
offer CDMA voice and data roaming services, consistent with applicable Commission rules, over Allied’s 3G EV-DO network until at least June 15, 2015,
honor the prices, terms, and conditions of the roaming agreements that it is assuming from Allied,
offer postpaid Allied customers handsets comparable to their existing handsets, at no cost to the customer and without requiring a contract extension, and
filing quarterly reports with the Commission for a period of three years following the date on which the transaction closes for purposes of reporting on the status of its implementation of these commitments
benton.org/node/160619 | Verge, The | FCC
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INNOVATION AND WIRELESS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Timothy Lee]
BlackBerry's announcement that it is laying off 40 percent of its staff in the wake of massive losses is a reminder of just how volatile the smartphone market is. Hardware and software vendors in the smartphone business can see their fortunes wax or wane with astonishing speed. Yet the market for wireless service is very different. There have been no significant changes in the competitive landscape of the wireless service market in the last decade. And that's not a coincidence. The market for wireless service in the United States has barely changed at all over the last decade. In 2003, there were six major wireless carriers: Cingular, T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, Nextel and Sprint. By 2008, Cingular had merged with AT&T and Sprint had merged with Nextel. Those mergers left four national carriers. Verizon and AT&T led the market, with Sprint and T-Mobile taking third and fourth place, respectively. Today, nothing has really changed. Verizon and AT&T still lead the market. Sprint is still in third place. And T-Mobile still brings up the rear. Not only have there been no significant new entrants into the wireless business over the last decade, but the relative size of the major players hasn't even changed very much. What accounts for the smartphone market's dynamism and the wireless market's lack of it? One factor is that innovation simply isn't very important for building wireless networks. Another factor is that building a cellular network requires one of the scarcest and least liquid resources around: spectrum. Incumbent wireless providers have already claimed a large share of the spectrum available for private parties to build wireless networks. New wireless auctions happen infrequently and take millions, if not billions, of dollars to win. That leaves limited room for entrepreneurs to disrupt the wireless business.
benton.org/node/160632 | Washington Post
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FAA DEVICE RULES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Jad Mouawad, Nick Bilton]
The rules on when to turn off electronic devices on airplanes have long been a sour, and sometimes contentious, point for travelers. But faced with a surge of electronics on airplanes and under pressure from a growing number of tech-savvy — and increasingly tech-dependent — passengers, the Federal Aviation Administration recognized that change was inevitable. This week, an FAA advisory panel will meet to complete its recommendations to relax most of the restrictions. The guidelines are expected to allow reading e-books or other publications, listening to podcasts, and watching videos, according to several of the panel’s members who requested anonymity because they could not comment on the recommendations. The ban on making phone calls, as well as sending and receiving e-mails and text messages or using Wi-Fi, is expected to remain in place, the panel members said. The panel will recommend its new policy to the FAA by the end of the month and it will most likely go into effect next year. The coming change represents a cultural milestone of sorts for the digital age, the moment when mass travel and mass communication finally meet.
benton.org/node/160630 | New York Times
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CONTENT
ONLINE REVIEWS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Streitfeld]
New York regulators will announce on Sept 23 the most comprehensive crackdown to date on deceptive reviews on the Internet. Agreements have been reached with 19 companies to cease their misleading practices and pay a total of $350,000 in penalties. The yearlong investigation encompassed companies that create fake reviews as well as the clients that buy them. Among those signing the agreements are a charter bus operator, a teeth-whitening service, a laser hair-removal chain and an adult entertainment club. Also signing are several reputation-enhancement firms that place fraudulent reviews on sites like Google, Yelp, Citysearch and Yahoo. A phony review of a restaurant may lead to a bad meal, which is disappointing. But the investigation uncovered a wide range of services buying fake reviews that could do more permanent damage: dentists, lawyers, even an ultrasound clinic.
benton.org/node/160629 | New York Times
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MUSIC LABELS CAN PRESS VIMEO ON COPYRIGHT CLAIMS — JUDGE DENIES “SAFE HARBOR”
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Jeff John Roberts]
The long-running fight over who is responsible for removing copyrighted content on video sites took a new twist as a New York federal judge refused to throw out a case against Vimeo, a popular site that lets users share clips. In the ruling, US District Judge Ronnie Abrams held that so-called “safe harbor” laws — which can help Internet sites avoid liability for the actions of their uses — may not shield Vimeo since its employees may have known that users were uploading infringing works. In order to preserve their safe harbors, sites must also show that they respond to takedown requests of infringing content and that they don’t “control” the content that appears.
benton.org/node/160615 | GigaOm
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PRIVACY
CALIFORNIA PRIVACY LAW
[SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, AUTHOR: James Temple]
[Commentary] A do not track transparency bill has landed on Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk and indications suggest he will sign it before the looming deadline in mid-October. AB 370 passed unanimously in the California Assembly and was sponsored by the governor’s political ally, Attorney General Kamala Harris. If Gov. Brown signs the bill, introduced by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance), it’s likely to be portrayed as a bigger victory for privacy than it actually is — the latest indication of California boldly leading the way on online privacy. It’s not that. But it is a small and solid step forward. The law amends an existing statute requiring online companies that collect personally identifiable information to “conspicuously post” their privacy policies. Going forward, those policies would have to include how the sites respond to do not track requests or similar mechanisms. In another update — that is only a decade or so overdue — the site would also have to state whether or not third parties can collect identifiable information about users. Those parties would include the dozens or even hundreds of ad networks like TribalFusion, Facebook’s FBX and Google’s AdSense that inconspicuously track activity across a vast array of sites.
benton.org/node/160626 | San Francisco Chronicle
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TELEVISION
WILL DISH NETWORK DARE TO DROP ESPN?
[SOURCE: Hollywood Reporter, AUTHOR: Alex Ben Block]
Dish Network CEO Charlie Ergen is threatening to drop Disney-owned sports powerhouse ESPN from his satellite service because of its high cost. The possibility that the fourth-largest carrier could go without a key network is at the center of negotiations in Denver as the clock ticks toward a Sept 30 deadline when the current Dish Network-Disney/ABC contract expires. Ergen said he knows Disney is looking for steep increases in fees per subscriber for its networks. But he said it might be time for a cable or satellite distributor to take a long-term view "that sports isn't something they have to have." Instead, he suggested, it might be better to offer customers a lower price. "While they'll lose customers initially," said Ergen, "they will gain customers long term.” Most analysts believe Dish and Disney eventually will reach a deal. But SNL Kagan's Robin Flynn points out that even if Dish drops ESPN, the service will still carry lots of other sports. Amy Yong, an analyst with Macquarie Securities, said Dish also could take a tough stand because losing ESPN probably won' t have much impact on its stock price. That's because "the driver" of Dish' s shares is now what happens with its spectrum assets and wireless rather than its video offerings.
benton.org/node/160614 | Hollywood Reporter
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OWNERSHIP
NIELSEN GETS FTC OK
[SOURCE: Federal Trade Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
Media research company Nielsen has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that its proposed acquisition of Arbitron may substantially lessen competition. Nielsen will divest and license assets and intellectual property needed to develop national syndicated cross-platform audience measurement services. Nielsen and Arbitron are developing national syndicated cross-platform audience measurement services, which allow audiences to be measured accurately across multiple platforms, such as TV and online. According to the FTC’s complaint, the elimination of future competition between Nielsen and Arbitron would likely cause advertisers, ad agencies, and programmers to pay more for national syndicated cross-platform audience measurement services. The proposed order settling the FTC’s complaint is designed to address the competitive concerns raised by Nielsen’s acquisition of Arbitron. It requires Nielsen to sell and license, for at least eight years, certain assets related to Arbitron’s cross-platform audience measurement services to an FTC-approved buyer, within three months. Under the order, the acquirer will get everything it needs to replicate Arbitron’s participation in a national syndicated cross-platform audience measurement service. The order also contains terms designed to ensure the success of the acquirer as a viable competitor, such as requiring that Nielsen provide technical assistance and remove barriers that might otherwise keep the acquirer from hiring key Arbitron employees. Without the assets Nielsen is required to provide under the order, according to the FTC, it is unlikely another company would be able to successfully develop a service to compete with Nielsen’s future national syndicated cross-platform audience measurement service.
benton.org/node/160631 | Federal Trade Commission
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JOURNALISM
REFOCUSING ON NEWSROOM DIVERSITY
[SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, AUTHOR: Jennifer Vanasco]
[Commentary] Robert C. Maynard -- journalist, editor, newspaper publisher, and former owner of The Oakland Tribune -- spent much of his career trying to improve diversity in journalism. His namesake organization, the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, is devoted to that effort. Twenty years after his death, the organization is headed by his daughter, Dori Maynard, who is troubled by what she sees as a decrease in attention paid to diversity in newsrooms. “As one industry leader said a few years ago, ‘When it comes to diversity, it’s not only on the backburner—it’s not even in the kitchen,” she noted. About 90 percent of newsroom supervisors are white; only 12.37 percent of those in the newsroom are minorities, even though they make up 37 percent of the US population. The problem, Maynard said, is that when the journalism business model changed abruptly with the advent of the Internet, people went into “freefall panic” and diversity, she said, became an afterthought. But diversity is important. Robert Maynard, in his last public address before he died, said that “The country cannot be the country we want it to be if its story is told only by one group of citizens. Our goal is to give all Americans front door access to the truth.” So what’s to be done? Maynard´s daughter said that the Institute is commemorating the anniversary of her father’s death by refocusing on increasing the number of minorities in the journalism industry pipeline and retaining them once they’re there. The Institute is planning a possible series of online conversations that looks not only at what has gone wrong, but also at what has gone right—at coverage that works and why. She said they want to gather examples of how having a diverse staff adds “nuance to story and subject.”
benton.org/node/160593 | Columbia Journalism Review
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SENATE SHIELD LAW
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Kurt Wimmer]
[Commentary] The shield bill, which is called the “Free Flow of Information Act,” would create a new federal privilege for reporters to protect confidential sources. Forty-nine states have long had laws like this on the books or in their case law. Some bloggers are alarmed by the bill recently moved forward by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ironically, it would actually protect them. The bill does protect bloggers, which is why the Online News Association supports it. To figure out how the law would really work, take a look at the language of the definition itself — which includes two separate tests, and one safety valve. Under the first test, a reporter can be covered if she works for any entity that publishes “news or information” by means of a variety of media. There is no “financial” test involved. Those media include any “news website, mobile application or other news or information service” as well as a “magazine or other periodical, whether in print, electronic, or other format,” which is language that courts have held to encompass blogs. Under the second test, someone who doesn’t qualify under the first can be covered if she is a student journalist, someone who has significantly contributed to any medium covered under the first test, or someone who would have been covered under the first test for at least three months in the past five years — or, for real boomer second-generation journalists, at least a year in the past twenty years. Finally, there’s a “safety valve.” The bill empowers anyone who fails either test to still be considered a covered journalist if “the judge determines that such protections would be in the interest of justice and necessary to protect lawful and legitimate news-gathering activities under the specific circumstances of the case.” In other words, a judge is empowered to do justice. [Wimmer is general counsel for the Newspaper Association of America]
benton.org/node/160628 | GigaOm
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STORIES FROM ABROAD
PAKISTAN’S YOUTUBE BAN, ONE YEAR LATER
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Janko Roettgers]
Pakistan started banning access to YouTube a year ago as a response to violent protests against clips of the anti-Islamic film The Innocence of Muslims, and the company has kept up the ban ever since. Now, democracy activists are arguing that the Pakistani government uses those clips as a pretext to suppress freedom of speech. “The Pakistani government has been blocking Internet content under the pretext of national interest, religion, and morality,” Hassan Belal Zaidi at the independent Internet rights advocacy group Bytes For All, based in Islamabad, told the Christian Science Monitor. “But it is actually trying to block any parallel discourse on the Internet and curtail freedom of expression of minorities... both political and religious, which speak against their persecution that happens quite often in Pakistan, and are not covered by mainstream media."
benton.org/node/160605 | GigaOm | Christian Science Monitor
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HOLLYWOOD, CHINA
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Laurie Burkitt]
Executives of Universal Pictures and Sony Pictures Entertainment joined Hollywood stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Nicole Kidman and John Travolta in a Chinese seaside city to meet a man who will likely play a bigger role in their future. Wang Jianlin, China's richest man and the chairman of property-and-entertainment conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group, said he is breaking ground on a 30-billion-yuan to 50-billion-yuan ($4.9 billion to $8.2 billion), mega-entertainment center that will include a theme park, a film museum, a wax museum and a massive film studio, which the tycoon promises will be the world's largest. Closely held Wanda has signed agreements with four top global talent agencies to attract stars such as Kidman and DiCaprio to produce 30 films each year and attend an annual festival, the statement said. The company will also enlist 50 domestic film- and television-production companies to work with Wanda, ensuring that 100 homegrown films and shows are made each year. Wang not only wants a stronger foothold in Hollywood, he wants to re-create it in China, he said. A Chinese adaptation of the Hollywood sign draped above Beverly Hills is planned for the mountain overlooking the theme park-studio "Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis."
benton.org/node/160620 | Wall Street Journal
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