Category: Mass Communication Law

FCC jurisdiction over the Internet

Ars gives an excellent rundown of recent proceedings which may hold grave implications for FCC jurisdiction over the Internet. Essentially Comcast is arguing that the FCC took charge of the Net through a policy statement. If you’re interested in the issues, I would recommend reading the article in full (note there are 2 pages), but here are a few highlights:

For the next ten minutes the judges and Comcast talked cases and precedents. Then [Justice] Randolph cut to the chase. “In looking this over I found a good many situations in which Congress has instructed the FCC to study the Internet,” he opined, “and taxation of transit sales transactions on the Internet, and this, and that, and the other thing. But what I don’t find is any congressional directive to the FCC to regulate the Internet.” It wasn’t hard for [Comcast attorney] Walker to summon a response to this observation. “That’s right,” she declared.

[After arguing that a Congressional order to the FCC to bear the responsibility for rolling out broadband access…] By the end of the discussion [FCC attorney] Schlick was bargaining with the judges. “If I’m going to lose I would like to lose more narrowly,” he confided. “But above all, we want guidance from this Court so that when we do this rule-making, if we decide rules are appropriate we’d like to know what we need to do to establish jurisdiction.”

What’s next if DC Court says FCC has no power over ISPs (Ars Technica)

Music in the cloud – free and legal?

I’d be shocked if the music industry goes along with this and Apple can pull it off. There must be a down side to this–perhaps fishing for illegal downloads?

Apple will not offer a subscription option to the iTunes Store. Instead, it will complement the current model with cloud storage, giving iTunes users the ability to “to navigate and play their music, videos and playlists from their personal URL using a browser based iTunes experience.”

via Cloud storage may be main focus of Apple’s Lala buyout.

Border technology searches

The ACLU has posted an analysis (and easier data access) to recent Customs and Border Protection data.

In a span of just nine months, CBP officials searched over 1,500 electronic devices belonging to travelers. Under the current policy, they were not required to justify a single one of these searches. …

Between July 2008 and June 2009, CBP transferred electronic files found on travelers’ devices to third-party agencies almost 300 times. Over half the time, these unknown agencies asserted independent bases for retaining or seizing the transferred files. More than 80 percent of the transfers involved the CBP making copies of travelers’ files.

It’s not clear whether the majority of these searches were done for reasons of security or copyright. In cases of the latter, the lack of a warrant for these searches seems oddly reminiscent of the power granted to England’s Stationers’ company (circa 16c!).

Thanks to the ACLU for giving this at least some transparency.

via Customs and Border Protection (CBP) First Production Documents | American Civil Liberties Union.

Google Forum on ACTA

I was fortunate enough to get my question answered at the recent Google forum on ACTA.  I asked:

Will providers still enjoy “safe harbor” protections for materials their users upload? If not, what are potential implications for the “user generated” or “remix” online culture that has emerged?

The answer comes at about the 47 minute mark.

Without knowing much about the makeup of the panel, or whether this was to bring any new transparency to the process, it was a little hard to think of a good question (though I thought this would fit the Google venue pretty well 🙂 ). I should have known that the participants wouldn’t have a great deal of information, and what they could say needed to be stated very carefully.  Still, the response from both sides appeared to be a reassuring “yes.” I see safe harbor as an important protection for service providers, users who wish to assert their fair use, and the general balance of copyright protection.

A quick search on safe harbor provisions in the EU and Japan does seem to check out–their law appears to be much like ours here in the states. I couldn’t find any information on safe harbor in Canada (or lack thereof), but would be happy to check it out if anyone suggests a link.

Safe harbor is an important law–it protects providers from copyright liability and gives users a formal process by which they can claim fair use. Let’s make sure ACTA doesn’t change that.