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FCC Commissioners Call For National Broadband Strategy

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Public Knowledge - By Mehan Jayasuriya - Jun. 30 (Opinion) - While there's little doubt about the benefits that such fast, cheap and widely available Internet would have--for education, employment and the economy--the million-dollar question is how to achieve such a feat in just four short years.

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Billions of Reasons Not to Grant Forbearance

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 09:19:55 -0700

Public Knowledge - By Art Brodsky - Oct. 30 (Opinion) - How many reasons are there for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reject the deregulation petitions Verizon filed for six cities in the Northeast? How about 2.4 billion? That's not a number pulled from the air. A new study, sponsored by XO, Covad and other of the hardy band of surviving competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs), found that if the petitions are granted, consumers and businesses will pay $2.4 billion more for local phone service, high-speed Internet service and business connections.

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A Phone Company's Discretion Isn't Enough

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 23:36:48 -0700

Public Knowledge - By Art Brodsky - Sep. 28 (Opinion) - Not long ago, the Washington Post ran a story about Comcast cutting off the Internet accounts of customers who downloaded too much material. What standard does Comcast use? It's at their discretion. There are no published standards, no means of measuring, no way a customer can know if he or she is going to get cut off. It's at the discretion of the company.

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FTC Net Neutrality Report Tortures Logic to Reach a Twisted Conclusion

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 14:06:16 -0700

Public Knowledge - By Art Brodsky - Jun. 28 (Opinion) - The Federal Trade Commission staff labored mightily to produce a report on Net Neutrality that restated the conclusion FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras announced a year ago. In a speech Aug. 21, 2006, she said: "I urge caution in proceeding on the issue." In the report issued June 27, 2007, the staff said, "We advise proceeding with caution," a word that shows up repeatedly. No one who favors an open, non-discriminatory Internet expected much from this report. However, it was possible to be disappointed just the same. They started with the correct premise that consumers in terms of broadband access "have revealed a strong preference for the current open access to Internet content and applications." They then proceeded to ignore that basic finding for the rest of the 165-page report. Instead, there was no original research on the state of the broadband market. Instead, there were all sorts of justifications about how discriminatory behavior can benefit telephone and cable companies.

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Jobs' shot over the big four's bow

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 09:59:13 -0800

Public Knowledge - By Alex Curtis - Feb. 07 (Opinion) - So that was the quick-ish rundown on the letter. What do we learn by reading between the lines? Unfortunately, more questions than answers. Why did Jobs really write this letter? Is Apple, the media-market leader, really heralding the death of DRM, and with it the end of its competitors business models? Was the post written to address the hypocrisy of the European countries or the "Big Four", or to play-up to growing consumer concerns? Is Jobs' option 3 daring the majors to call his bluff? Lastly, why does this post specifically single-out DRM'd music, not on other media like videos that are also offered via the iTunes Store?

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9th Circuit rejects constitutional challenge to copyright laws in Kahle v. Gonzales

Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:37:31 -0800

Public Knowledge - By Christopher Sprigman - Jan. 23 (Opinion) - Some sad news to report: the 9th Circuit has rejected constitutional challenges to the copyright laws in Kahle v. Gonzales. The opinion is here. Sad, yes, but also positively maddening, for reasons I will explain shortly. First, a bit of background: Plaintiffs in this case -- the Internet Archive and its Chairman, Brewster Kahle, and the Prelinger Film Archive and its President, Richard Prelinger -- filed suit seeking a declaratory judgment that Congress violated the Constitution when it removed our traditional system of formalities from the copyright law. Formalities? Let me explain ... From the first U.S. copyright statute in 1790 until the Copyright Act of 1976, the U.S. had an "opt-in" copyright system that limited copyright protection to those who took affirmative steps to claim it -- by, for example, registering their copyright, marking copies of their work with copyright notice, and renewing their copyright after a relatively short initial period of protection.

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