Domain name registrars and others urged ICANN to further revise its metrics for measuring the health of the generic top-level domain market, noting in comments filed through Friday that further details are needed to best measure its state. ICANN sought comment on its draft gTLD marketplace health index, which measures the market based on geographic diversity, overall changes in the number of registered gTLDs, changes in the number of registrars, accuracy of WHOIS records and dispute resolutions.
Jimm Phillips
Jimm Phillips, Associate Editor, covers telecommunications policymaking in Congress for Communications Daily. He joined Warren Communications News in 2012 after stints at the Washington Post and the American Independent News Network. Phillips is a Maryland native who graduated from American University. You can follow him on Twitter: @JLPhillipsDC
The European Commission's likely proposal to introduce a pan-EU 20-year ancillary copyright aimed at allowing publishers to claim royalties from news aggregation services that link to their content is part of a pattern of recent EU policy decisions that “create a blockade on information for Europeans that rivals the blockades on information imposed by Communist countries,” said CTA President Gary Shapiro in a Friday blog post. The possible EU ancillary copyright was outlined in leaked EC documents on the commission's larger EU copyright law revamp proposal, which is expected to be introduced this month (see 1608290062). The EC may roll out its copyright revamp proposal as soon as this week, an industry lobbyist told us. The ancillary copyright proposal, along with the EU's demand for $14.5 billion in retroactive taxes from Apple and the EU's “right to be forgotten” law, “increasingly restrict access to information,” Shapiro said. “They are also dangerous moves for a government to make as they parallel controls and access to information imposed by totalitarian societies.” The recent dearth of new tech startups in the EU is already “a source of embarrassment and concern,” but the ancillary copyright “will hasten the exodus of promising European tech companies to Silicon Valley and other locales more open to the access to information the internet encourages,” Shapiro said. He urged companies to consider a “blackout day” of European websites similar to the one used in 2012 to protest the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act and Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act. “Hopefully, it won't come down to engaging angry European citizens,” Shapiro said. “Cooler heads should withdraw or modify these wrongheaded policies.”
Multiple supporters of the planned Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition told us they plan to continue urging congressional leaders to allow the transition to proceed despite growing perceptions that Republican lawmakers reached a consensus to further delay the changeover via a planned short-term continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government once FY 2016 expires Sept. 30. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, showed interest last week in a possible short-term CR that includes an extension of a rider in the Department of Commerce's FY 2016 budget that bars NTIA from using federal funds on the transition (see 1609070053). An extension of the funding ban rider would result in NTIA needing to extend its contract with ICANN to administer the IANA functions past its current Sept. 30 end date.
The chairmen of the House and Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees jointly urged the departments of Commerce and Justice Thursday to reconsider proceeding with the planned Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition Oct. 1, saying they have serious concerns about ICANN's existing transition-related plans. The letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker follows increased interest from Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., and other Senate leaders in including an extension of a rider in the Department of Commerce's FY 2016 budget that bars NTIA from using federal funds on the transition via the planned short-term resolution to fund the government once FY 2016 expires Sept. 30 (see 1609070053). An extension of the transition funding ban rider would delay NTIA's plan to allow its existing contract with ICANN to administer the IANA functions to expire as planned just before midnight Sept. 30.
The European Court of Justice ruled Thursday that Dutch website GeenStijl's posting of a link to unauthorized copies of Playboy Nederland pictures of Dutch TV presenter Britt Dekker violated EU copyright laws. ECJ's ruling is aimed at guiding a Dutch court's pending decision on the case. Some U.S.-based copyright stakeholders told us they're concerned that potential interpretations of the ECJ ruling could be detrimental to U.S.-based companies doing business in EU-member nations, though much will depend on how lower courts in the Netherlands and elsewhere apply the ruling in their own decisions.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, urged federal agencies Wednesday to implement “zero trust” policies for verifying users accessing agencies' IT systems in the wake of the Office of Personnel Management data breaches revealed in 2015. Such policies are “one of the things I like to think the private sector figured out a long time ago,” he said. Two separate hacks of OPM's systems resulted in the theft of the personally identifiable information of more than 21 million people, including personnel files and fingerprints. House Oversight criticized OPM's leaders and policies for the breach, saying in a report released Wednesday the agency “failed to prioritize cybersecurity and adequately secure high-value data.”
The Senate Judiciary Oversight Subcommittee scheduled a hearing Sept. 14 on the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition, as expected (see 1609020038). Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, confirmed Wednesday he will chair the hearing, which will begin at 10 a.m. in Dirksen 226. The hearing will focus on “possible dangers” of the planned transition, which is to occur Oct. 1, after the Sept. 30 expiration of NTIA's contract with ICANN to administer the IANA functions, Cruz's office said in a news release. Witnesses set to testify include NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling, TechFreedom President Berin Szoka and officials from DOJ's Antitrust Division and ICANN, two industry lobbyists told us. Senate Judiciary Oversight didn't release a confirmed witness list before our deadline, but the subcommittee reportedly is still determining additional witnesses, a lobbyist said. The hearing is likely to include a focus on transition skeptics' recent concerns about antitrust implications of the IANA transition, with lobbyists noting Cruz's recent call for DOJ's Antitrust Division to conduct a competition review of ICANN's proposed extension of Verisign's .com registry agreement through 2024 (see 1608150052). Meanwhile, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., urged against proceeding with the IANA transition, during a speech on the House floor Tuesday. Blackburn cited former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz's recent opinion piece opposing the transition, in which he claimed ICANN had an “antitrust exemption.” ICANN has countered the claim (see 1609010078).
Domain name interests criticized an independent review of ICANN’s Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) services for what they consider lack of comprehensiveness. The draft review report, released in late July, said few trademark owners are using TMCH services to register for generic top-level domains (gTLD) during a “sunrise period” before the domains go on general sale. Few trademark owners are using the clearinghouse to dispute domain name registrations that include slight variations on their trademarks, ICANN said in the draft report (see 1607270041).
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is planning a hearing mid-to-late September on his concerns about the pending Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition, said four domain name and internet lobbyists in interviews. Cruz is planning to hold the IANA hearing via the Senate Judiciary Oversight Subcommittee, which he chairs, the lobbyists said. Such a hearing would come amid a likely showdown in Congress over whether to delay the transition and require NTIA to extend its existing contract with ICANN to administer the IANA functions past its current Sept. 30 expiration date, the lobbyists and other stakeholders said.
Members of Fall Out Boy, Linkin Park and singer Jennifer Hudson are among 212 musicians jointly urging (in Pacer) the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to overturn a 2015 jury verdict in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles that said “Blurred Lines” co-writers Robin Thicke, T.I. and Pharrell Williams infringed Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up." The Los Angeles jury determined (in Pacer) that infringement of Gaye’s copyright wasn’t willful but the “Blurred Lines” co-writers faced $5.3 million in damages. Public Knowledge backed the “Blurred Lines” supporters in an amicus brief also filed Tuesday. Gaye's family believes the Los Angeles jury’s verdict and District Judge John Kronstadt's confirmation of it “sit on unshakable footing," emailed family lawyer Paul Philips. “Got to Give It Up” was written before provisions in the 1976 Copyright Act protected sound recordings, musicologists said (in Pacer). PK said the borrowing and adaptation of existing works “takes on a particular importance” in music. “Greater similarity among musical works is to be expected simply due to the ordinary structures of Western music,” the group wrote (in Pacer). “Copyright has long been understood to be premised on a utilitarian justification, that the monopoly right to exclude copying is granted in service of encouraging creation and dissemination of new works. Consequently, the scope of that monopoly right must be limited to avoid interference with downstream creators who build upon the works of the past.”