A trio of Capitol Hill Republican lawmakers skeptical of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition joined with domain name industry stakeholders to criticize ICANN’s proposed extension of its .com registry agreement with Verisign through 2024. The GOP lawmakers -- Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah, and Rep. Sean Duffy of Wisconsin -- urged the DOJ’s Antitrust Division Friday to do a competition review of the .com registry agreement. Domain name registries Donuts and XYZ were among those who criticized the proposed contract extension in comments due Friday. ICANN proposed extending Verisign’s registry agreement beyond the current 2018 expiration date to align it with the term of ICANN’s new root zone maintainer services agreement with Verisign (see 1606300063).
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
A proposal for House and Senate leaders to sue NTIA to delay the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition is raising eyebrows among the IANA switch's backers, with several lawyers and lobbyists telling us they don't believe a legal challenge would hold up in court. A TechFreedom-led coalition of groups skeptical of the transition on Thursday urged House and Senate leaders to sue NTIA, claiming the agency is rushing the transition for political reasons. The groups also claimed NTIA violated a rider in the Department of Commerce's FY 2016 budget that bars the department from using its funds on the transition before Sept. 30 (see 1608110062). ICANN was expected to transmit a report to NTIA Friday updating its progress with implementing governance changes for the switchover but hadn't done so at our deadline.
A long-anticipated report ICANN is expected to transmit to NTIA Friday likely will herald significant progress in implementing changes to ICANN's corporate governance, stakeholders told us. The report is considered a linchpin in allowing the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition to occur as planned Sept. 30. Meanwhile, a coalition of groups long skeptical about the transition made a fresh bid Thursday to delay it. The TechFreedom-led coalition of 25 groups and 11 individuals urged House and Senate leaders to sue NTIA to enforce and extend an existing rider in the Department of Commerce's budget that prohibits the use of federal funding on the transition. An extension of the funding ban rider through FY 2017 would effectively delay the transition an additional year.
The Copyright Office appears to be fully committed to proceeding with its planned legislative recommendation for a digital-age update of Copyright Act Section 108’s exemption allowing libraries and archives to reproduce and distribute copyrighted works despite ongoing opposition from library and archive stakeholders, several lawyers and lobbyists told us. CO officials told stakeholders in meetings earlier this summer the office wants to release its legislative recommendation before the end of the year, the lawyers and lobbyists said. The CO planned to meet privately with stakeholders through the end of July about its thinking on the Section 108 legislative recommendation. The CO's recommendation is set to include adding museums as eligible institutions for the reproduction and preservation exemption and expanding the exemption to include “publicly available Internet content” for preservation and research purposes (see 1606070052 and 1606210066). The CO ultimately met with around 40 stakeholders, said Internet Archive counsel Lila Bailey.
A bipartisan letter from leading House Judiciary Committee member James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and five other House members to DOJ supporting the Antitrust Division’s final decision in its review of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music Inc. consent decrees illustrates the challenges opponents of the decision will face in getting support on Capitol Hill, music industry lobbyists told us. ASCAP is leading the lobbying side of a coordinated campaign with BMI to challenge the consent decrees decision, while BMI challenged the decision in U.S. District Court in New York. Antitrust said in a concluding statement last week that it decided against altering the existing consent decrees to allow music publishers to partially withdraw from the decrees and issued language clarifying that the department continues to believe the existing decrees mandate 100 percent licensing (see 1608040066).
ICANN stakeholders proposed relatively minor changes to proposed governing documents for the Post-Transition Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (PTI) in comments through Sunday. Stakeholders told us that reflects a consensus that ICANN’s proposed framework is an acceptable compromise for administering IANA in the immediate post-transition period. Comments on PTI’s bylaws, due Thursday, are expected to also garner calls for only limited revisions, stakeholders said. The governing documents reflect language in ICANN’s IANA transition-related plans that would form PTI as a legally separate subsidiary that would be governed by a majority ICANN-selected board. ICANN and PTI could choose to fully separate at a later date under the plan ICANN adopted in March (see 1603100070).
Top Florida and New York state court reviews of the appeals of Flo & Eddie's lawsuits against SiriusXM on hold in the U.S. courts of appeals for the 2nd and 11th circuits are inherently unlikely to be cookie-cutter reviews because common law statutes in the states that may allow for a pre-1972 sound recording performance royalties differ, industry lawyers and lobbyists told us. Flo & Eddie, owners of The Turtles' “Happy Together” and the rest of the band's music, seek compensation for performances of the Turtles' pre-72 recordings. Several lawyers and lobbyists said they will be watching the state courts' proceedings to determine whether the 2nd Circuit's June ruling in the Vimeo case (see 1606160071) affects the results of the Flo & Eddie reviews.
A two-pronged challenge by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music Inc. to the DOJ Antitrust Division's final decision Thursday on its review of the performing rights organizations' consent decrees is likely to be followed by separate opposition efforts by other parties in the coming weeks, music industry stakeholders told us. DOJ decided, as expected (see 1608030075), against altering the existing consent decrees to allow music publishers to partially withdraw from the decrees and issued language clarifying that the department continues to believe the existing decrees mandate 100 percent licensing.
The DOJ Antitrust Division’s release of its final decision on its review of the department’s American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music Inc. consent decrees is said to be imminent despite earlier perceptions that progress on the decision was stalled, several music licensing stakeholders told us. Music industry attorney Chris Castle told us a DOJ decision was likely Thursday. Other stakeholders said a decision was pending in the near future. DOJ collected feedback from stakeholders last month on a preliminary version of their decision not to alter the existing decrees and to issue language clarifying that the department continues to believe that existing music licensing rules mandate the use of 100 percent licensing (see 1607070040). Justice didn’t comment.
Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., urged Judiciary Committee Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to hold an oversight hearing into possible Russian government involvement in the hacking of Democratic National Committee servers. Coons is the Oversight ranking member. DNC-hired investigators said the hack, which resulted in WikiLeaks’ publication last month of almost 20,000 emails from seven top DNC officials’ accounts, had Russian government backing (see 1607270061). The FBI has been investigating the DNC hack and has avoided implicating Russia. An oversight hearing on the DNC hack should be used “to determine whether existing federal criminal statutes and federal court jurisdiction sufficiently address conduct related to foreign entities that could undermine our elections,” Coons and Whitehouse said in a letter to Cruz. Coons and Whitehouse also raised concerns about GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s comments on the DNC hack, which the senators said are an “unprecedented call for a foreign government to spy on a U.S. citizen and interfere with a U.S election.” Trump told reporters last week that he hopes Russia is “able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing -- I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.” Trump later claimed he was being sarcastic. Trump’s comments “implicate U.S. criminal laws prohibiting engagement with foreign governments that threaten the country’s interests, including the Logan Act and the Espionage Act,” Coons and Whitehouse said. The comments also invite Russia to “engage in conduct that would violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and, if performed by the U.S. government, would contravene the Fourth Amendment.” A cybersecurity lobbyist told us it’s unlikely a hearing on the DNC hack would focus on Trump’s comments, particularly if Cruz chaired it because the longstanding feud between Cruz and Trump would make a focus on the comments appear to be “unseemly.” Cruz’s office didn’t comment.