Telecom industry stakeholders are likely to favor combining elements from both the Senate-passed Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S-754) and the House-passed Protecting Cyber Networks Act (HR-1560) as Congress moves toward a conference on the two bills, industry lawyers and lobbyists told us. The Senate passed S-754 Tuesday, as expected (see 1510270064), voting 74-21 for the bill. The House passed HR-1560 in late April and added the full language of the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act (HR-1731) before sending the bill to the Senate (see 1504300065).
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
Public Knowledge Vice President-Legal Affairs Sherwin Siy and other participants in the rulemaking process of the Copyright Office triennial Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 1201 exemptions praised the CO and Library of Congress Wednesday for granting many of their requested Section 1201 exemptions. They also said during a conference call with reporters Wednesday that they're pushing for Congress to fix what they consider DMCA’s expanding scope. The LOC Tuesday granted 10 CO-recommended Section 1201 exemptions covering 22 of the 27 proposed exemptions originally under review, including an expansion of existing device unlocking and jailbreaking exemptions and exemptions for “good-faith security research” (see 1510270056).
Acting Librarian of Congress David Mao signed off on 10 Copyright Office-recommended exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 1201 anti-circumvention rules. They included an expansion of existing device unlocking and jailbreaking exemptions and exemptions for “good-faith security research,” the Library of Congress and CO said Tuesday. The exemptions are to appear in Wednesday's Federal Register. The CO combined 22 of the 27 proposed exemptions it originally considered in its triennial Section 1201 exemptions rulemaking process. LOC followed the CO's recommendation that it reject five other proposed exemptions, including a proposal to allow consumers to engage in space-shifting and format-shifting of videos and other media for personal use.
The Senate was on the cusp Tuesday of passing the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S-754), with votes on several amendments and a final vote on the bill still pending at our deadline. The Senate voted down a set of privacy-centric amendments earlier Tuesday, including one from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that would require the removal of personally identifiable information (PII) from cyberthreat data shared by the private sector. Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., opposed the privacy amendments, saying they would "undo the careful compromises we have made on this bill." The Senate voted down the Wyden amendment 41-55. The Senate turned down two similar PII amendments -- one from Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., by 41-54, and one from Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., 47-49. Heller later criticized Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Rand Paul, R-Ky., Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and David Vitter, R-La., via Twitter for missing the vote on Heller's amendment. “Personal ambition should come second to fighting for Americans' liberties on the Senate floor,” Heller tweeted. The Senate voted 37-59 on an amendment from Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., that would have removed a provision from S-754 that would exempt information shared under the bill from Freedom of Information Act requirements. Leahy told reporters he was concerned the Freedom of Information Act provision in S-754 “would even cut off state and local FOIA.” The Senate also voted 35-60 on an amendment from Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., that would have restricted the definition of what constitutes cyberthreat information under S-754.
House Commerce Committee Vice Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., demurred during an appearance on C-SPAN's The Communicators Saturday about whether she would be interested in making a bid for the committee's chairmanship if Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., moves up in the House leadership. “We have a great chairman in Fred Upton and he is doing a terrific job,” Blackburn said. “People want us to take action” on issues like net neutrality and the upcoming Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition, Blackburn said. “They're not worried about personalities in leadership positions.” Blackburn said she's also focusing on music licensing issues and other issues that affect her Tennessee constituents. Blackburn touted her work with House IP Subcommittee ranking member Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., on the Fair Play Fair Pay Act (HR-1733), which would require terrestrial radio stations to begin paying performance royalties and would require digital broadcasters to begin paying royalties for pre-1972 sound recordings. Radio stations' increasing use of radio formats and other tech changes in the industry are making it difficult for all musicians to be “paid a fair wage for the product that they have created,” Blackburn said.
Musician advocates urged fellow recording artists to become more active on licensing issues on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Content Creators Coalition Executive Director Jeffrey Boxer and others pinpointed the need for more musician backing of the Fair Play Fair Pay Act (HR-1733). “If you're sitting here and you're saying 'I need a takeaway,'” from the event, "we need letters" sent to the House Judiciary Committee in favor of HR-1733, Boxer said during a Future of Music Coalition (FMC)-Georgetown University event. HR-1733 would require terrestrial radio stations to begin paying performance royalties and would require digital broadcasters to begin paying royalties for pre-1972 sound recordings. The bill also would require satellite broadcasters to pay royalties at market rates (see 1504130056 and 1504160050).
Pandora’s $90 million settlement with the RIAA and five record labels to end the labels’ lawsuit over unpaid performance royalties on pre-1972 recordings will likely have national implications, though it doesn’t fully resolve the status of those recordings, industry lawyers and other stakeholders told us. Pandora’s settlement ends the labels’ lawsuit in New York (see 1404210027), though Pandora said the settlement “provides a nationwide resolution for Pandora’s use” of the labels’ pre-1972 recordings. Judges in California and New York had decided their states’ laws allowed performance royalties for pre-1972 recordings in the absence of a federal mandate.
The Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability) believes it reached a high-level consensus on enough key parts of its proposed package of changes to ICANN's accountability mechanisms that it will be able to present a final proposal to the ICANN board by late January, CCWG-Accountability co-Chairman Leon Sanchez told stakeholders Thursday. ICANN leaders and stakeholders had been meeting in Dublin since Sunday on a wide range of Internet governance and domain name issues, but negotiations on a compromise on the CCWG-Accountability proposal had been widely seen as dominating the conference (see 1510160058). A January submission of the CCWG-Accountability proposal to the ICANN board could result in ICANN approval of the plan during its March 5-10 meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco, but that's highly dependent on the new draft not requiring further major changes, stakeholders told us.
The Senate slightly advanced the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S-754) Thursday, voting 83-14 to end debate on a manager's amendment that Senate Intelligence Committee leaders have expanded in recent days to include language from a slate of new and existing amendments. Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Vice Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., included language from eight amendments originally slated to receive separate votes on the Senate floor, in a bid to speed consideration of the bill (see 1510210052). They further expanded their manager's amendment Thursday before the Senate vote, agreeing to include language from an amendment proposed by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., that would significantly expand penalties for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Whitehouse criticized Senate leaders Wednesday for ruling his amendment wasn't germane and wouldn't be considered separately.
A series of procedural moves by Senate leaders Tuesday generated a schedule that they say will set up a final vote on the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S-754) early next week. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., filed cloture on a substitute package for S-754 that contains an enlarged manager's amendment that, as expected (see 1510200073), contains the language from several of the amendments that had been included in the early August deal to move the long-stalled bill forward. The first cloture vote on the manager's amendment from Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Vice Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., will occur Thursday unless Senate leaders can reach a deal on an alternative schedule for debating the manager's amendment and other amendments.