The direction of the Copyright Office’s study of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 512’s notice-and-takedown process and the section’s safe harbors remains highly fluid ahead of the conclusion of the first of CO’s two planned roundtables on Section 512, multiple participants in the first sessions said in interviews. The first roundtable, which began Monday and is to conclude Tuesday, is at the Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse in New York. The CO is planning a second event May 12-13 at the James Browning U.S. Court of Appeals Building in San Francisco.
The European Union announced it is lowering its retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods for noncompliance with a World Trade Organization ruling against the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act (CDSOA, also known as the Byrd Amendment) (here). Effective May 1, the EU is lowering the additional tariff from 1.5 percent to 0.45 percent on metal eyewear frames, trucks with cranes, frozen sweetcorn, and women’s denim trousers.
No world economy raised the three red flags necessary to trigger increased U.S. bilateral engagement and possible sanctions to counter unfair currency manipulation through new procedures outlined by the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act, according to a Treasury report to Congress on the foreign exchange policies of major U.S. trading partners (here). However, Treasury has created a “Monitoring List,” including China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Germany, which satisfied two of the three criteria.
Congressional, industry and advocate scrutiny has just begun on a controversial DOJ proposal to alter the Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41 to expand federal judges’ ability to issue warrants for remote searches of computers outside their jurisdictions, stakeholders agreed in interviews Friday. At least one legislative challenge in the Senate is already likely. Opponents of the proposed Rule 41 revision said further attention will come, but may take time. The Supreme Court approved DOJ’s proposal Thursday as part of a larger set of changes to Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure that the court received from the U.S. Judicial Conference’s Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure. The Supreme Court forwarded the suggested revisions to Congress, which has until Dec. 1 to give its opinion on the proposals. The suggested revisions will automatically take effect if Congress doesn’t act to block them by then (see 1604280074).
Congressional, industry and advocate scrutiny has just begun on a controversial DOJ proposal to alter the Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41 to expand federal judges’ ability to issue warrants for remote searches of computers outside their jurisdictions, stakeholders agreed in interviews Friday. At least one legislative challenge in the Senate is already likely. Opponents of the proposed Rule 41 revision said further attention will come, but may take time. The Supreme Court approved DOJ’s proposal Thursday as part of a larger set of changes to Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure that the court received from the U.S. Judicial Conference’s Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure. The Supreme Court forwarded the suggested revisions to Congress, which has until Dec. 1 to give its opinion on the proposals. The suggested revisions will automatically take effect if Congress doesn’t act to block them by then (see 1604280074).
Small multichannel video programming distributors and allies continue to press the FCC for changes to its totality of circumstances test, while NAB continues to push back, according to a series of ex parte filings Tuesday in docket 15-216. One pay-TV industry official told us Wednesday the uptick in activity in the docket shows the issue is being discussed by the agency. But eighth-floor action probably isn't imminent, though the agency is likely to do something before year's end, the official said.
Tom Wheeler hasn't reached the point in his FCC chairmanship where he will be unable to launch new major rulemakings, but if he wants to wrap them up before the Nov. 8 election he will need to start them soon, officials said. Last week, Wheeler started what's expected to be his final nine months as chairman. The FCC didn't comment.
Verizon union workers claimed safety violations by their fill-ins in New York as the East Coast telecom strike continued into its third week. Verizon meanwhile won an injunction to stop alleged acts of sabotage by the union workers represented by the Communications Workers of America. As the standoff continues, analysts told us they didn’t expect a big financial impact on Verizon unless the strike drags on for many more weeks. The telco had warned such effects were possible (see 1604210043).
Tom Wheeler hasn't reached the point in his FCC chairmanship where he will be unable to launch new major rulemakings, but if he wants to wrap them up before the Nov. 8 election he will need to start them soon, officials said. Last week, Wheeler started what's expected to be his final nine months as chairman. The FCC didn't comment.
The director of the FTC Consumer Protection Bureau weighed in Friday in FCC docket 16-42 on FCC-proposed changes to rules for set-top boxes, alongside comments from pay-TV carriers, programmers, and advertisers. Set-top proposal opponent the Future of TV Coalition and proponent Consumer Video Choice Coalition filed thousands of citizen comments on the matter. Consumer Protection Bureau Director Jessica Rich didn't weigh in either way on the merits of the FCC plan but commented on the possibilities for enforcing privacy rules on third-party set-top makers, in a letter some industry officials said strengthened the case for the FCC proposal and others characterized as staking out a jurisdictional claim.