The House Judiciary Committee’s priorities for legislation in its Copyright Act review remained largely undefined after the committee’s Tuesday roundtable session at the University of California, Los Angeles, participants in the session told us. The UCLA session, House Judiciary’s third roundtable since beginning its copyright “listening tour” in September, drew Los Angeles’ movie, music and TV industries and others. House Judiciary’s Monday roundtable at Santa Clara University drew a mainly tech sector crowd (see 1511100063), while a September roundtable in Nashville was exclusively pegged at music licensing issues (see 1509220055). Participants in the UCLA roundtable said they remain unsure how House Judiciary will proceed, with several saying committee members made few statements indicating their leanings.

The Commerce Department unveiled state-by-state reports on the industry benefits posed by the Trans-Pacific Partnership on Nov. 12. The reports (here) cover each of the 50 U.S. states individually. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, alongside U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, championed those export opportunities on a conference call on the same day. The tariff cuts to U.S. exports in the pact will boost U.S. production and employment, while raising U.S. wages, the reports and officials said.

The FCC acted properly in dismissing an NTCH 2012 petition for reconsideration challenging Verizon’s buy of AWS-1 licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox, the agency said in a brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. NTCH challenged that dismissal. NTCH had raised concerns about the deal because of the 45 percent ownership of Verizon Wireless then held by the U.K.’s Vodafone. In the 2015 order (see 1504170050), the FCC said the petition was moot since Vodafone had since sold its stake in Verizon Wireless. NTCH’s arguments are barred by the doctrine of judicial estoppel, the FCC told the court. “NTCH has not established that the relief it seeks from this Court will redress the injury it claims,” the agency said. “Even if it had made that showing, the Court lacks authority to order the relief requested by NTCH -- initiation of a license revocation proceeding against Verizon Wireless -- because an agency’s exercise of prosecutorial discretion is unreviewable.” The FCC also said NTCH lacks standing to bring the challenge. “NTCH claims it has been injured by Verizon Wireless’s dominance of the data roaming market and that its injury would be redressed if the Commission revoked some of Verizon Wireless’s licenses,” the FCC said. “It is unclear how revocation would help NTCH.” NTCH also mischaracterizes the data roaming rule as “toothless," the agency said. “Not so,” the FCC countered. “The Data Roaming Order established a specific complaint process to ensure that the rule is enforceable … and NTCH is availing itself of that mechanism in a pending proceeding before the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau.” The case is NTCH v. FCC, docket 15-1145.

The FCC acted properly in dismissing an NTCH 2012 petition for reconsideration challenging Verizon’s buy of AWS-1 licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox, the agency said in a brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. NTCH challenged that dismissal. NTCH had raised concerns about the deal because of the 45 percent ownership of Verizon Wireless then held by the U.K.’s Vodafone. In the 2015 order (see 1504170050), the FCC said the petition was moot since Vodafone had since sold its stake in Verizon Wireless. NTCH’s arguments are barred by the doctrine of judicial estoppel, the FCC told the court. “NTCH has not established that the relief it seeks from this Court will redress the injury it claims,” the agency said. “Even if it had made that showing, the Court lacks authority to order the relief requested by NTCH -- initiation of a license revocation proceeding against Verizon Wireless -- because an agency’s exercise of prosecutorial discretion is unreviewable.” The FCC also said NTCH lacks standing to bring the challenge. “NTCH claims it has been injured by Verizon Wireless’s dominance of the data roaming market and that its injury would be redressed if the Commission revoked some of Verizon Wireless’s licenses,” the FCC said. “It is unclear how revocation would help NTCH.” NTCH also mischaracterizes the data roaming rule as “toothless," the agency said. “Not so,” the FCC countered. “The Data Roaming Order established a specific complaint process to ensure that the rule is enforceable … and NTCH is availing itself of that mechanism in a pending proceeding before the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau.” The case is NTCH v. FCC, docket 15-1145.

USTelecom and ITTA asked the FCC to further extend the special-access comment period due to various complexities in the proceeding examining ILEC rates for dedicated circuits, particularly regarding sensitive industry data submitted on the business service market. “The commission’s data collection effort is a unique and massive undertaking. Providing three months to properly analyze and understand the data is consistent with the fact-based approach the commission has taken. The potential value of this information should not be squandered by a rushed analysis,” said USTelecom Senior Vice President Jon Banks in a Tuesday blog post. Although the Wireline Bureau "recently extended the comment schedule -- with comments now due January 6, 2016, and reply comments due February 5, 2016 -- the current schedule does not provide the opportunity for the careful and searching analysis that this proceeding requires," the telco groups said in a filing Tuesday in docket 05-25: "As clearly and carefully detailed [in an declaration submitted by an industry expert], the current data set is not yet stable, and the necessary tools to fully analyze the data are not in place. Given the enormity of the data set, the complexity of the industry and the importance of it to our economy, once the data are stable and the necessary software and tools are available, twelve weeks will be necessary to provide the meaningful opportunity to analyze the data and prepare comments required by the Administrative Procedures Act. ... Specifically, we request that the Commission extend the due date for opening comments until at least twelve weeks after two criteria have been satisfied: (1) the Commission issues a Public Notice confirming that the data set has been finalized and a change control process has been instituted for any further modifications (including explanations for all future changes); and (2) all software and tools necessary to conduct relevant data analysis have been made available by NORC [National Opinion Research Center, a University of Chicago institution]." ILEC representatives recently raised concerns about data's reliability (see 1511050053).

The House Judiciary Committee’s copyright roundtable Monday at Santa Clara University generated significant discussion about the need for fixes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, stakeholders who participated in and attended the meeting told us. The Santa Clara roundtable, the first of two such sessions that House Judiciary plans this week in California, drew prominent interest from Silicon Valley’s tech sector, as expected (see 1511060052). Although content creators and other copyright stakeholders also made a significant impact during the Santa Clara roundtable, a Tuesday roundtable at the University of California, Los Angeles was expected to feature a bigger presence from those stakeholders.

Pay-TV companies and groups still disagree with TiVo and the Consumer Video Choice Coalition over whether the FCC should take action based on the Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee report and whether such an action would be legal, said replies in docket 15-64. AT&T, the American Cable Association, MPAA and NCTA believe the FCC would be overstepping congressional intent and its own authority if it tried to implement the downloadable security solution backed by the CVCC.

Despite reassurance from Chairman Tom Wheeler and others at the FCC (see 1510220039), industry continues to have deep concerns that the FCC’s proposed new device certification rules would prohibit third-party firmware installation on devices, including Wi-Fi routers, CTA and others said in replies in docket 15-170.

The NAB said some broadcast regulatory fees should be reassigned to wireless carriers to reflect the expected spectrum transfer between sectors from the upcoming incentive auction. “The only equitable approach is for the regulatory fees to ‘follow the spectrum.’ The spectrum to be repurposed through the incentive auction will benefit wireless service providers,” said the NAB in comments as industry parties responded to an FCC Further NPRM in docket 15-121 this week (replies are due Dec. 7). CTIA didn’t address the possible broadcast fee shift in its written comments and had no comment to us Tuesday.

The House Judiciary Committee’s copyright roundtable Monday at Santa Clara University generated significant discussion about the need for fixes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, stakeholders who participated in and attended the meeting told us. The Santa Clara roundtable, the first of two such sessions that House Judiciary plans this week in California, drew prominent interest from Silicon Valley’s tech sector, as expected (see 1511060052). Although content creators and other copyright stakeholders also made a significant impact during the Santa Clara roundtable, a Tuesday roundtable at the University of California, Los Angeles was expected to feature a bigger presence from those stakeholders.