Online video distributors don’t completely replace multichannel video programming distributor service, MVPDs and a top OVD told the FCC. Both industries outlined product improvements, in comments on a notice of inquiry for an upcoming commission report to Congress on MVPD competition covering the 52 weeks through June 30. Public Knowledge wants the agency to allow OVDs to operate as MVPDs, which some pay-TV companies oppose. The last, 14th MVPD competition report -- covering four years because annual documents weren’t released as the Telecom Act required -- for the first time reviewed OVDs, and the NOI asked questions about it (http://xrl.us/bnpcgy) for the 15th report (WID July 23 p5).

Three import-export industry groups support the Hitachi Home Electronics (America) petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and give force back to a 42-year-old federal statute that bars U.S. Customs and Border Protection from dragging its feet on import duty protests (CED Aug 16 p5), the groups said in separate friend-of-the-court briefs. Filing the briefs were the American Association of Exporters and Importers (AAEI), the Customs and International Trade Bar Association (CITBA) and the National Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders Association (NCBFFA).

The FCC Public Safety Bureau has pressed for emergency alert system rule compliance after getting waiver requests in past months from rural cable operators and TV stations, some of those seeking exemptions told us. The requests claimed insufficient broadband availability prevented them from upgrading EAS for a new format that requires Internet connectivity (CD July 2 p9) by a June 30 deadline. One radio station’s waiver request was denied, while the bureau wanted more details about others’ efforts to acquire broadband service before ruling on waivers, industry officials said. They said some inquiries inspired EAS participants to find innovative ways to connect rural stations and cable headends to broadband.

The FCC is investigating a special access rate increase proposed by the National Exchange Carrier Association. “NECA’s tariff revisions raise substantial questions of lawfulness that require further investigation,” wrote Victoria Goldberg, acting chief of the Wireline Bureau Pricing Policy Division (http://xrl.us/bnos23). The division was responding to a request by AT&T to suspend the tariff, investigate and issue an accounting order.

Carriers already have multiple incentives to make their systems robust in the event of emergencies, and the FCC shouldn’t impose additional regulations, CTIA said in reply comments to a public notice asking about communications following the June 29 derecho wind storm. T-Mobile and MetroPCS offered similar comments. Carriers potentially face new backup power requirements in the wake of the 911 problems encountered in the days following the massive storm, which packed high winds and shut off power to millions (CD July 20 p1). The FCC imposed a requirement once before, later dropping the post-Hurricane Katrina mandate (CD Dec 2/08 p1) before it could take effect. Several jurisdictions in the Mid-Atlantic region expressed continuing 911 concerns.

An original comic strip made it into the friend-of-the-court briefs filed in response to the Justice Department’s proposed settlement with publishers over e-book price-fixing claims. It was submitted Tuesday by RoyaltyShare CEO Bob Kohn, a vocal critic of the settlement and particularly Justice’s attempt to get it approved without a public hearing (WID Aug 7 p3).

The Federal Election Commission extended until Tuesday the deadline for comments on Advisory Opinion 2012-30 (http://xrl.us/bnnrkb), which responds to a request from Revolution Messaging, asking whether its proposal to use wireless text messaging to raise funds for political committees is permissible under the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971. “Revolution Messaging proposes to process contributions by text message that aggregate in excess of $50 per month and $200 per calendar year (or, in the case of contributions to authorized committees of candidates, $200 per election cycle) for its political committee clients,” the FEC notes. “Each political committee that receives contributions under the proposal will contract exclusively with Revolution Messaging, and Revolution Messaging will contract with a connection aggregator that has agreed to provide the factoring service approved by the Commission.” Revolution Messaging estimates the total cost of registering a premium short code ranges from $6,000 to $10,000 and various steps required take eight to 12 weeks to complete.

The FCC fined a Spanish Broadcasting System FM station for the second time in a day for recording prank phone calls without notifying the person on the other end of the line (CD Aug 23 p13). That action came in a second Enforcement Bureau forfeiture order also dated Wednesday, fining WSKQ New York $16,000, after WZNT San Juan, Puerto Rico, was penalized $25,000 earlier that day. The bureau disagreed with the company’s rebuttal to a proposed fine that a penalty wasn’t called for because the station sought and got the person’s permission after the call was placed. “The Commission’s longstanding policy” is “that prior notification is essential to protect individuals’ legitimate expectation of privacy and to preserve their dignity by avoiding nonconsensual broadcasts of their conversations,” the order said (http://xrl.us/bnmw8x). That a vendor and not the company itself recorded the call doesn’t relieve SBS of liability, the bureau said. “We have consistently held that licensees are responsible for the programming aired on their stations and for violations of Commission rules by employees and independent contractors. To hold otherwise would allow a licensee to circumvent the Commission’s rules with impunity by simply having an agent perform, on its behalf, any acts that violate Commission rules.” An SBS spokesman had no comment. The orders to WSKQ and WZNT “each raises a number of interesting issues,” a radio lawyer uninvolved in the cases wrote Thursday. “They address and reject many defenses to the fines that were raised by the broadcaster,” David Oxenford wrote on the blog of the Wilkinson Barker law firm. That “a litany of potential defenses to the violations were rejected by the FCC” leaves “very little if any room for fighting off a fine should a station be caught having made a recorded” conversation or broadcasting “a call without permission,” he wrote (http://xrl.us/bnmw9b).

Congress hasn’t given much leeway to P2P defendants found liable for copyright infringement, and the courts can’t reduce damages awards without threatening a separation-of-powers squabble, U.S. District Judge Rya Zobel in Boston ruled Thursday. Considering Sony v. Tenenbaum on remand from the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which scrapped her predecessor’s overturning the $675,000 jury award against Joel Tenenbaum on constitutional due-process grounds (WID Sept 20 p4), Zobel said the jury award “does not offend due process.” We couldn’t immediately reach Tenenbaum’s legal team, led by Harvard law professor Charles Nesson, for comment on its next steps in the case. Its Supreme Court petition was denied in May.

Chances are slim that the Hitachi case on time limits for CBP protests will be taken up by the Supreme Court, say industry lawyers, and that is feeding a growing push for a legislative solution. In its decision, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said the statutory two-year period for CBP to decide protests isn’t binding. But the remedy CAFC said is available to importers, accelerated disposition, could hurt smaller importers without the resources to challenge a deemed denial in court, industry lawyers said. Furthermore, CBP itself could face adverse consequences as more importers file for accelerated disposition. As a result, industry groups and customs brokers have begun pushing for amendments to the statute that would hold CBP to a time limit.