Efforts to deliver more TV Everywhere services to pay-TV customers were given a boost by the Disney-Comcast distribution agreement announced last week, executives said Thursday at a Citigroup investor conference. Giving the largest cable operator broader rights to distribute marquee programming from Disney will raise the profile of all TV Everywhere services, said John Martin, Time Warner chief financial officer. That’s good because though Time Warner has been successful in distributing its TV Everywhere services such as HBO Go, “usage is still de minimis and awareness is very low,” Martin said. “The more programmers that embrace this and put resources behind it,” the better, he said.
FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell expects Universal Service Fund reform to dominate the FCC’s agenda in the early part of 2012, starting with a Lifeline cleanup order at the Jan. 31 meeting. McDowell hopes that will be followed by an order addressing USF contribution issues left unsettled by last October’s order (CD Oct 28 p1), he said during an interview last week. McDowell said he remains open minded on a 700 MHz interoperability order and stressed the importance of spectrum efficiency. McDowell also thinks more media ownership deregulation than the FCC proposed in the quadrennial review may be needed.
"The Single Market is the largest economic driving force in the EU,” and the single digital market will be one of several top issues for Denmark during its Presidency of the Council of Ministers, which began Jan. 1, it said Friday. The presidency plans to continue work on removing legislative and administrative barriers to a digital single market by, among other things, improving conditions for e-commerce, cutting roaming prices, and reusing public information for development of new digital services, it said. Creating a common standardization system for new technologies and ensuring “green” information technologies (IT) are also key priorities, it said.
Content creators and distributors would both have duties when it comes to captioning pay-TV and broadcast programming that goes online, under a draft FCC order set to be issued shortly. Video programming distributors (VPDs) like cable, DBS, telco-TV companies and TV stations, and video programming owners (VPO) like studios and other content creators, both have roles. The draft order implementing Internet Protocol captioning rules under the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act requires VPOs to deliver captioned shows to VPDs, said industry and commission officials. They said the order would give programmers and makers of consumer electronics time to come into compliance.
Content creators and distributors would both have duties when it comes to captioning pay-TV and broadcast programming that goes online, under a draft FCC order set to be issued shortly. Video programming distributors (VPDs) like cable, DBS, telco-TV companies and TV stations, and video programming owners (VPO) like studios and other content creators, both have roles. The draft order implementing Internet Protocol captioning rules under the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act requires VPOs to deliver captioned shows to VPDs, said industry and commission officials. They said the order would give programmers and makers of consumer electronics time to come into compliance.
On December 31, 2011, the President signed into law H.R. 1540 (P.L. 112-081), the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012, which authorizes appropriations for the Defense Department (DoD) and the national security programs of the Energy Department for fiscal year 20121. It also includes additional Iran sanctions; procurement provisions affecting counterfeit electronic parts, fire resistant rayon fiber, tents; a requirement for an assessment on the feasibility of establishing a rare earth materials inventory, etc.
Advertising, media and technology groups largely objected to the FTC’s proposed changes to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) rule (http://xrl.us/bmnbr4), saying they're committed to protecting the privacy and safety of children, but that many of the commission’s proposals go too far.
Advertising, media and technology groups largely objected to the FTC’s proposed changes to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) rule, saying (http://xrl.us/bmnbr4) they're committed to protecting the privacy and safety of children, but many of the commission’s proposals go too far. In September, the commission offered more than two dozen changes to the COPPA rule that would impose new requirements on website operators with the aim of protecting children from online threats (WID Sept 16 p1). Among its proposed changes, the FTC sought to expand its governance of personal information, online services, and parental notification requirements relating to children under the age of 13.
Pre-1972 sound recordings should be brought under federal copyright protection, the Copyright Office said in a 214-page report (http://xrl.us/bmm8zc) to Congress, which had asked the office to study the “desirability” of federal protection in a 2009 appropriations bill. Recordings fixed before 1972 are subject to varying state statutory and common laws. Universal Music Group nearly two years ago took the rare step of suing an alleged copyright scofflaw, Grooveshark, in New York state court for infringing its pre-1972 recordings. When Congress first gave federal protection to sound recordings in 1972, it “did not articulate grounds for leaving pre-1972 sound recordings outside the federal scheme and there is very little information as to why it did so,” the report said. Federalization would better serve libraries and archives, giving them “more certainty and, in general, more opportunity than state laws to preserve and make available” old sound recordings, though the office acknowledged libraries and archives don’t care for the exceptions and limitations in Copyright Act sections 107 and 108. The concerns of record labels that federalizing would “cast a cloud over existing ownership of rights ... is not insurmountable,” the office said: Congress would simply have to “expressly” provide that ownership would “vest in the person who owned the rights under state law just prior” to the 1972 update. Pre-1972 recordings would be governed not only by federal law for digital public performances, fair use, safe-harbor liability for ISPs and statutory licenses for streaming and other transmissions, but also “future applicable rights and limitations” Congress may enact, such as the long-sought solution to orphan works, the report said. The office recommended giving authors of pre-1972 recordings the right to “terminate grants of transfers or licenses of copyright” made after the start date for federal protection -- but not termination rights for grants prior to federalization, which would raise “serious issues with respect to retroactivity and takings.” Pre-1972 recordings should get 95 years of protection from publication, or 120 years from “fixation” if the work hadn’t been published prior to federal protection. But “in no case” would protection continue past Feb. 15, 2067, the original date Congress set for all recordings to come under federal protection, except in cases where the terms would expire before 2067 -- the rightsholder could then apply for a longer term. The office recommended a “transition period” of six to 10 years for recordings published between 1923 and 1972, during which a rightsholder can make a pre-1972 recording available to the public at a “reasonable price” and get protection until 2067. For pre-1923 recordings, the office recommended a three-year transition period during which the rightsholder can make a recording available to the public for a reasonable price for the next 25 years, after which it will lose copyright protection. The report doesn’t attempt to set parameters for what constitutes a “reasonable price,” except to say that pre-1972 rightsholders should have the “ability to legitimately exploit economically viable assets, but not to prevent third parties from using” those recordings “in ways consistent with federal copyright law."
Pre-1972 sound recordings should be brought under federal copyright protection, the Copyright Office said in a 214-page report (http://xrl.us/bmm8zc) to Congress, which had asked the office to study the “desirability” of federal protection in a 2009 appropriations bill. Recordings fixed before 1972 are subject to varying state statutory and common laws. Universal Music Group nearly two years ago took the rare step of suing an alleged copyright scofflaw, Grooveshark, in New York state court for infringing its pre-1972 recordings (WID Jan 12/10 p5). When Congress first gave federal protection to sound recordings in 1972, it “did not articulate grounds for leaving pre-1972 sound recordings outside the federal scheme and there is very little information as to why it did so,” the report said. Federalization would better serve libraries and archives, giving them “more certainty and, in general, more opportunity than state laws to preserve and make available” old sound recordings, though the office acknowledged libraries and archives don’t care for the exceptions and limitations in Copyright Act sections 107 and 108. The concerns of record labels that federalizing would “cast a cloud over existing ownership of rights ... is not insurmountable,” the office said: Congress would simply have to “expressly” provide that ownership would “vest in the person who owned the rights under state law just prior” to the 1972 update. Pre-1972 recordings would be governed not only by federal law for digital public performances, fair use, safe-harbor liability for ISPs and statutory licenses for streaming and other transmissions, but also “future applicable rights and limitations” Congress may enact, such as the long-sought solution to orphan works, the report said. The office recommended giving authors of pre-1972 recordings the right to “terminate grants of transfers or licenses of copyright” made after the start date for federal protection -- but not termination rights for grants prior to federalization, which would raise “serious issues with respect to retroactivity and takings.” Pre-1972 recordings should get 95 years of protection from publication, or 120 years from “fixation” if the work hadn’t been published prior to federal protection. But “in no case” would protection continue past Feb. 15, 2067, the original date Congress set for all recordings to come under federal protection, except in cases where the terms would expire before 2067 -- the rightsholder could then apply for a longer term. The office recommended a “transition period” of six to 10 years for recordings published between 1923 and 1972, during which a rightsholder can make a pre-1972 recording available to the public at a “reasonable price” and get protection until 2067. For pre-1923 recordings, the office recommended a three-year transition period during which the rightsholder can make a recording available to the public for a reasonable price for the next 25 years, after which it will lose copyright protection. The report doesn’t attempt to set parameters for what constitutes a “reasonable price,” except to say that pre-1972 rightsholders should have the “ability to legitimately exploit economically viable assets, but not to prevent third parties from using” those recordings “in ways consistent with federal copyright law."