The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has issued a notice seeking comments on labor-related issues in the context of the pending free trade agreement between the U.S. and Colombia.

“Vulnerabilities remain” and states have yet to take many recommended steps to deal with problems previously pointed out in emergency communications across the country, the GAO said. Meanwhile, a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee Monday called in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s administrator, Joe Fugate, and other witnesses for a hearing on emergency alerts, FEMA and whether the agency should again be made independent from the Department of Homeland Security.

A fair-use defense raised by P2P defendant Joel Tenenbaum is “so broad it would swallow the copyright protections that Congress has created,” U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner ruled Monday in Sony BMG v. Tenenbaum. She granted a motion by the RIAA for partial summary judgment to prevent use of the defense, which aimed to shield anyone downloading through P2P networks for their own “private enjoyment.” A jury shouldn’t consider the defense, because the facts aren’t contested, Gertner said: “Fair use is not a referendum on fairness in the abstract, as the Defendant would have it, but an effort to measure the purpose and effects of his particular use against the incentives for artistic and literary creation” in the Copyright Act. Tenenbaum’s legal team could have argued for “certain circumstances” in which a fair-use defense was “plausible,” such as deleting downloaded MP3s after sampling them. P2P swapping before commercial alternatives arrived and the law was “settled” could also be argued as fair use, and so could sharing in a closed group of friends, Gertner said, “but the Defendant has offered no facts to suggest that he fits within these categories.” Tenenbaum admitted having shared hundreds of songs over the years, “far beyond the infancy of this new technology or any legal uncertainty,” she said. The defense didn’t even back up its assertion that file-sharing hasn’t harmed the market for purchased music, such as with affidavits, expert reports or deposition testimony, Gertner said. “It seems clear that some portion of paying customers would shift to free downloads if this activity were deemed a fair use,” even if there’s not a one-to-one loss. Tenenbaum can make fair-use arguments at trial in connection with the setting of damages, Gertner said.

With a bruising two-year royalty battle behind Pandora, which agreed to rates negotiated with SoundExchange three weeks ago (WID July 8 p2), the Internet radio company is counting on a bevy of planned artist-centric features to help improve relations with the major labels, founder Tim Westergren told us Thursday night. Speaking to a “town hall” meeting with fans in Washington for the first time since Pandora’s popularity exploded a year ago with its iPhone application, Westergren mostly played the humble customer-service representative, fielding questions in jeans and t-shirt from the floor of a packed theater in a community center.

In the July 17, 2009 issue of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bulletin (Vol. 43, No. 28), CBP published a notice proposing to modify 19 rulings, revoke one ruling, and revoke a treatment as follows:

SEATTLE -- State commissioners and broadband providers raised concerns Monday at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners summer conference about the gathering of broadband data that NTIA, RUS, and the FCC say is necessary for distributing $7.2 billion in federal broadband funds and devising a national broadband plan.

Aides to new FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is asking all companies and groups that seek meetings with the chairman’s office to fill out a five-question form explaining the purpose of the visit and how they have reached out first to the various bureaus and offices prior to meeting with the chairman.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Commissioner Robert McDowell exchanged letters discussing proposals for agency reform. Meanwhile, Genachowski’s office is asking all companies and groups that seek meetings with the chairman’s office to fill out a five-question form explaining the purpose of the visit and how they have reached out first to the various bureaus and offices prior to meeting with the chairman.

More thorough FCC ex parte filings with disclosure of who’s being represented were sought in a draft rulemaking notice circulated by Commissioner Michael Copps before he stepped down as acting chairman, commission officials said. The draft notice seeks comment on requiring that ex partes be more detailed than mentioning who attended a meeting and which rulemaking was discussed, they said.

Senate legislation (S-251) to legalize jamming of cellphone signals in prisons will face opposition from critics who say public safety could be at risk at a hearing set for Wednesday. Nine public interest and consumer groups sent the Senate Commerce Committee a letter Tuesday saying legalized cellphone signal jamming could create more serious problems, such as blocking emergency calls and risking the use of jamming technology by bad actors. CTIA also has concerns about the bill and believes there are alternative solutions, a spokesman said.