Broadcasters and consumer groups complained that an XM- Sirius merger would harm consumers, but Sirius said a combined company would increase competition, at a hearing Wed. of the House Judiciary Committee’s new Antitrust Task Force. The deal “should raise a red flag for the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission whose job is to promote competition and consumer choice in the marketplace,” said Gene Kimmelman, vp-Consumers Union.
The La. Supreme Court reversed lower state courts, upholding a Lafayette city bond ordinance meant to raise $125 million for the Lafayette Utility System (LUS) municipal fiber broadband network. The state’s top court said lower courts incorrectly applied to the Lafayette ordinance a La. Local Govt. Fair Competition Act cross-subsidy ban. The court (Case 2006-C-2227) said the ban doesn’t kick in until a municipality starts running its network. The top court said the bonding ordinance fully complies with the law’s requirements on bond financing of municipal utility projects. It said the lower courts incorrectly applied the law’s cross- subsidy bans on the Lafayette project’s operational phase to the bonding phase. It dismissed all other claims in plaintiff Elizabeth Naquin’s challenge to the bond ordinance, saying they were based on the inapplicable statute.
Prices will rise -- notably online -- if the Supreme Court lifts a ban on resale price maintenance (RPM), the Consumer Federation of America said in a amicus brief filed Mon. A decision in Leegin Creative Leather Products v. PSKS to overturn the ban would be a “dagger aimed at the heart of the most consumer-friendly aspects of the Internet,” CFA Research Dir. Mark Cooper said. RPM, which requires distributors to sell products at the manufacturer’s price, “invariably raises consumer prices,” the brief said. It lets manufacturers set minimum prices for products, stops retailers from offering discounts and keeps shoppers from trolling for the best price, he said. Manufacturers want to kill the ban, in place since 1890 under Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, based on “bogus economic theories,” he said. The Miller-Tydings Act of 1937 legalized RPM, but the Consumer Goods Pricing Act of 1975 banned it again. The ban has helped new retailers enter the market and encouraged competition, the brief said.
The La. Supreme Court reversed lower state courts, upholding a Lafayette city bond ordinance meant to raise $125 million for the Lafayette Utility System (LUS) municipal fiber broadband network. The state’s top court said lower courts incorrectly applied to the Lafayette ordinance a La. Local Govt. Fair Competition Act cross-subsidy ban. The court (Case 2006-C-2227) said the ban doesn’t kick in until a municipality starts running its network. The top court said the bonding ordinance fully complies with the law’s requirements on bond financing of municipal utility projects. It said the lower courts incorrectly applied the law’s cross- subsidy bans on the Lafayette project’s operational phase to the bonding phase. It dismissed all other claims in plaintiff Elizabeth Naquin’s challenge to the bond ordinance, saying they were based on the inapplicable statute.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has issued a proposed rule that would amend 16 CFR Part 1610, Standard for the Flammability of Clothing Textiles (Standard), to better reflect current consumer practices and technologies and to clarify several aspects of the Standard.
A proposed $24 million kids-TV fine against Univision raised First Amendment worries among some industry officials because of concern that the Commission would overstep its bounds in setting the record penalty. The consent decree between the broadcaster and Chmn. Martin appears to amount to the regulation of programming, said broadcast and other lawyers. They said broadcasters have wide latitude in determining which programs are educational shows under the 1990 Children’s TV Act.
Domain name registrar RegisterFly, whose ICANN accreditation is under threat, apologized over the weekend for the behavior of its former CEO and said it will work hard to win back customers. In a late Fri. posting on gripe-site Registerflies.com, Pres. John Naruszewicz detailed the firm’s problems with Kevin Medina and said he’s assembling a “dream team” to improve services that had degenerated so far that ICANN stepped in. But a domain owners group said the meltdown could leave thousands of registrants stranded without clear recourse.
Although translator stations aren’t subject to the Feb. 2009 DTV deadline, public TV stations are already looking for ways to raise money for their conversion. Public broadcasters have raised $1.2 billion so far from govt. and private sources for the conversion of their full-power transmitters. According to CPB estimates, public TV’s more than 900 translators serve about 12 million people, said APTS Pres. John Lawson: “So it’s a big issue for us.” Though translators don’t face a conversion deadline, he said, it’s unclear whether a viewer who gets a converter box would continue to receive analog signals: “There are a lot of questions up in the air about this.”
In the February 14, 2007 issue of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bulletin (CBPBulletin)(Vol. 41, No. 8), CBP published a notice proposing to modify a country of origin ruling and revoke a treatment as follows:
If one party in Microsoft v. AT&T had the edge in Supreme Court oral argument Wed., it was probably the software giant, to judge from reactions of cautious observers. Justices gently quizzed Microsoft’s attorney on why foreign-made copies of Windows software -- originating from a U.S.-sourced “golden disk” shipped or transferred via network to foreign manufacturers -- shouldn’t count toward liability for Microsoft’s admitted infringement of an AT&T voice-compression patent. But AT&T’s attorney drew much sharper questions -- and predictions of legal Armageddon -- from 2 justices, who warned that simply reciting a published patent over the phone to a foreign counterpart could be an infringement in AT&T’s view.