The debate on the role of Congress, state legislatures and the courts over determining pre-1972 public performance royalties for sound recordings continued after a lawsuit was filed Thursday against Pandora (http://bit.ly/1oH6duR). Flo & Eddie filed a suit seeking class-action status against Pandora in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on such royalties following its recent victory against SiriusXM in the same court on the same issue (CD Sept 24 p7). The new suit seeks damages in excess of $25 million for Pandora’s unlicensed use of pre-1972 sound recordings. The Pandora suit shows other digital broadcasters aren’t “safe,” said Dina LaPolt of LaPolt Law, an IP and entertainment firm.

Industry slapped down the latest net neutrality proposal from House Commerce Committee ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif. He urged the FCC to consider a hybrid net neutrality proposal that combines Communications Act Section 706 and Title II authority, as expected (CD Oct 3 p1). Waxman sent FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler a 15-page letter Friday, signed by him alone. He had outlined a different proposal with some similarities in a May letter, then advising Title II as a regulatory backstop to rules crafted under Section 706.

Arguments that joint sales agreements increased opportunities for minorities before the FCC changed the rules governing them are a “charade,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a speech at a National Association of Black-Owned Broadcasters conference Thursday. Changing the JSA rule already has increased the number of minority broadcast owners, he said, promising that more minorities and women would own stations by the time his term ends than did when it started. The conference also featured a panel of commissioners, and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., urged the agency to consider diversity as it reviews large industry deals and the incentive auction.

A prominent House Democrat is expected to tell the FCC to use Communications Act Section 706 and Title II in crafting net neutrality rules. House Commerce Committee ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., will send a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler advocating such a hybrid approach as soon as Friday, industry officials told us. Net neutrality advocates said the hybrid approach may be on the right track, while industry officials said any move toward Title II would be destructive.

An experiment like AT&T’s IP transition trials to settle the competing economic claims in the net neutrality debate would be difficult, but the growth of broadband and innovation during a period of “light touch” regulation could be a guide for how the FCC should proceed, said John Mayo, a Georgetown University economics professor, Thursday at the agency’s latest open Internet workshop.

Questions are arising whether the FCC will be able to offer truly “fungible” spectrum blocks in the TV incentive auction, especially given commission plans to allow unlicensed use of the guard bands and duplex gap. Commissioner Ajit Pai raised the issue in his comments on the incentive auction unlicensed rulemaking notice Tuesday (http://fcc.us/1xH1eTa).

The FCC Wireless Bureau said it received 80 short-form applications to bid in the AWS-3 auction, which starts Nov. 13. Thirty-three have submitted complete applications to bid in the long-awaited auction, the bureau said Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1vy0koH). Among carriers with complete applications are Verizon and T-Mobile. AT&T filed an application that was deemed incomplete. Sprint did not file an application. The FCC provided lists of applications deemed complete (http://bit.ly/1pr7I0i) and incomplete (http://bit.ly/1rGEDkJ).

Pricing estimates by market for the reverse portion of the incentive auction contained in information packages released by the FCC Wednesday are a major step toward getting broadcasters to participate and are likely to encourage those who hadn’t before considered selling their spectrum, said broadcast officials in interviews. The information packages, assembled by the FCC with the help of investment firm Greenhill & Co., were sent out in hard copy and electronic form Wednesday. The information is at www.FCC.gov/LEARN.

California’s governor this week signed into law measures to protect student data and clarify its data breach notification laws (http://bit.ly/1qWoh3E; http://bit.ly/YU26om). Lawyers and advocates told us the education bills -- designed to set guidelines for cloud-stored student data and prevent the use of student data for commercial purposes -- could create confusion, but also address a pressing concern in schools. The data breach notification update requires companies that choose to offer credit monitoring services following a data breach to do so for free. DLA Piper lawyer Jim Halpert, who helped draft the bill, said it was a compromise not meant to end the debate over breach liability.

Key aspects of the Further NPRM on inmate phone call charges circulating at the FCC are being opposed by local regulators. The FCC lacks legal authority to cap intrastate inmate calling rates or pre-empt local PUC’s decisions, NARUC said in a statement to us. The Alabama Public Service Commission also challenged the agency’s legal authority to bar commissions inmate calling service (ICS) providers pay to jails and prisons, as the FCC is also proposing.