The Supreme Court declined to take up a petition from Intercollegiate Broadcasting. It had asked the court to review the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s decision to invalidate and sever the restrictions on the librarian of Congress’s ability to remove the copyright royalty judges in Intercollegiate’s case against the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB). The action stems from Intercollegiate’s appeal of CRB’s determination of the default royalty rates and terms for webcasting. Intercollegiate, a noncommercial webcaster association, argued that because the CRB judges’ rate determinations aren’t reversible by any other entity within the executive branch, they are “principal officers” who must be appointed by the president with Senate confirmation, said its petition (http://bit.ly/172LTPR). The appeals court agreed with Intercollegiate and decided to remove restrictions on the ability of the librarian of Congress to remove the judges (CD July 9/12 p4). “With such removal power in the Librarian’s hands, we are confident that the judges are ‘inferior’ rather than ‘principal’ officers, and that no constitutional problem remains,” the appeals court opinion said (http://1.usa.gov/KY9wK5). Intercollegiate urged the Supreme Court to determine that appellate judges shouldn’t demote officers and allow Congress to decide how to fix Appointments Clause violations. Intercollegiate is disappointed the court didn’t agree to hear its case, said CEO Fritz Kass. “We hope Congress will go forward with broad reforms to the music royalty rules that include making the Copyright Royalty Judges presidential appointees who are able to set fair royalty rates without the constraints in the existing law, particularly the requirement that the judges must ignore rate agreements unless the record labels authorize them to consider the agreements."
Correction: NTIA’s next privacy multistakeholder meeting is June 11 (CD May 28 p15).
Iowa just got its first gigabit city. The speed is a “selling point” that will allow businesses to compete more aggressively, said Rob Houlihan, network services manager for Cedar Falls Utilities, speaking in a Tuesday video (http://bit.ly/16n92gs) in which the municipal network announced the faster speeds. Gigabit speeds are available for both residential and business customers in Cedar Falls, available the day a customer requests them and activated remotely, it said in a news release (http://bit.ly/130ZjaI). Cedar Falls Utilities runs a fiber network throughout the city, which has just under 40,000 residents. The monthly residential cost of 1 Gbps download/500 Mbps upload speeds is $267.50 for city residents and $272.50 for rural ones, according to Cedar Falls Utilities. For about half that price, the network offers 120/60 Mbps speeds.
President Barack Obama endorsed Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., Tuesday in the special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by Secretary of State John Kerry. “Ed Markey is a passionate and effective champion for middle class and working families, and we need him in the Senate to keep moving our country forward,” said Obama, according to a news release. Markey faces Gabriel Gomez, a Republican businessman and former U.S. Navy SEAL, in a June 25 special general election.
BuzzFeed will expand its video operations and build a social video studio to create YouTube content, including a new “CNN BuzzFeed” YouTube channel, CNN said in a Tuesday release (http://bit.ly/16n6cYP). BuzzFeed intends to “bring a new generation of video content to a BuzzFeed audience that lives on social media and mobile phones,” said BuzzFeed President Jon Steinberg. On its “CNN BuzzFeed channel,” BuzzFeed will use CNN footage to create “unique mash-up news videos tailored for the social web,” CNN said. Content will appear on CNN.com and on the YouTube channel. The two organizations will also collaborate on BuzzFeed-style list posts using CNN news gathering talent, it said. BuzzFeed plans to employ 30 people on its new video team.
Blockbuster released an iOS app Tuesday that allows iPhone and iPad users to browse its catalog of movies, TV shows and game titles, manage their Blockbuster by Mail queue, watch movie trailers and check availability of new releases, titles and formats at local Blockbuster stores. The free app, available in English or Spanish, is compatible with iOS versions 5.1.1 and later and replaces the need for a membership card, the company said. Blockbuster by Mail members with iOS devices “no longer have to be at a computer screen to add, re-prioritize or organize movies in their queue,” said Mitch Weinraub, Blockbuster vice president-product. Screen layouts are optimized for screen sizes, the company said. Blockbuster released an Android version earlier this year and said it has recorded more than 50,000 downloads of the app.
The FCC dismissed a request by CNN America for a new temporary fixed earth station license in the 13.75-14.5 GHz band, wrote Chief Paul Blais of the International Bureau Satellite Division’s Systems Analysis Branch. The Alsat proposed point of communication for the station can only have applications granted in cases where routine processing is allowed, he wrote CNN Tuesday (http://bit.ly/18wQtE1). The band where the station would operate isn’t authorized for such licensing, wrote Blais. His letter said the request could be made again.
SES expanded its reach in the Benelux countries in 2012 to more than 1.2 million homes. About 980,000 satellite homes in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg “are now capable of receiving transmissions via the 23.5 degrees east orbital position, an increase of 12 percent in 2012,” SES said in its annual market research study (http://bit.ly/18qBCx6). In the Netherlands, more than 90 percent of all satellite homes are tuned in to the 23.5 degrees east orbital position, “only six years after its introduction as new direct-to-home spot for this market,” it said. All major cable and IPTV providers in the Benelux countries “are using the SES satellite fleet for the redistribution of one or more channels,” it said.
SoundExchange plans to audit Cumulus Media and Saga Communications’ statutory license statements of account for each of the three years through 2012, the Copyright Royalty Board said in Monday’s Federal Register (http://1.usa.gov/115Pp4x). As the organization designated by the board’s judges to collect such royalties for digital audio, SoundExchange can conduct such audits “for the purpose of verifying their royalty payments,” said the notice.
A Do Not Track (DNT) agreement being facilitated by the World Wide Web Consortium could drive advertisers from small third-party ad networks to major platforms with authenticated users, such as Google and Facebook, said Guggenheim analyst Paul Gallant in an email blast Tuesday. “For smaller players like ValueClick and Millennial Media, DNT could have negative implications by reducing the percentage of Internet users reachable via targeted display advertising.” While major platforms’ display ad networks would suffer from a DNT mechanism, “these companies also have large numbers of authenticated users (via their email services and other offerings like Google+) who would not be affected by DNT and could still be targeted,” he said. The group working on DNT has a July deadline to come up with industry requirements on which the consortium would then seek comment (CD May 28 p4).