The Copyright Office is seeking comments on a proposed regulation on verification and audit of statements of account filed by cable operators and satellite carriers. The proposal would allow copyright owners “to appoint an auditor to verify the accuracy of these statements,” the office said in a notice in the Federal Register (http://xrl.us/bnb9t7). It also would give cable operators and satellite carriers an opportunity to correct errors identified or underpayments spotted by the auditor, the office said. Comments are due August 13.
WOW said it plans to phase out traditional phone service in Evansville, Ind. The cable operator said it mailed notices to customers in mid May and will continue to offer phone service to customers using VoIP (http://xrl.us/bnb9rn).
Bloomberg and Comcast filed oppositions to the other’s applications that the FCC review a Media Bureau order requiring the cable operator change the channel position of Bloomberg TV in certain markets (CD June 6 p12). “If Comcast truly believed that the news neighborhood condition [of the order approving its NBCUniversal takeover] was too burdensome, it should have filed a petition for reconsideration with the Commission, or rejected the Commission’s grant of its application and proceeded to an administrative hearing,” Bloomberg said (http://xrl.us/bnb9pv). “Comcast cannot gain the substantial benefits resulting from its merger with NBCU and then contest, after the fact, the validity of the very conditions that allowed it to obtain those benefits.” Comcast opposed Bloomberg’s application that the commission grant what the operator termed “even broader and more disruptive relief” than what was contemplated in the merger order (http://xrl.us/bnb9qh). “In essence, Bloomberg asks the Commission to compel Comcast to locate Bloomberg Television (BTV) next to CBNBC throughout its lineups, even though the Commission declined ... to require this as part of the news neighborhood condition,” the operator said.
The House Judiciary Committee approved a bill Tuesday to reauthorize provisions of the Foreign Surveillance Act (FISA) for another five years. The committee approved the FISA Amendments Act Reauthorization Act (HR-5949) by 23 to 11. Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, hailed the bill’s passage, which he said would enable the U.S. intelligence community to monitor the “constantly” evolving communications of foreign terrorists.
Tribune asked the FCC to force East Texas Cable to comply with retransmission consent rules for the broadcaster’s KDAF-TV Dallas (http://xrl.us/bnb9ow). “Since January 1, 2012, East Texas has retransmitted KDAF(TV)’s signal on its cable systems without Tribune’s express, written consent,” it said in an enforcement complaint. An executive at East Texas didn’t immediately respond to our query.
The House Appropriations Committee approved $7.29 billion for telecom loans in the FY13 agriculture appropriations bill on Tuesday. The committee also approved $27.1 million for the Department of Agriculture’s distance learning, telemedicine and broadband program, including $15 million for rural telemedicine and distance learning grants. The committee said it was “disappointed” with the progress of broadband projects funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and ordered the USDA to “significantly quicken” the pace of broadband project review, approval and completion. The bill also ordered the agency to report on how the FCC’s plans to reform the USF and intercarrier compensation will affect Rural Utility Service telecom borrowers. The bill will next be considered by the House Rules Committee on Thursday at 11:00 a.m. in room H-313 of the Capitol.
The FCC should adopt consistent and straightforward online video captioning requirements that apply to all online content that was previously broadcast on TV with captions, Google said in reply comments filed with the FCC this week (http://xrl.us/bnb9jo). “Requiring video programming distributors (VPDs) or video programming providers (VPPs) to monitor online video to determine whether content is a video clip ... or whether it is full-length programming, subject to captioning requirements is unduly burdensome,” Google said. “As captioning video clips becomes a necessary feature, the tools for editing will improve and adapt to offer accurate editing and time coding of videos,” it said in response to some earlier comments in the docket that captioning clips would be difficult and expensive. Google also urged the commission to deny TVGuardian’s request that the FCC require VPDs and VPPs pass through captioning data through all outputs capable of connecting to a recording device, Google said. DirecTV also opposed TVGuardian’s request (http://xrl.us/bnb9k9). In the same docket, the CEA urged the FCC to reject accessibility advocates’ arguments against the CEA’s request to narrow the scope of the requirements. The FCC rules were wrong to equate “apparatus ‘capable of’ playing back video programming with apparatus ‘designed to’ receive, play back or record video programming,” the CEA said (http://xrl.us/bnb9kc). Under CEA’s vision the rules would be limited to features or apps that are designed to play “video programming,” rather than simply “video,” the CEA said. “Inclusion of a video programming app or feature in a product at the time of sales should be taken as an indication of the manufacturer’s intent that it be used for accessing video programming, while the absence of such a feature should be taken to indicate the opposite,” it said. The CEA also again urged the commission to clarify that the Jan. 1, 2014, compliance deadline refers to when devices are manufactured, not the date devices are imported to the U.S., it said. “Manufacturers would not be able to ‘determine a hard deadline'” as accessibility advocates had suggested, “for manufacturing based on the date a product is available for sale simply by determining the average time it takes for a product to work its way through retail chains,” it said. Accessibility advocates including Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing wrote again in support of its petition for reconsideration that the commission include video clips in the online captioning rule (http://xrl.us/bnb9mo). They also wrote in support of a separate petition for reconsideration seeking to expand the rules to require “apparatus manufacturers” to comply with captioning synchronization provision (http://xrl.us/bnb9ni).
FCC commissioners are due to vote this week on a report by the FCC’s Technical Advisory Board for First Responder Interoperability, officials said Tuesday. The report (http://xrl.us/bm893w) recommends minimum technical requirements for FirstNet, the national network for first responders, which was created by spectrum legislation signed into law in February. The FCC faces a statutory deadline of Thursday to approve the report.
Representatives of Verizon Wireless, SpectrumCo and Cox met with Courtney Reinhard, aide to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, to make the case for the assignment of the SpectrumCo and Cox AWS licenses to Verizon. The transactions “will serve the public interest by transferring spectrum that is not currently being used to serve customers to a provider who will expeditiously put it to use to meet customers’ skyrocketing demand for mobile broadband services,” said an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bnb9d4).
The National Hispanic Media Coalition asked that Chris Schauble, a morning news co-anchor for KTLA Los Angeles, apologize for a comment the NHMC claims equated the commonality of baptisms and graduations in Latino communities with bond hearings, the group said. Schauble made the comment while reporter Allie Mac Kay interviewed the manager and employees of El Coyote Mexican Cafe, it said. KTLA had no comment.