DRM News

Posts Tagged ‘FCC’

FCC holding closed-door talks with corporations over possible net neutrality compromise

June 22nd, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the top officers at the FCC are holding closed door negotiations with lobbyists representing ISP’s, including AT&T and Verizon, as well as Google and Skype. The reason for those meetings is discussion of a compromise that would give the government agency authority over Internet rules, while also bending enough that the media companies are willing to accept an agreement.

The only way to get legislation this year is for Internet providers and tech companies like Google to reach a compromise, one person involved with the FCC meetings said, adding, "Even that is really, really hard."

This news has not exactly been met with much enthusiasm from public interest groups, none of whom were invited to any of these sessions.

"For a president who talks big about transparency and that ‘he’ll take a back seat to nobody on net neutrality,’ it’s inexcusable that his FCC is brokering backroom deals between industry lobbyists with nary a public interest representative in the room," said Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, a public interest group.

"This secretive process is especially unseemly for what is supposed to have been the most transparent FCC in history," the Media Access Project’s Andrew Schwartzman chimed in just a few minutes ago.

The problem is that with everything being done in such a secretive manner, there is no way for anyone to know what exactly is on the table in terms of compromises made to the media corporations. That’s an especially big issue for an FCC that has made claims and promises of transparency and openness during any and all negotiations over net neutrality.

Beyond the FCC, it seems that similar secretive negotiations are happening between the same lobby groups and the Senate Commerce Committee. The talks will not be open to the press, and there is no indication that any consumer groups will be in attendance.

(The original WSJ article is behind a subscriber paywall, but can be found and read in full via Google. Thanks also to Ars Technica).

Posted in Miscellaneous

Tags: AT&T, closed door negotiations, FCC, Google, net neutrality, Skype, Verizon

2 Comments »

We control the Horizontal. We control the vertical.

May 20th, 2010

Brad McGraw

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to… The Outer Limits

Looking back at this now, its oddly prophetic. What this is all about is something called ’Selectable Output Control’ and the MPAA has won a fight that it has been fighting for the past 2 years. The FCC has decided to allow the MPAA to control your tvs (pdf).

In this order, we act on a request for a waiver of Section 76.1903 of the Commission’s
rules to allow multichannel video programming distributors (“MVPDs”) to disable certain audiovisual outputs on set-top boxes to assure that copy protection is active for certain high-value content, specifically early-release films.

(more…)

Posted in Movies and TV

Tags: FCC, MPAA, Selectable output control

Comments Off

FCC had no right to sanction Comcast’s bandwidth throttling

April 6th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

Back in 2007, the FCC sanctioned Comcast over its policy of nearly constant bandwidth throttling in an effort to stop peer to peer bittorrent transfers. Today, the US Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC does not have the legal authority to regulate the network management practices of an ISP.

The FCC established an Internet Policy Statement in 2005 that included a freedom from traffic discrimination in the part of an ISP. That was what they used to lambast Comcast for their behaviour in 2007. Comcast took them to court, saying that the FCC had no Congressional authority to enforce the ‘freedoms’ laid out in the policy statement, as they were not a part of a legally binding document. There was no specific legal statute that was broken by Comcast’s actions.

Whether or not this might set a precedent allowing ISPs a little more freedom and wiggle room to institute policies in line with what they want (with no consideration for such notions as net neutrality) remains to be seen. The door has now been opened for any Internet provider to throttle traffic as they see fit.

Posted in Miscellaneous

Tags: Comcast, FCC

Comments Off

RIAA Wants ISPs Doing Duty as Copyright Cops

January 16th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has asked that the FCC be sure not to limit the ability of Internet providers to crack down on those suspected of file sharing as it crafts its net neutrality rules, as reported by Computerworld.

In fact, they go a little beyond simply requesting that ISPs be given the ability to block file sharing :

The FCC should not only avoid rules prohibiting ISPs from blocking illegal file trading, but it should actively encourage ISPs to do so, the RIAA said.

So let’s see if we have this straight. The RIAA wants to be able to go after anyone who it merely suspects of being involved in music theft and piracy. It then wants the Internet providers themselves to act as its enforcers and enact harsh penalties against those suspected of acts of piracy by the RIAA. Note that nowhere in this little arrangement has any actual legal entity been involved.

The FCC has their own concepts that cover some of this ground :

The FCC, however, suggested that broadband providers be allowed to engage in "reasonable network management," including preventing the "lawful transfer of content," in a notice of proposed rulemaking released in October.

The question is, who is determining what is a legal or illegal transfer of content…the justice system, or the record companies?

Posted in Music

Tags: copyright, FCC, neutrality, RIAA

Comments Off