Issue: Broadcast Flag

A Perfect Storm of Bad Copyright Legislation

Alex Curtis — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:31:47 -0400

Here at PK, we’ve been keeping our heads down the past few days, trying to fight against some really bad legislation. Once we finally get word of one, another one popped up. There ~~are three in all (so far)~~ are four (another was introduced during the writing of this post!!!) and we’re going to need your help to put them away.

S. 3325, The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008

First up is the Senate’s version of the House’s PRO-IP bill, S. 3325, “The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008.” Rashmi’s written a good breakdown of the differences between the bills, but that analysis may not hold up for long as we’re hearing that, as you read this, a deal may have been made to nix the differences between the bills so a compromise can be passed with ease.

FCC Urged To Protect Consumers’ TVs from Movie Companies

Art Brodsky — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:01:49 -0400

For Immediate Release: July 22, 2008

Seven public-interest and consumer groups, led by Public Knowledge, late yesterday called on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to turn down Hollywood’s request to take control of consumers’ TV sets and other devices.

Comments of Public Knowledge et al. in Opposition to MPAA Petition for Waiver on Prohibition of “Selectable Output Control” Sig…

Webmaster — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:00:00 -0400

Full comments are available in PDF format.

Before the
Federal Communications Commission

In the Matter of
Motion Picture Association of America

Petition for Expediated Special Relief
Petition for Waiver of C.F.R. § 76.1903

CSR-7947-Z
MB Docket: No. 08-82

Comments of
Public Knowledge, Consumer Federation of America, Digital Freedom Campaign, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Media Access Project, New America Foundation and U.S. PIRG.

Selectable Output Control? Sounds good, but who's doing the selecting?

J. Law — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:04:32 -0400

On May 9, the MPAA filed a petition to waive the FCC’s ruling against selectable output control (SOC) (PDF). The MPAA and its studio constituents seek to allow multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) — that is, cable companies — the power to turn off the digital and analog outputs on your devices, as they choose. This includes not only cable boxes, but also anything connected to your cable signal, such as your Tivo, your Slingbox, or even a TV using CableCARD.

The MPAA and its studio constituents are interested in releasing theatrical releases to home viewers earlier than ever, possibly because box office receipts are growing at a slower rate than in the past decade. Before, release windows for video-on-demand and pay-per-view became available approximately five months after the theatrical release.

Why The 'Right' Gets Net Neutrality Wrong

Art Brodsky — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:40:29 -0400

Just in time for the House Telecom Subcommittee’s May 6 hearing on Net Neutrality legislation, Public Knowledge achieved a new level of notoriety when we were prominently mentioned in a blog post on the American Spectator, the publication best known for funneling millions of dollars to investigations of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

S. 4108, the APRIL Act, and the Realities Behind It

Sherwin Siy — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:42:59 -0400

OK. Hopefully you all realized that S. 4108, the APRIL Act of 2008, was a joke. After all, there were a few excesses in there that would indicate how ludicrous the bill is.

Hillary / Tracy Flick Video

Alex Curtis — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 12:50:14 -0500

This mash-up video raises so many issues: copyright, fair use, DMCA, filtering, broadcast flag, and net neutrality.

Take a look below. The first one to accurately identify why for each in the comments gets a piece of PK swag of their choosing.

Newspapers, washing machines, and the internet

Susan Crawford — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:17:05 -0500

An NPR story yesterday captured some pungent words from soon-to-go-through-the-revolving-door Senator Trent Lott. He was commenting in disbelief about the FCC move to permit more consolidation of media companies. He said (paraphrasing):

Newspapers? Why is the FCC protecting newspapers? I don’t get why we’re crying crocodile tears over newspapers… It’s technology that’s affecting newspapers. Where I live [on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi], we use newspapers to wrap mullet.

Putting aside the fishwrap reference (oddly reminiscent of the fate of some Bach manuscripts), let’s just note the incredulity with which Sen. Lott approaches the idea that the FCC is out there regulating newspaper mergers.

PK's goin' Social:

Alex Curtis — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 12:08:51 -0500

We’ve decided to get aggressive about social platforms here at PK. For a while, we’ve had a facebook group, and now we’ve started a Ning Public Knowledge group. Each offers something a little different. At facebook, you’ve got the large communities of people who are already invested in the platform. I’m hoping that they allow for group administrators to embed applications into group pages (until they do, we’ll keep manually inputting our content). That’s actually what I think the Ning group offers more of, is the ability to syndicate content.

Broadcast Flag rumors

Alex Curtis — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:23:50 -0500

We had heard rumblings a few weeks ago that the MPAA was trying to push the broadcast flag, yet again. More recently we heard some more details that the content industry is trying to win over some in the consumer electronics industry to push for the technology mandate that would cripple many home devices and limit fair use of legally obtained content by consumers and educators alike.

You may remember the last push of the broadcast flag was buried in the series-of-tubes Senate telecommunications bill that thankfully went nowhere. That version’s language gave FCC the needed permission (which was lacking(PDF)) to instate the copy-protection scheme that would limit what you could do with over-the-air broadcast television.