- The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court's dismissal of Perfect 10's lawsuit against Visa and Mastercard, saying that the plaintiff's claims presented “radical new theories of liability.” Perfect 10, a pornography site, sued the credit card companies for processing orders from companies it claimed had infringed on its intellectual property. In May the Ninth Circuit also ruled against Perfect 10 in its case against Google. In that case Perfect 10 argued that the thumb nail images of a Google search infringed on the company's copyrights.
(more after the jump)
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Newsweek has a report on the US's declining position internationally in broadband deployment. Fewer homes in the US are connected than are in South Korea and Estonia, and connections here cost more and run slower: cable connections cost $40 for 4 Mbps in the US, while Japanese connections cost $30 for 50 Mbps. One of the biggest hurdles, the article says, is that we just don't have enough information on broadband deployment to make smart policy decisions. You can read our statement on data collection here.
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Last week the FCC waived Verizon's requirement to integrate its set top boxes by Jul 1st. This week we learned that the company won the waiver by promising to eventually convert to all-digital video distribution. Revealed in an Ex Parte filing from June 29th, Verizon's VP of federal regulatory affairs told regulators that, “if [Verizon] is granted a waiver of the integration ban for all its set-top boxes, Verizon will commit to transitioning to a strictly digital network and video service by February 17, 2009.”
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If new royalty rates for net radio broadcasters do go into effect July 15th, online radio stations may be forced into 'dark payola', SF Weekly reports. Webcasters are permitted to negotiate individual deals with labels for rates lower than those set by the Copyright Royalty Board. The result: “it would be economically logical for cash-strapped Webcasters to take discounted rates to play music the labels want them to play. Instead of the labels paying the Webcasters, the Webcasters pay the labels less. Dark payola.”