Too busy last week to follow the ins and outs of technology and telecom policy? Don’t worry—we’ve got you covered. Here are last week’s highlights.
Public Knowledge hosted its seventh annual IP3 Awards. As one reporter put it, “scads of technology and telecommunications professionals gathered on Capitol Hill” for the event. This year, we had four winners: Pamela Samuelson for her work in Information Policy, Susan Crawford for Internet Protocol, Michael Geist for Intellectual Property, and Nina Paley also for Intellectual Property.
At the IP3 Awards, Public Knowledge announced the Creators Freedom Project, a new project headed up by Alex Curtis and based out of Nashville. The project seeks to understand the needs of actual artists, highlighting and experimenting with novel business models that help independent artists make a living instead of relying on the often-unattainable record deal.
The FCC took steps to rein in mobile phone “Bill Shock”, proposing rules to require alerts for overages and better disclosure overall. We are pleased that the FCC is acting to protect wireless consumers as part of the Chairman’s “consumer empowerment agenda,” but we continue to push for the FCC to prevent wireless companies from controlling text message communication. Check out our petition here.
The FCC issued an order designed to fix some of the most egregious consumer issues that have made using CableCARD such a challenge. Doing so was a good step forward to increase video device competition, as the FCC was called to do in the National Broadband Plan. CableCARD is only a patch, however, as we continue working towards AllVid—which would allow you to view all your video, on any device, on every screen.
The Library of Congress published a study concluding that copyright is one of the highest barriers to successful audio preservation and archiving. It reports, “Were copyright law followed to the letter, little audio preservation would be undertaken. Were the law strictly enforced, it would brand virtually all audio preservation as illegal.”