In the Know -- November 30, 2006

a Public Knowledge update

Congress Looks To New Lineup

We should know more next week about how things will shake out for telecom in the Democratic-controlled 110th Congress. That’s because the House Steering Committee, which makes committee assignments, will meet to determine the lineups.

The most intriguing question, of course, is where Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) will end up. If history is a guide, he would regain chairmanship of the Telecom Subcommittee on Energy and Commerce. But having spent 12 years in the minority, Markey may be ready for a full committee chairmanship. He could try to head the Resources Committee, on which he has seniority. Markey has long had an interest in environmental and energy issues, and Resources could give him a platform for those interests. Rep. Nick Joe Rahall (D-W.VA) is now the senior Democrat on the Resources Committee, so Markey might have a struggle. But Rahall is also close to mining interests, and Markey might think the effort is worth it to have an environmentally friendly chairman. For the record, Markey is 10th in seniority among Democrats, having started his service Nov. 2, 1976, while Rahall is 13th, starting Jan. 4, 1977. They were elected the same year, but Markey was sworn in earlier.

If Markey takes that Committee, then Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) could be in line to chair the Telecom Subcommittee. Boucher is a great friend on Net Neutrality issues, which are in the jurisdiction of the Commerce Committee, and on copyright issues, which come under the jurisdiction of House Judiciary, on which Boucher also sits. Boucher’s situation on Judiciary is equally intriguing. He has the same seniority as Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), the senior Democrat on the Intellectual Property Subcommittee. But the tiebreaker in this case is alphabetical order, so if Berman leaves to chair the International Relations Committee, Boucher could get the Intellectual Property Subcommittee. He can’t be the chairman of two subcommittees, however, so depending on what Markey and Berman do, Boucher also will have a choice to make.

Gigi has a blog post on some of the circumstances in the House:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/712

Art has a blog post on the new Congress and Net Neutrality:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/742

Library of Congress Grants Some DMCA Exemptions

Every three years since the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was passed, the U.S. Copyright Office has gone through the exercise of granting exemptions to the part of the law which prohibits circumvention of copyright protections. Congress included this “triennial review” in the DMCA in an attempt to ensure that the lawful uses of digital media were not prevented by the restrictions on circumvention. Usually, very few exemptions are granted, and some good ideas are simply tossed aside. This year is no exception. Here are the items the Copyright Office did grant, good only for three years until the next review:

Audiovisual works included in the educational library of a college or university’s film or media studies department, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of making compilations of portions of those works for educational use in the classroom by media studies or film professors.
Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete. A dongle shall be considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or if a replacement or repair is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling either of the book’s read-aloud function or of screen readers that render the text into a specialized format.
Computer programs in the form of firmware that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network.
Sound recordings, and audiovisual works associated with those sound recordings, distributed in compact disc format and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully purchased works and create or exploit security flaws or vulnerabilities that compromise the security of personal computers, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing, investigating, or correcting such security flaws or vulnerabilities

Alex has a great blog post explaining the good, bad and ugly about the recommendations:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/734

Our former intern Bill Herman has a quick round up here:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/733

Consumer Groups Ask for CableCard Action

Ten years ago as part of the Telecommunications Act, Congress decided that consumers should be freed from the constraints of their cable boxes. It’s now 10 years later. The FCC adopted the rules as required by the law, but lobbying from the cable industry and their friends on Capitol Hill keep delaying the implementation.

With the latest extension of the delay in the rules coming to a close next summer, PK drafted and coordinated a letter to the FCC signed by a number of consumer and public interest groups urging the FCC to get on with it, and not grant another extension so that consumers can have more choices and lower prices for cable set-top boxes. In addition to PK, those signing the letter were: Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Project on Technology, Consumers Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Press, Media Access Project and U.S. Public Interest Research Group

You can read the letter on set-top box integration:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/717

Our intern Karen Sum-Ping has a nice explanatory post on the issue here:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/731

Let’s renew our request to you: Please support PK. We just won a great victory in helping to stop the Copyright Modernization Act. We’re in the middle of the year’s biggest issue — the fight to protect a free and open Internet. Going up against the well-funded telephone and cable companies isn’t easy as they try to extend their control over what had been an open Internet for all. If that’s not enough, we’ve got to defend our ground on the broadcast flag against the continuing assaults from the content industry who are pressing not only for the TV version, but also for content controls on digital and satellite radio and for restricting recording with analog devices. Please help. There are many ways you can support PK here:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/support

We thank you for your support!

Briefly:

Our ace video maker, Alex has done it again. He put together a video on Net Neutrality that was a big hit on YouTube. Now we’ve got a new one explaining the broadcast flag. Check it out:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/691

From the Eternal Vigilance Dept.: YouTube is fun for all, but it’s also being monitored by the copyright cops. See Sherwin’s post on what happened to one guy performing at a company function:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/726

Let that be a lesson. On a more serious note, a small company that loaded a video a consumer purchased onto that consumer’s iPod has been sued by the movie industry. If the movie brief is right, we have no right to break video copy protections, even for things we already own. Our friends at EFF have a wrap-up:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005028.php

The Government Accountability Office is due to release a new report on competition in the supposedly competitive market for business customers. Advance word is that there’s less competition than previously thought.

Public Knowledge keeps you up to date with RSS. We have a number of different feeds to add to your favorite news aggregator: