On the eve of the FCC's upcoming Network Neutrality rulemaking, Canada has now settled its definition of "reasonable network management" and set rules for traffic throttling. Amazingly, the rules the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) settled on for "reasonable network management" look a lot like the standard our own FCC settled on in the Comcast/BitTorrent Order, but even stronger on the notice and transparency side. Hopefully, the FCC is paying attention here as it considers its own rulemaking on the definition of "reasonable network management."

You can read the CRTC press release here and the detailed order here.

On the eve of the FCC's upcoming Network Neutrality rulemaking, Canada has now settled its definition of "reasonable network management" and set rules for traffic throttling. Amazingly, the rules the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) settled on for "reasonable network management" look a lot like the standard our own FCC settled on in the Comcast/BitTorrent Order, but even stronger on the notice and transparency side. Hopefully, the FCC is paying attention here as it considers its own rulemaking on the definition of "reasonable network management."

You can read the CRTC press release here and the detailed order here.

On the eve of the FCC's upcoming Network Neutrality rulemaking, Canada has now settled its definition of "reasonable network management" and set rules for traffic throttling. Amazingly, the rules the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) settled on for "reasonable network management" look a lot like the standard our own FCC settled on in the Comcast/BitTorrent Order, but even stronger on the notice and transparency side. Hopefully, the FCC is paying attention here as it considers its own rulemaking on the definition of "reasonable network management."

You can read the CRTC press release here and the detailed order here.

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Those who know me know that, despite working for such a technology oriented outfit, I still use a three year old LG clamshell phone that at this point can barely handle text messaging. It’s not that I don’t want a fancier phone, it’s just that I have not quite come to terms with having to buy a fancy new phone plus having to pay extra for data every month. Imagine my excitement when I saw that Walmart is going to start offering unlimited talk, text, and DATA for only $45/mo through a service called Straight Talk.

Those who know me know that, despite working for such a technology oriented outfit, I still use a three year old LG clamshell phone that at this point can barely handle text messaging. It’s not that I don’t want a fancier phone, it’s just that I have not quite come to terms with having to buy a fancy new phone plus having to pay extra for data every month. Imagine my excitement when I saw that Walmart is going to start offering unlimited talk, text, and DATA for only $45/mo through a service called Straight Talk.

Those who know me know that, despite working for such a technology oriented outfit, I still use a three year old LG clamshell phone that at this point can barely handle text messaging. It’s not that I don’t want a fancier phone, it’s just that I have not quite come to terms with having to buy a fancy new phone plus having to pay extra for data every month. Imagine my excitement when I saw that Walmart is going to start offering unlimited talk, text, and DATA for only $45/mo through a service called Straight Talk.

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On Friday, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division submitted a "Statement of Interest of the United States of America" to the court about the proposed Google Book Search settlement. Its conclusion: "the Proposed Settlement does not meet the legal standards this Court must apply." It seems the DOJ shares both our hopes for and appreciation of the Google Book Search service and many of the concerns about the settlement that we expressed in our amicus brief filed two weeks ago.

On Friday, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division submitted a "Statement of Interest of the United States of America" to the court about the proposed Google Book Search settlement. Its conclusion: "the Proposed Settlement does not meet the legal standards this Court must apply." It seems the DOJ shares both our hopes for and appreciation of the Google Book Search service and many of the concerns about the settlement that we expressed in our amicus brief filed two weeks ago.

On Friday, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division submitted a "Statement of Interest of the United States of America" to the court about the proposed Google Book Search settlement. Its conclusion: "the Proposed Settlement does not meet the legal standards this Court must apply." It seems the DOJ shares both our hopes for and appreciation of the Google Book Search service and many of the concerns about the settlement that we expressed in our amicus brief filed two weeks ago.

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This Tuesday, Public Knowledge filed a brief asking the court not to approve the proposed Google Book Search settlement as it is currently constructed. The proposed settlement raises significant antitrust and class action procedural concerns. In plain English, these concerns are that the settlement represents an attempt to license a lot of books belonging to people who are unable to protest, set up a system to pay other people for the use of those books, and give a single party the exclusive right to use many of those books indefinitely. Read on for some more detail about our concerns.

But first, let’s be clear: We want online access to all books for everyone. We want a world without orphan works, where one can either find a copyright’s owner and seek to license use of their work, or else that work is available for use by all. We want all books to be made accessible so that the blind can read everything the sighted can. We are happy with Google’s current lawful scanning, indexing, and excerpting of all books, and the ability it provides to locate works which would otherwise lay dormant. We would like to find a way that anyone who wants to can offer the public even more complete access. And we have no doubt that whatever happens, Google will continue to offer searches of all books, offer full, accessible access to the books it has licensed, and find ways to locate as many rightsholders as possible to obtain more licenses.

But access through a single party is not true access: What we do not want is for books to be made available only through a single company that has, through judicial gymnastics, obtained the only possible license to those works. What we don’t want is a system where the books of absent authors are being sold and the unclaimed proceeds are going to those who should be finding those authors in the first place.

This Tuesday, Public Knowledge filed a brief asking the court not to approve the proposed Google Book Search settlement as it is currently constructed. The proposed settlement raises significant antitrust and class action procedural concerns. In plain English, these concerns are that the settlement represents an attempt to license a lot of books belonging to people who are unable to protest, set up a system to pay other people for the use of those books, and give a single party the exclusive right to use many of those books indefinitely. Read on for some more detail about our concerns.

But first, let’s be clear: We want online access to all books for everyone. We want a world without orphan works, where one can either find a copyright’s owner and seek to license use of their work, or else that work is available for use by all. We want all books to be made accessible so that the blind can read everything the sighted can. We are happy with Google’s current lawful scanning, indexing, and excerpting of all books, and the ability it provides to locate works which would otherwise lay dormant. We would like to find a way that anyone who wants to can offer the public even more complete access. And we have no doubt that whatever happens, Google will continue to offer searches of all books, offer full, accessible access to the books it has licensed, and find ways to locate as many rightsholders as possible to obtain more licenses.

But access through a single party is not true access: What we do not want is for books to be made available only through a single company that has, through judicial gymnastics, obtained the only possible license to those works. What we don’t want is a system where the books of absent authors are being sold and the unclaimed proceeds are going to those who should be finding those authors in the first place.

This Tuesday, Public Knowledge filed a brief asking the court not to approve the proposed Google Book Search settlement as it is currently constructed. The proposed settlement raises significant antitrust and class action procedural concerns. In plain English, these concerns are that the settlement represents an attempt to license a lot of books belonging to people who are unable to protest, set up a system to pay other people for the use of those books, and give a single party the exclusive right to use many of those books indefinitely. Read on for some more detail about our concerns.

But first, let’s be clear: We want online access to all books for everyone. We want a world without orphan works, where one can either find a copyright’s owner and seek to license use of their work, or else that work is available for use by all. We want all books to be made accessible so that the blind can read everything the sighted can. We are happy with Google’s current lawful scanning, indexing, and excerpting of all books, and the ability it provides to locate works which would otherwise lay dormant. We would like to find a way that anyone who wants to can offer the public even more complete access. And we have no doubt that whatever happens, Google will continue to offer searches of all books, offer full, accessible access to the books it has licensed, and find ways to locate as many rightsholders as possible to obtain more licenses.

But access through a single party is not true access: What we do not want is for books to be made available only through a single company that has, through judicial gymnastics, obtained the only possible license to those works. What we don’t want is a system where the books of absent authors are being sold and the unclaimed proceeds are going to those who should be finding those authors in the first place.

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The August 19 Wall St. J. contains an op-ed from former hedge fund manager Andy Kessler that at first blush looks like someone here at PK might have written it. Kessler starts with Apple blocking the Google voice ap, and runs through the way spectrum auctions re-enforce industry structure and lock in a tight oligopoly that damps innovation and allows those companies that actually have a pipe to charge ridiculous prices for services such as text. He notes that because mobile services are critical to our economic growth that this holds back economic development, and observes that it massively overcharges consumers.

The August 19 Wall St. J. contains an op-ed from former hedge fund manager Andy Kessler that at first blush looks like someone here at PK might have written it. Kessler starts with Apple blocking the Google voice ap, and runs through the way spectrum auctions re-enforce industry structure and lock in a tight oligopoly that damps innovation and allows those companies that actually have a pipe to charge ridiculous prices for services such as text. He notes that because mobile services are critical to our economic growth that this holds back economic development, and observes that it massively overcharges consumers.

The August 19 Wall St. J. contains an op-ed from former hedge fund manager Andy Kessler that at first blush looks like someone here at PK might have written it. Kessler starts with Apple blocking the Google voice ap, and runs through the way spectrum auctions re-enforce industry structure and lock in a tight oligopoly that damps innovation and allows those companies that actually have a pipe to charge ridiculous prices for services such as text. He notes that because mobile services are critical to our economic growth that this holds back economic development, and observes that it massively overcharges consumers.

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There was a lot of talk last week regarding the proposition that strengthening copyright laws might be necessary to protect news sources from online “free riders.”  Even our own Harold Feld chimed in, in this week's episode of "5 Minutes with Harold Feld".  The flurry of commentary on this was owed in large part to a post by Judge Posner on his Becker-Posner Blog.  The most relevant (and divisive) sentence in the post is the following:

There was a lot of talk last week regarding the proposition that strengthening copyright laws might be necessary to protect news sources from online “free riders.”  Even our own Harold Feld chimed in, in this week's episode of "5 Minutes with Harold Feld".  The flurry of commentary on this was owed in large part to a post by Judge Posner on his Becker-Posner Blog.  The most relevant (and divisive) sentence in the post is the following:

There was a lot of talk last week regarding the proposition that strengthening copyright laws might be necessary to protect news sources from online “free riders.”  Even our own Harold Feld chimed in, in this week's episode of "5 Minutes with Harold Feld".  The flurry of commentary on this was owed in large part to a post by Judge Posner on his Becker-Posner Blog.  The most relevant (and divisive) sentence in the post is the following:

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Although the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) has not confirmed it, the Wall St. Journal reported that DOJ is internally considering whether or not companies "such as AT&T and Verizon" have abused their market power. Most traditional antitrust lawyers I've seen quoted don't think it likely the telcos have market power -- especially given the hostility that courts have recently shown to antitrust. Indeed, in a world where even potential competition is supposed to be part of the market analysis, how can a modest 60% of the wireless market shared by the two companies, with no evidence of price fixing or coordinated behavior, support any sort of antitrust action?

Welcome to the more grown up and sophisticated view of market power in the more complex real world.

Although the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) has not confirmed it, the Wall St. Journal reported that DOJ is internally considering whether or not companies "such as AT&T and Verizon" have abused their market power. Most traditional antitrust lawyers I've seen quoted don't think it likely the telcos have market power -- especially given the hostility that courts have recently shown to antitrust. Indeed, in a world where even potential competition is supposed to be part of the market analysis, how can a modest 60% of the wireless market shared by the two companies, with no evidence of price fixing or coordinated behavior, support any sort of antitrust action?

Welcome to the more grown up and sophisticated view of market power in the more complex real world.

Although the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) has not confirmed it, the Wall St. Journal reported that DOJ is internally considering whether or not companies "such as AT&T and Verizon" have abused their market power. Most traditional antitrust lawyers I've seen quoted don't think it likely the telcos have market power -- especially given the hostility that courts have recently shown to antitrust. Indeed, in a world where even potential competition is supposed to be part of the market analysis, how can a modest 60% of the wireless market shared by the two companies, with no evidence of price fixing or coordinated behavior, support any sort of antitrust action?

Welcome to the more grown up and sophisticated view of market power in the more complex real world.

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