On Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission held the last of a yearlong series of workshops on the future of journalism.  The conversation centered on the staff discussion draft of potential policy recommendations, released late last month.  As I explained in my earlier post on the draft, it contains a few troubling suggestions regarding intellectual property law.  To warn the FTC of the consequences of these potential recommendations, PK’s own Sherwin Siy spoke at the workshop.  Additionally, we submitted written comments to the FTC, which you can read here.

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission released a draft report on the future of journalism.  This report consists of a summary of various policy proposals, ostensibly to save journalism, submitted by stakeholders and participants.  Unfortunately, three of these proposals would “save” journalism by improperly expanding IP rights in news and in facts.

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.

Time Warner and Comcast have announced a new pilot program for their TV Anywhere initiative. The 5,000 customers in the pilot will get access to cable programming content not otherwise available online -- as long as they prove they subscribe to a subscription video service -- or "MVPD" -- like cable or FIOS. (MVPD stands for "multichannel video programming distributor" and means anything that sells you a whole bunch of cable channels.