The following statement is attributed to Gigi B. Sohn, president and
co-founder of Public Knowledge:

“The House Judiciary Committee should be commended for approving
legislation that will allow for full competition from satellite providers
to incumbent cable and telephone companies in rural areas. Among other
provisions, the bill makes certain that consumers everywhere will have
their full set of broadcast network stations.

“The Committee also rejected the efforts of the broadcast networks
and preserved the compulsory license for satellite providers, which helps
to make programming become more readily available and less expensive to
consumers.

“This legislation settled several contentious issues, and is a good
blueprint for the Senate to follow as it prepares its own version of the
reauthorization language that expires this year.”

A 2008 Copyright Office policy decision has resulted in cable operators getting charged copyright royalties for transmissions of broadcast content that do not actually take place — transmissions referred to as “phantom signals” since they eerily appear on copyright holders' balance sheets, but not on a cable subscriber’s television screen.  Now, this really starts to sting when you realize that the cost to cable operators of these rather spooky royalties charges necessarily get passed on to cable subscribing consumers for content they never actually receive!

The following statement is attributed to Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge:

“We are very pleased that Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.) has introduced the Local Television Freedom Act. This bill will help consumers around the country to receive the TV news and information relevant to their lives that they can’t now see because of how out-of-market signals are delivered.

“Today, the TV channels consumers in rural areas receive are often governed by artificial market boundaries, rather than by communities of interest.

Public Knowledge President Gigi B. Sohn today suggested to a House subcommittee a series of changes to copyright law that would promote competition and do away with an antiquated series of rules that no longer make sense with today's technology.

In testimony to the House Communications, Technology and the Internet Subcommittee, Sohn said that the legal framework governing how cable and satellite TV services offer their programming is a patchwork of laws and regulations that unnecessarily differentiates between types of providers, restricts the availability of content to consumers, and sets the stage for discriminatory pricing."