Last Thursday, PK President Gigi Sohn delivered a statement at an FCC broadband workshop titled "The Role of Content in the Broadband Ecosystem". If you find yourself questioning what relevance a discussion of content protection has in the context of the National Broadband Plan, you're not alone. In her statement (oral | written), Gigi questioned the FCC's jurisdiction over copyright issues and asserted that the Commission certainly does not have the authority to combat online copyright infringement by using the sort of blunt instrument--solutions like copyright filtering and three strikes--that the industry is calling for. So, why even convene a workshop on content protection as part of the National Broadband Plan? The point of the workshop, it seems, was to appease the big entertainment companies that are clamoring for the Federal government to take a more active role in protecting the intellectual property of private companies. This fact could not have been made more clear by the FCC, given the manner in which the workshop was conducted. Embedded above, you'll find a video of Frederick D. Huntsberry's presentation from the workshop. While the time limit for oral statements was supposedly five minutes, Huntsberry, the COO of Paramount Pictures, was inexplicably allowed to give a 10 minute presentation. In a move reminiscent of the MPAA's how-to-camcord video, Huntsberry demonstrated how to unlawfully download and/or distribute a film online (using a torrent tracker, Drop.io and a streaming site), spoke at length about camcording and insinuated that a number of legitimate companies--including Google, eBay, Apple, Twitter, Facebook and Boxee--are enabling the unlawful trade of copyrighted content online.

Imagine a state is going through a bidding process for a contract. It happens all the time. The factors that normally are taken into account are price, experience, that type of thing. Under normal circumstances, then, a bid with a high price and no experience in a given state might well lose to another bid with a lower price and lots of experience in a state.

Unless, of course, the high bidder with no experience is Connected Nation. Then, as the Florida Department of Management Services showed last month, all bets are off. Last month, the state agency awarded the state contract for broadband mapping to Connect Florida, the newly established affiliate of Connected Nation. According to the Florida agency, Connected Nation’s project cost will be around $7.1 million.

As we approach the 6-month mark on the signing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), it seems like a good time to check in on the (from my perspective) relevant pieces of the Act. Specifically, the National Broadband Plan, the National Broadband Map, and Broadband stimulus package.

With the exception of the mapping, where I am less than thrilled so far but still hoping to see improvement, I give these things fairly high marks.

Earlier this week, Art called attention to the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009, a bill introduced in Congress by Representatives Ed Markey and Anna Eshoo. The bill, which you can read here (PDF link), marks the latest front in the Net Neutrality battle--the ongoing fight to ensure that the Internet remains an open, nondiscriminatory platform. Seeing how this bill is likely to rekindle the Net Neutrality debate once Congress returns in September, we thought that a quick rundown of the text of the bill was in order.

It seems like only yesterday that we were saying that a game of chicken was likely to develop between the government and the telecom industry over the data that is supposed to be reported under the stimulus broadband mapping program. Actually, it was the day before yesterday.

But never mind that, it seems the day after that story was published, a group of telecom executives huddled with Larry Strickling, director of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to express their concerns about the data that is supposed to be reported under the stimulus broadband mapping program.

There should be no surprises here. This was the other shoe waiting to drop. Connected Nation, the front group for the big telecom companies, has made it a practice to sign very restrictive non-disclosure agreements to protect its masters.

A month ago, we wrote a “cautionary story” about how the state of Texas was setting up the telecom front group Connected Nation to be the broadband mapper of choice.

The state did it by the book, albeit with a Request For Proposals (RFP) that fit CN like a glove. Guess what? The state of Texas has declared a winner. Guess who it is? If you didn’t guess Connected Nation, you’re not paying attention.

Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples was all atwitter in making the announcement. From the news release: “’We are excited about this new partnership,’ Commissioner Staples said. ‘Connected Nation will help Texas close the digital divide between urban and rural communities in our state. By creating a broadband map, we will learn what areas are unserved and underserved.

Yesterday, as part of our reply comments in the FCC's National Broadband Plan proceeding, we released our latest whitepaper, "Forcing the Net Through a Sieve: Why Copyright Filtering is not a Viable Solution for U.S. ISPs" (PDF link). Recently, the content industry has been ramping up its efforts to promote ISP-level copyright filtering as a practical solution to the problem of unlawful online filesharing. Given the imperfect, controversial nature of filtering technology, we thought it was time to take a close look at copyright filtering and the effects that it might have on the Internet ecosystem. What did we discover? As our report states, not only will copyright filtering be ineffective--it will cause a great deal of harm to users, creators, innovators, businesses and the economy and will undermine the goals of the National Broadband Plan.

The rules of the road for the $7.2 billion broadband stimulus package announced today (July 1) hit a lot of high notes, putting public policy in favor of an open and non-discriminatory Internet front and center for projects that would bring the Internet to unserved and underserved areas.

“Without a non-discrimination condition, network operators could give preferential treatment to affiliated services, or charge some application and content providers for “fast lanes” that would put others at a competitive disadvantage,” the document said.

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

"The data to be collected from the broadband maps authorized under the stimulus legislation should provide a wealth of information for consumers and policymakers.

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

"We are pleased that the requirements for the broadband grant program include strong non-discrimination and interconnection conditions so that some lawful Internet content and applications are not favored over others. These conditions will help consumers and create vitality in the services created by the program.

"We are also glad to see strong disclosure requirements for practices or methods carriers might employ to allocate capacity among different applications or providers.

"We have some reservations about the ability of carriers to offer so-called 'managed services.' The point of the stimulus program is to ensure widespread access to the broadband Internet.