In the News
In the News
In the News

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    • In a routine scheduling hearing in Viacom's suit against YouTube, Google's lawyer, Philip S. Beck announced that his company would implement digital fingerprinting and filtering technology as soon as September. Interestingly, Google seems as eager to end litigation with content companies as Universities have been with the record industry. Mr. Beck said that the filtering system “goes way beyond any legal requirements, but we're not interested in having legal fights if we can avoid them and we're interested in trying to cooperate with people if we can, and we're going to put that in place. We hope that obviates any future disputes. We may still have disagreements about what happened before we were able to develop this technology, and we'll resolve those in due course.”

    • The FCC will meet today to determine the rules of the 700 MHz spectrum auction. The rules being considered, as drafted by Chairman Kevin Martin, allow consumers only a limited right to attach devices of their choosing, ignoring the three other freedoms we and other organization have advocated. You can read Art's most recent post on the auction rules here.

    • Verizon Wireless bought Rural Cellular Communications for $2.67 billion. Rural Cellular operated both CDMA and GSM networks; Verizon plans to convert Rural's existing GSM users to CDMA, though it will continue to operate the GSM network for other carriers' roaming clients

    • IP watch reports on the conference hosted by the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) on building intellectual property protections in developing countries. According to one participant, developed countries stressed that those nations with stronger IP protections necessarily have greater innovation: “A well-designed intellectual property regime increases national wealth and benefits consumers by stimulating research and investment into new technologies and innovative products, and by enabling the transfer of technology, including between countries at different stages of economic development. Innovative industries are key drivers of economic growth and key providers of well-paying jobs, thus contributing to the achievement of broad development objectives.”