In the News

By Public Knowledge
June 4, 2007

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps has an op-ed article in Saturday's New York Times about broadcasters' public service requirements, recommending among other things that the license term be cut from eight years down to three:

“Using the public airwaves is a privilege — a lucrative one — not a right, and I fear the F.C.C. has not done enough to stand up for the public interest. Our policies should reward broadcasters that honor their pledge to serve that interest and penalize those that don't.”
A Chicago man was arrested for allegedly uploading four episodes of the TV show '24' before they aired in January. If convicted he faces up to three years in prison.
Tim O'Reilly has a posted the results of an experiment in open access publishing. His company's new book, Asterisk: The Future of Telephony, was offered for free online concurrent with a print release: “Our goal of course, is to help publishers understand whether free downloads help or hurt sales. The quick answer from this experiment is that we saw no definitive correlation, but there is little sign that the free downloads hurt sales.”

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