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U.S. court rules against FCC on Net neutrality
,----[ Quote ]
| A federal court threw the future of
| Internet regulations and U.S. broadband
| expansion plans into doubt Tuesday with a
| far-reaching decision that went against the
| Federal Communications Commission.
|
| The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District
| of Columbia ruled that the FCC lacks the
| authority to require broadband providers to
| give equal treatment to all Internet
| traffic flowing over their networks. That
| was a big victory for Comcast Corp., the
| nation's largest cable company, which had
| challenged the FCC's authority to impose
| such "Net neutrality" obligations on
| broadband providers.
`----
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36193558/ns/technology_and_science-security/
Court: FCC has no power to regulate Net neutrality
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20001825-38.html
An overview of what net neutrality means
,----[ Quote ]
| Net Neutrality is the principle of keeping
| web content equally accessible regardless
| of its provider, origin or destination.
| According to the Free Press Action Fund's
| Savetheinernet.com campaign, net neutrality
| is threatened by the major conglomerates in
| the telecommunications industry who wish to
| provide themselves with an advantage by
| slowing down sites that aren't associated
| with their companies and don't pay a fee
| for the faster service.
`----
http://www.helium.com/items/1307809-net-neutrality-elliott-sclar-open-source-politics
The Debate over Pizzaright Reform
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| Since its creation in the 1930s, the
| Federal Culinary Commission has tightly
| regulated the pizza marketplace.
| Entrepreneurs wishing to open pizzerias
| have been required to apply to the FCC,
| specifying the location of their proposed
| pizzeria, detailing the kinds of pizza that
| would be offered, and explaining how the
| creation of a new pizzeria benefitted the
| public interest. If the FCC determined that
| a new pizzeria was needed, it would issue a
| new pizzaright, subject, of course, to
| periodic renewal to ensure that the
| pizzaright was being used in the public
| interest.
`----
http://timothyblee.com/2010/04/05/the-debate-over-pizzaright-reform/
Pizzarights and Spectrum Policy
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| It is important for free-market types to
| attack âunlicensedâ spectrum proposals that
| actually come with a lot of strings
| attached. This, I think, is the flaw of the
| âwhite spacesâ proposal: thereâs actually
| nothing unlicensed about it. While the
| white spaces rules donât restrict who may
| use the spectrum, it does impose detailed
| rules about the protocols these devices may
| use. But the fact that a particular
| âunlicensedâ spectrum program worked out
| poorly isnât an argument against
| deregulation in general. And by painting
| all unlicensed spectrum rules with the same
| broad brush, free-marketeers malign some of
| the most successful (and libertarian!) FCC
| initiatives of the last few decades for no
| good reason.
`----
http://timothyblee.com/2010/04/06/pizzarights-and-spectrum-policy/
Commerce Dept. Backs Radio Royalty Bill
,----[ Quote ]
| The Commerce Department voiced support
| Thursday for legislation that would require
| AM and FM radio stations to pay performers
| a fee when they air their songs.
`----
http://techdailydose.nationaljournal.com/2010/04/commerce-dept-backs-radio-roya.php
Recent:
The internet without net neutrality
http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/blog/2010/mar/10/internet-without-net-neutrality/
Electronics Manufacturers Use US Legal System to Thwart Hardware âHacksâ
,----[ Quote ]
| In the United States, the First Amendment
| in the US Constitution protects free
| speech, even if the information
| communicated can be used to, among other
| things, cause harm or to commit illegal
| acts. These laws, for example, allowed
| author William Powell to write and publish
| âThe Anarchist Cookbook,â which gave
| instructions about how to make bombs and to
| commit other acts of mayhem in the early
| 1970s. Communicating how to hack OEMs
| devices and even how to steal services is
| thus protected under First Amendment laws,
| said Fred von Lohmann, staff attorney for
| the EFF.
|
| âUnder the DMCA [US Digital Millennium
| Copyright Act] and copyright law, users are
| entitled to reverse engineer and make
| interoperable products,â von Lohmann said.
| âAnd certainly the First Amendment applies
| if youâre talking about these subjects
| (even if youâre expressing yourself by
| writing and publishing software code),
| which is the point we made when squaring
| off against Apple on behalf of hobbyists
| who wanted to sync their iPods using
| software other than iTunes.â
|
| However, service agreements can preclude
| communicating how to hack devices,
| especially if they involve rented products,
| such as cable modems, said Bennett.
| âMost cable modem hardware is owned by
| network operators and leased to users. In
| the cases where users own their cable
| modems, theyâre sold with a licence
| agreement that prohibits reverse
| engineering,â he said. âReverse engineering
| is a predicate to distributing step-by-step
| hacking guides.â
`----
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2010/03/09/electronics-manufacturers-use-us-legal-system-to-thwart-hardware-%e2%80%98hacks%e2%80%99/
Letter to the FT (Financial Times) â Amendment 120A Digital Economy Bill
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| Endorsing a policy that would encourage the
| blocking of websites by UK broadband
| providers or other Internet companies is a
| very serious step for the UK to take. There
| are myriad legal, technical and practical
| issues to reconcile before this can be
| considered a proportionate and necessary
| public policy option. In some cases, these
| may never be reconciled. These issues have
| not even been considered in this case.
`----
http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/2010/03/letter-to-the-ft-financial-times-amendment-120a-digital-economy-bill/
NSFW: Hey, America! Our draconian copyright law could kick your draconian copyright lawâs ass
,----[ Quote ]
| Iâve always had mixed feelings about the
| DMCA.
|
| On the one hand, as an author, I like that
| it gives me a way to stop illegal copies of
| my work being distributed in the US, so
| ensuring that I can continue to make a
| living without having to get a proper job.
| On the other hand, as an occasional
| journalist, I hate that it can also be used
| by trigger-happy lawyers to prevent certain
| embarrassing documents entering the public
| domain.
|
| [...]
|
| TechCrunchâs own Devin Coldewey notes that
| the âpersistent offendersâ list wonât just
| affect domestic file-sharers. Internet
| cafes, hotels and anywhere else that offers
| public wi-fi access could find themselves
| taken offline if their customers are found
| to be swapping copyright files. If
| anything, these public access points are
| even more at risk as it doesnât take many
| teenagers using your cafe to rack up 50
| copyright violations: this despite there
| being no way for the establishments to
| police what their customers are doing
| online. As Boing Boingâs Cory Doctorow put
| it, almost entirely without hyperbole, âUK
| Digital Economy Bill will wipe out indie
| WiFi hotspots in libraries, unis, cafesâ
`----
http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/07/nsfw-hey-america-our-draconian-copyright-law-could-kick-your-draconian-copyright-laws-ass/
New amendment gives copyright owners a blank cheque for web censorship
,----[ Quote ]
| Imagine that, in the Summer of last year,
| you had been following the MP's expenses
| scandal and heard that The Telegraph was
| publishing a rather less redacted version
| that MP's were prepared to give us.
| Interested, you navigated your way to
| www.telegraph.co.uk only to find it was not
| responding. After some searching around and
| asking friends you discover that the
| website has been blocked by most major UK
| ISP's. It seems a junior official in
| Parliament had asked them to block The
| Telegraph for copyright violation.
`----
http://www.francisdavey.co.uk/2010/03/new-amendment-gives-copyright-owners.htm
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