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July 16, 2007
Rep. Markey's subcommittee hears calls for Net neutrality to go wireless
The Recording Academy actively represents the music community on such issues as intellectual property rights, music piracy, archiving and preservation, and censorship concerns. In pursuing its commitment to addressing these and other issues, The Recording Academy undertakes a variety of national initiatives. ArtsWatch is a key part of an agenda aimed at raising public awareness of and support for the rights of artists. For past columns, visit the ArtsWatch archive. To become more involved, visit Advocacy Action @ GRAMMY.com and sign up for Advocacy Action E-lerts.
GRAMMY.com
Philip Merrill
On July 11, the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet held a hearing on "Wireless Innovation and Consumer Protection." A new high-tech cause gained attention, referred to alternatively as wireless Net neutrality, open access and device portability. Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) used the iPhone to illustrate both the promise of innovation and the problem of locked-down service plans that prevent consumers from keeping their mobile phones when they switch to a new network. (link) Entrepreneur Jason Devitt detailed the open access wish list, topped by the call to set aside some of the 700MHz wireless spectrum that will soon be auctioned off so that new businesses can play by new rules. Verizon Wireless General Counsel Steven E. Zipperstein called for a national regulatory framework for oversight, but he warned that some proposed new rules could hurt innovation and consumers and are "unwarranted." Zipperstein said, "As applied to the wireless industry, we believe the quest for open access or, as some refer to it — network neutrality — is a solution in search of a problem that simply does not exist." As consumers increasingly use mobile phones to listen to music or watch movies, some observers expect a growing popular sentiment that phones should be as interchangeable as CD players or television sets. Hopefully, popular pressure will not force the wrong new rules on this important and growing source of new revenues for the creative industries.
As the European Commission's comment period closed on collecting society reforms proposed by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), (link) a coalition of 27 companies and associations submitted objections that those changes do not go far enough. Cable Europe pledged last month it would submit arguments against the proposals (link) and it was joined by various high-tech leaders including Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Liberty Global, Music Choice, Orange, ProSieben Sat 1, RTL Group and SBS Broadcasting. The EC's goal is to provide a one-stop shop for Internet music clearances, but the coalition said CISAC's proposal would lead to a "costly, inefficient and fragmented licensing system for music rights."
Audible Magic — the content-filtering antipiracy solution recently adopted by the Harry Fox Agency and MySpace (link) — has scored an unusual technology endorsement from Belgium's Court of First Instance. An infringement lawsuit brought by collecting society SABAM against ISP Scarlet required the judge to balance European rules to protect copyright owners with rules that protect ISPs as mere conduits of customer data. After reviewing a number of technology solutions that could be implemented to prevent infringing content from being hosted on Scarlet's network, the judge used Audible Magic as the prime example of a readily available solution that could solve the problem, and required Scarlet to implement one of the several solutions available. On July 4, IFPI Chairman/CEO John Kennedy said, "This is an extremely significant ruling which bears out exactly what we have been saying for the last two years — that the Internet's gatekeepers, the ISPs, have a responsibility to help control copyright-infringing traffic on their networks. ... This is a decision that we hope will set the mold for government policy and for courts in other countries in Europe and around the world." (link) On July 11, a spokesman for Britain's Internet Service Providers' Association disagreed and said, "ISPs shouldn't be set up to play judge and jury...ISPs are not law enforcement." (link) Although the case could be reversed on appeal and the court's jurisdiction is limited to Belgium, observers expect this ruling will continue to produce shock waves.
On July 10, the National Legal and Policy Center (at www.nlpc.org) listed a "Top 50" of potentially infringing content on Google Video, including likely suspects such as Blood Diamond and Spiderman III. NLPC Chairman Ken Boehm said, "It's difficult to know for sure whether all of the content included in the Top 50 list is being hosted in violation of copyright laws — NLPC makes no assertions — but it's a reasonable assumption that much of the content has been uploaded without the copyright owner's knowledge or approval."
For July 4, Jon Johansen declared iPhone Independence Day on his blog. Nicknamed "DVD Jon" for his DeCSS hack, he has pursued Apple recently. His latest claimed hack was to get on the Internet through an iPhone, and use its iPod functions, without activating the AT&T phone service.
Late last month, the Free Software Foundation released the latest version of the GNU General Public License — version 3 — with a section 3 specifically targeted at DRM and laws against hacking. (link) Acceptance of the license, a gold standard within the open source movement, means the software developer cannot sue based on anti-circumvention laws if somebody hacks its code. Microsoft on July 5 made clear that while it has a relationship with Novell and Linux open source products, the company denies accepting the GPLv3 license in any way. (link)
Television viewership for the globe-spanning Live Earth (at www.liveearth.org) concerts on July 7 was not spectacular, but the integrated online experience was a hit with Internet users. MSN claimed its online audience of 8 million viewers was the largest ever for a music concert. The Los Angeles Times review said, "This window into globalism, not Live Earth's political message or the performances of its headliners, was the festival's true innovation."
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