The 463: Inside Tech

Republican Nominees for the FCC

The TLF has the scoop on possible Republican names for the FCC vacancy.... Two former Bush administration officials (David Gross, ambassador for international communications and information policy; and Meredith Baker, former acting assistant secretary of commerce for telecommunications and information policy) were welcome additions to many tech policy related events and conferences in recent years. (I'm sure that they did other stuff, too).

Google's Communications Policy Guy

I just ran across this CircleID interview of Richard Whitt, Google's Washington Telecom and Media Counsel.  It is worth a read.

Currently, the DC Google fascination cycle is in the throes of wondering if the company is setting itself up for an Icarus-like fall for having the CEO stand too close to the President (repeatedly), or whether it is now an increasingly sober Beltway player who is engineering the game the way it was meant to be played (i.e, getting a think tank to play that ever so helpful "third-party" role).

Regardless of where you stand, you can't help but be impressed of what impact that Google has had on the communications landscape in such a relatively short amount of time. And, the policy side of this work falls under Whitt's purview. (The billions spent on the business side doesn't hurt either).

About that WSJ Google Story

Many tech bloggers reflexively let out a collective p'shaw at the recent "confused" Wall Street Journal report that suggested that Google is changing its tune on Net Neutrality. With a bit of perspective at his back (and some research), Adam Lashinsky of Fortune provides a well-encapsulated play-by-play on the controversy and hints at why, WSJ confusion notwithstanding, Google might be transitioning to a world view of where "you get what they pay for."

Mike Masnick used this piece to remind the Web 2.0 crowd of a common theme on this site: Google and other big tech companies are not there to help you when then make business deals, engage in legal battles nor enter the policy forum. In fact, when they have the opportunity, they will use these levers against you. Masnick said

"...people and companies, who used to rely on Google's legal team to fight their battles, now need to realize that Google is no longer the defender of Silicon Valley. While the company used to take the stance that what was good for the internet user overall would be good for Google in the long term, in the last year or so, the company has increasingly made decisions that go against that principle. Instead, it's done a number of deals that allow it to leverage its cash reserves to make life more difficult for others, but allow Google to protect itself."

(photo by globalpunditorg)

Why the "iTunes Tax" is Bad for you Pocketbook, the Environment and Independent Musicians

New York Governor David Paterson's proposed state budget "hits New Yorkers in their iPods - and nickels-and-dimes them in lots of other places, too" says the New York Daily News.

Trying to close a $15.4 billion budget gap, Paterson called for 88 new fees and a host of other taxes, including an "iPod tax" that taxes the sale of downloaded music and other "digitally delivered entertainment services."

While we sympathize with the tough road ahead that the governor faces in trying to balance a budget in the teeth of a generation's worst recession, there are so many things wrong with the download tax.

First, as Mike Masnick points out, there is no functional reason for this...

...other than the fact that the state desperately needs money, and so it's trying to add taxes to just about anything it can find. Of course, back in the old days, the point of a sales tax like that was to contribute to gov't-funded infrastructure (roads and such) that allowed folks to go and buy something. There's no such rationale for taxing internet downloads. It's a blatant money grab and Paterson seems to have no problem admitting that.

Internet issue advocacy group NetChoice weighs in on how, in an era where tax policy should be encouraging energy efficiency and carbon impact, this tax does the opposite:

...why in the world would NY impose a new tax on something we all want to encourage right now? Digital downloads of music, movies, and books have no carbon footprint and use none of the oil consumed with a round-trip to the store. Moreover, there’s no plastic and paper packaging to create and crate off to a landfill. We've blogged on the environmental benefits of downloading here.

NetChoice also raises an issue that most other coverage has ignored to date: Namely, "the budget proposes expanding and asserting the concept of "nexus" to cover out-of-state sellers that use an online network of affiliates."

This will:

"also extend the long hand of government to the long tail of online commerce. Who'll be hurt? Small, independent artists that have websites to sell their own creative works. If a NY-based author or musician adds a link to her webpage saying ‘buy my book/music now on Amazon.com’, she’d be creating a new tax collection burden for Amazon--on everything Amazon sells to anyone in NY State. Amazon’s not going to sit still for that, and they might just stop their affiliate program for NY-based suppliers, authors, and musicians. "

So, let's say that your emerging band isn't AC/DC and you can't get an exclusive deal with Wal-Mart to sell your music. You go directly to your fans on the Web and hope that they choose to pay for your music instead of pirating it. This tax would both create an additional cost that will never get into the hands of the struggling artist, and it might minimize the breadth of online channels that NY artists have to sell their work on the Internet.

FCC Speculation

Not too many new names since the speculation on who might get appointed to a FCC under new administration started last March. But, speculation is fun and the FCC is unquestionably going to be a massively important body as convergence becomes quite real.

Olga Kharif of Businessweek writes about who is driving the process for the transition team and providing advice:

Heading up the selection process is Henry Rivera, partner at Washington law firm Wiley Rein. Headed by former FCC Chairman Richard Wiley, Wiley Rein has represented such companies as AT&T, Verizon Communications (VZ), Viacom (VIA), Motorola (MOT), and Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI).

Rivera was the first Hispanic FCC commissioner, serving from 1981 to 1985, and is considered an advocate for local telcos, wireless companies, and cable TV providers. "Henry is a wise man, a bipartisan with lots of experience," says John Muleta, former head of the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and now CEO of M2Z, an emerging wireless broadband provider...

...Obama's team is also weighing recommendations from former FCC Chairmen Bill Kennard and Reed Hundt, both of whom advised the Obama campaign on telecommunications-related issues.

Kharif also hits on the possible appointees who are being bandied about:

• Julia Johnson, a Florida consultant who chairs Video Access Alliance, an advocacy and advisory group for independent, emerging, and minority networks and Internet content providers.
• Mignon Clyburn, who has been a commissioner for the Public Service Commission of South Carolina since 1998.
• Blair Levin, who was Hundt's chief of staff from 1993 to 1997. Currently, Levin is managing director at brokerage and investment bank Stifel Nicolaus.
• Scott Blake Harris, who served as the first chief of the FCC's International Bureau, from 1994 to 1996, and was responsible for international and satellite communications policy and licensing. Currently, he is managing partner of influential law firm Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis
• Don Gips, who succeeded Harris as chief of the FCC's international bureau and spearheaded the drive to cut the prices of international calls. (He) is currently group vice-president for corporate strategy and development at fiber-optic network operator Level 3, where he's worked since 1998.
• Larry Strickling, who served as chief of the (FCC) division that regulates local and long-distance carriers before he resigned in 2000 to work for the policy think tank Aspen Institute.... Strickling helped pull together the campaign's Innovation & Technology Plan, which drew support from such companies as Google...
• Julius Genachowski, who used to be an executive at IAC/InterActive (IACI) (and is currently a managing director of venture capital firm Rock Creek Ventures and a special adviser to buyout firm General Atlantic.) He is a close Obama adviser and is on the transition advisory board

The Deal also ran a speculative story and only had one additional name to add to the mix: Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

Skype, for one, thinks Blair Levin would be a good choice. Skype's senior director of government and regulatory affairs for North America Christopher Libertelli said last week that: "Levin would make an excellent FCC chairman."

Arts+Labs on Google Book Settlement

One of the more interesting coalitions to recently pop up on the tech policy scene is the cleverly named Arts+Labs. Launching a month ago, the group includes AT&T, Viacom, NBC Universal, Cisco, Microsoft and the Songwriters Guild of America as members. Support them or not, all involved are currently among the savvier players in DC. And, the folks running Arts+Labs aren't too shabby themselves.

Most of the focus around the launch of the coalition was centered on its stated intent to clean up "net pollution" -- a scorn that includes illegal file sharing.

No doubt that this priority will remain, but I am mostly interested in watching how their policy positions will evolve and what this will mean for who else comes on board. I do find the old yarn about the simplified Silicon Valley vs. Hollywood battle tired and usually false and will be curious what Arts+Labs can do to replace the "vs." with the "+" and demonstrate that most of us have moved on from the black and white days of the original Napster battle.

This is why I took interest in Arts+Labs statement on the Google book search settlement with publishers today. Normally, something like this would bore me to tears (and not just because I write these types of thing all of the time). But, it was interesting to see how Arts+Labs used the statement to represent itself in a way that softens how the content players usually speak in stark, tough lawyerly statements. An excerpt:

This settlement shows that creators' rights and consumer benefit can go hand-in-hand in the Internet age. It is a victory for consumers and creators alike...

...The framework established by this agreement, if approved by the Court, should open the door to additional innovation and may potentially provide a model for legal access to other types of artistic content. This type of collaborative problem-solving is part of Arts+Labs' vision and is far preferable to years of litigation that would delay a future for the Internet that is safer, faster, more reliable and more beneficial for every consumer.

Ironically (or not), Arts+Labs member Viacom, who is, of course, involved in a little suit regarding YouTube was a little more harsh in a separate statement:

"Copyright laws provide creators with the incentive to create the works consumers crave. It is unfortunate that the publishers had to spend years, and millions of dollars, for Google to honor that principle. We hope that Google avoids the wasted effort and comes more quickly to respect movies and television programming."

I'm all for the "collaborative problem-solving" that the Arts+Labs quote references. It will be interesting to watch how this manifests itself in the next year or so.

I've Got Your Choke Point Right Here

Net Neutrality legislation may be moribund, but that doesn't mean this issue has gone away.  In what lawyers call a "change in venue", the pro-neutralily folks are using the questions over Comcast's "network management" of BitTorrent traffic to bring the debate directly to the FCC. 

The Comcast issue has been a discussion on blogs and on mailing lists for months, but, this week, it gained much greater awareness when several pro-NN groups filed a petition with the FCC asking it to take action against the cable service provider.  Comcast responded with a statement claiming that it is doing nothing wrong.

The Washington Post notes that this...

...will serve as the first test of the FCC's position on the issue of net neutrality...  The five-member FCC has said it supports the concept, but has not been pressed to enforce it. The agency has also said Internet providers have the right to manage their networks.

CNET has an analysis here.

(Flickr photo attribution)

DOJ Chases the Ghost of Net Neutrality

Out of the blue, the DOJ's antitrust division made a (near two-month late) filing today with the FCC that warned the body of possible harms of net neutrality regulation.

I'll let Cynthia's Brumfield's IP Democracy pick it up from here:

... the Justice Department issued a press release to announce the ex parte filing, which just seems…a little weird, given the nature of the filing. It feels almost like a PR move, or a public political positioning, and is not in keeping with the kind of dry, legalistic press releases DOJ usually issues (“Fujicolor Processing Pleads Guilty to Environmental Crime,” “Missouri Federal Court Permanently Bars Woman From Tax Return Preparation,” “Landmark Settlement Aims to Clean Up Raw Sewage Discharges in Allegheny County”).

So, the DOJ is arguably playing politics, not unsurprising in Washington, but not the usual behavior of the normally staid Antitrust Division of the Justice Department. The document, too, doesn’t read like the usual antitrust analysis. There is little dispassionate weighing of the arguments or rigorous analysis of the facts (a lot of facts are presented regarding how the Internet is flourishing without net neutrality but no real weighing of the arguments and data).

Personally, I think the Justice Department has historically been a model bureaucracy for how it approaches the seriousness of its charter, so I will give them a pass on the tone of the release. But, the timing? Oy. It's so odd that it, in fact, makes the case that the DOJ wasn't "playing politics" because no sane politician would so randomly jump in on an issue so 2006.

In fact, just yesterday, Roy Mark at eWeek wrote in a piece headlined: "Whatever Happened to Net Neutrality?"...

A year ago, network neutrality was roiling Capitol Hill. From Congress to the Federal Communications Commission to the Federal Trade Commission, there wasn't a hotter—or more controversial—tech issue. Today, net neutrality barely raises a yawn among lawmakers....

And, your 463 quote of the day in the same piece:

"They're waiting to fight another day. I don't see signs of it coming back. There's no political will," said Tom Galvin, a partner at Washington's 463 Communications.

The Case for a National Broadband Policy

Some simply say American broadband "sucks."  Others delve into the math problems that make even measuring US broadband capacity often-counter productive.  And, others still insist that all is well today.

Robert Atkinson at The Innovation Technology & Innovation Foundation wraps up much of the current debate about US broadband and makes the case for a national broadband policy that will get the country ahead of Belgium, Canada and France in penetration and speed.  Here's the pdf of the policy paper that came out last Friday.

After the jump is the summary of Atkinson's policy recommendations....

PFF's Tech Policy Agenda

   
The Progress & Freedom Foundation announced its 10-point tech policy plan for the 110th Congress on Friday.  The 10...

1 - Renew fundamental reforms of communications regulations.
2 - Leave network neutrality concerns to the market and antitrust.
3 - Leave content business models and fair use to the market.
4 - When addressing patents, take a first-principles approach to property and innovation.
5 - Enact meaningful reform of archaic media ownerships laws and regulations that hinder media marketplace experimentation.
6- Pursue greater First Amendment parity among modern media providers by leveling the playing field in the direction of greater freedom for all operators / platforms.
7 - Subject data security and privacy proposals to careful benefit-cost analysis, including full examination of consumer benefits from services and technologies affected by these proposals.
8 - Promote pro-competitive, non-regulatory internet governance.
9 - Avoid open-ended, intrusive data retention mandates.
10 - Promote more efficient taxation of telecom services and Internet sales.

The full study with further descriptions of the positions can be downloaded here.  After the jump are two of the full recommendations....