By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-19-16 The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a hearing April 20 on federal rulemaking and the "administrative state." Among the topics being addressed is the FCC's network neutrality rulemaking, which Republicans have been highly critical of, including the perceived pressure from the Obama Administration [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-19-16 Patent and copyrights are essentially a contract between the federal government and inventors and artists, which "heightens" the government's responsibility and "solemn promise" to protect those rights. That is the central theme of a new paper, "The Public Contract Basis of Intellectual Property Rights," being released today [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-18-16 The major Hollywood studios were not pleased Monday after the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of a decision that it was OK for Google to digitize millions of books and make them available online without compensating the copyright holders. In a blog post after the [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-17-16 National and local TV news was the dominant source people rely on for news topics they follow most closely, but engendering trust across all types of news outlets has become a tougher job. Only 6% of people said they have a lot of confidence in the media, [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 1-14-16 The National Association of Broadcasters told the FCC this week that to grant the pay-TV industry what it wants in the ongoing retransmission consent good faith negotiations proceeding would make it an unwitting accomplice in that industry's attempt to grab more revenue. One of the things the [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 1-12-16 President Obama stuck generally to the "vision thing" in his last State of the Union (SOTU) speech, talking about his vision of America as a strong, compassionate country that takes care of the poor, the environment, and its business at home and abroad. But he also worked [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 1-11-16 Former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell plans to tell Congress that a new bill meant to block the FCC from using Title II authority over ISPs to regulate broadband rates should explicitly extend to rates ISPs may charge to edge providers or other ISPs or backbone providers (interconnection). [...]