Participated in an amicus brief (with the News Media Alliance and other amici) filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Washington Post v. David J. McManus, Jr. The brief states the district court correctly held that Maryland’s Online Electioneering Transparency and Accountability Act violates traditional First Amendment principles. The [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 6-4-19 The House Judiciary Committee is opening a bipartisan, "top to bottom," investigation into Big Tech and whether it has been allowed to get big anticompetitively. The committee has announced a series of hearings in the Antitrust Subcommittee on the "rise of market power online" and is seeking [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 6-3-19 In a letter to the chair and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, the Copyright Office has once again recommended that Congress let the satellite compulsory copyright license (STELAR Act) expire, saying the Section 119 copyright license "is more ripe for expiration than ever." The act, [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 6-3-19 ACA Connects gave the Federal Trade Commission an earful in comments on the FTC's hearings on competition and consumer protection. ACA Connects said that, generally speaking, the broadband marketplace is working to consumers' benefit as is with 300 million people having access to 100 Mbps broadband service, [...]
Participated in an amicus brief (with the Reporters Committee and other amici) filed with the California Supreme Court in National Lawyers Guild, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter v. City of Hayward. The case involves a request by the lawyers’ guild for written and electronic police records, including police body-worn camera (BWC) footage. The city [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 5-22-19 The Senate Judiciary Committee took a hard look at digital advertising Tuesday (May 21), both from a standpoint of privacy and whether edge providers who are supported by the use of data for ads, are too big to be trusted not to abuse that power and not [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 5-21-19 A clear majority of viewers do at least some of their video watching online rather than, or in addition to, broadcast or cable. That is according to the analysis of 2017 numbers crunched by the Trump Administration's top communications advisory arm, the National Telecommunications & Information Administration [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 5-21-19 The reconfigured T-Mobile-Sprint deal appears to have the three votes needed to secure approval by the five-member FCC. That came after the companies volunteered a revised list of conditions that included divesting Boost Mobile, the low-cost prepaid wireless subsidiary; building out high-speed 5G wireless service to most [...]
Participated in an amicus letter (with the Reporters Committee and other amici) filed with the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of San Francisco in In Re: Ex Parte Application of Non-Party Journalist Bryan Carmody. The brief supports a motion by Carmody to compel the return of protected work product, [...]
Participated in an intervenors/amicus brief (with the Reporters Committee and other amici) filed with the Belfast High Court in In re Fine Point Films & Trevor Birney. The case concerns filmmakers Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey, who were arrested for referencing an unpublished draft of a government report they received anonymously in their film [...]