2/23/11

Free Press Media Reform ,Net Neutrality, and the FCC
News of the movement for February 23, 2011
Net Neutrality Rules Face Uncertain Future After House Vote Late last week, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a budget bill that included a prohibition on the FCC enforcing Net Neutrality rules, but it's unclear whether that provision will survive. Now, current dueling budget bills leave the future even cloudier for the Net Neutrality provision.
Grant Gross, IDG News
Groups Urge Court to Reject Net Neutrality Challenge Almost half a dozen advocacy groups waded into Verizon and MetroPCS's lawsuit against the FCC's Network Neutrality rules, seeking to protect their ability to challenge any appeals.
Josh Smith, National Journal
Public Interest Groups File Motion to Intervene in Verizon, MetroPCS Suits Free Press, Media Access Project, Media Mobilizing Project, Access Humboldt and Mountain Area Information Network filed motions to intervene in the Verizon and MetroPCS appeals of the FCC's open Internet order. Free Press, representing itself in the matter, believes that the FCC’s order failed to adequately protect the open Internet. However, it also believes that the Verizon and MetroPCS suits were improperly brought, and is preserving its right to make arguments in both matters.
Free Press
Is Scott Walker Cutting off Internet Access to Thwart Protesters? According to pro-labor protesters in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker may be taking a page from former Egyptian Dictator Hosni Mubarak and cutting off Internet access to key protest organizers within the state capitol building.
Mike Elk, ThinkProgress
Canadians Continue to Rage Against Metered Billing The dust has at least temporarily settled on Canada's controversial decision to let its biggest ISPs charge smaller, competitive ISPs on a metered, or usage-based billing schedule, a decision later suspended by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecom Commission. Judging from a sample of the surly comments coming into the CRTC's new public proceeding on broadband billing issues, it's going to take a while before Canadians trust their telecom regulator again.
Matthew Lasar, Ars Technica
North Carolina's Big Telecom Corporate Welfare Bill Being Fast-Tracked An anti-municipal broadband bill, brought to you by Time Warner Cable, is being jammed through the North Carolina state legislature with no public input, no real review and no thought for the ordinary voter in the state. The bill will guarantee residents will face relentless rate increases, unchecked by competition. Even worse, the state of the art broadband networks that finally deliver the kind of quality broadband the state deserves will be forced to shut down because of the ludicrous conditions the legislation requires for them to continue.
Phillip Dampier, Stop the Cap!
Vodafone in Egypt: How Tech Companies Can Uphold, Not Violate, Human Rights In recent years, we have put corporations under greater scrutiny. We don't buy shoes if they were made in Asian sweatshops. We boycott companies whose practices contribute to the destruction of the rainforest. Consumers expect to be satisfied with the service, but they also want to be reassured that the company providing the service has not harmed others. We should expect the same high standards from technology companies.
Luke Allnutt, Christian Science Monitor
Utah Dem Proposes Gutting Broadband Grant Program Utah Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson has introduced an amendment to defund the Community Connect broadband grant program, which the Rep. claims duplicates newer broadband funding programs. While Utah is the home of the nation's largest municipal broadband operation Utah, and home to Utopia opponents Qwest and Comcast -- a quick look at Utah funding through the program indicates there has been no Utopia funding via the system, and the grants have largely been used to connect tribal lands.
Karl Bode, Broadband Reports
Hispanics Trail Other Groups in Web Usage, Confidence Hispanics are less connected to the Internet than whites and blacks, using websites less frequently and expressing more discomfort with computers and technology in the workplace, according to a new survey.
Cecilia Kang and Krissah Thompson, Washington Post
Broadband Rising on Native Agenda Native Public Media, a minority consortium incubated within the National Federation of Community Broadcasters for seven years, is striking out on its own, establishing itself as an independent nonprofit and pursuing big new opportunities to expand media access for Native Tribes through broadband and mobile technologies.
Karen Everhart, Current
Reporting While Female Crowds can be a dangerous place for reporters, especially during war or unrest. Just last Friday, reporters in Bahrain found themselves under fire from a helicopter that seemed to have singled them out as targets. But women reporters face another set of challenges. We are often harassed in ways that male colleagues are not. This is a hazard of the job that most of us have experienced and few of us talk about.
Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times
Journalists Start Arriving in Libya With foreign journalists banned in Libya, it's been very difficult to confirm the reports emerging by phone and social media that the government is brutally cracking down on protesters demanding the ouster of the country's strongman leader Muammar Gaddafi. But as Gaddafi's regime appears to be crumbling -- with the opposition now controlling a large swath of the eastern border -- journalists are finally making their way in to cover the week-long revolt firsthand.
Michael Calderone, Yahoo! News
Al Jazeera in Talks with Comcast over U.S. Distribution Al Jazeera is in discussions with Comcast, the nation's largest cable operator, about bringing the network's English-language channel to millions of U.S. homes, the Qatar-based news service said. Al Jazeera hopes to capitalize on its growing reputation as a serious provider of top-quality journalism from an increasingly tumultuous Middle East.
Sam Gustin, Wired
State of the Press: Rise of New Media Unwilling to wait for today's news in tomorrow's newspapers, and frustrated with self-censoring mainstream news outlets, many youths are turning to unconventional sources of information dissemination.
Abbas Al Lawati, Gulf News
What Effect Has the Internet Had on Journalism? The Web's effect on news reporting is considered the most clear evidence that this is a revolutionary technology: News editors -- and in some cases, the governments that they observe -- are no longer the gatekeepers to information because costs of distribution have almost completely disappeared. If knowledge is power, the Web is the greatest tool in the history of the world.
Aleks Krotoski, The Guardian
Blogging Is Dead Just Like the Web Is Dead Blogging is on the decline, according to a recent report, and it is declining particularly among young people, who are using social networks such as Facebook instead. Pretty straightforward, right? Except that the actual story said something quite different: Blogging activity is actually increasing, not decreasing. And as the report points out, plenty of young people are still blogging via the Tumblr platform, even though they may not think of it as "blogging." What blogging is really doing is evolving.
The countdown to media reform is on! Thousands of people who want to transform the media will meet in Boston in April at the National Conference for Media Reform. Join FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now!, musician and activist Erin McKeown, grassroots leaders Rinku Sen and Malkia Cyril, as well as dozens of other luminaries. Register now!
In Other News...
Minority Groups Say Civil Rights Getting Worse at the FCC A coalition of minority advocacy groups, including the NAACP and Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH Coalition, wrote to the FCC and lawmakers complaining about a lack of progress on civil rights issues.
The Hill
Senators Call on FCC to Fix USF Disparities Three senators representing largely urban states are urging the FCC to address disparities in contributions between their states and others as part of the agency's overhaul of the Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes telecom service in rural and high-cost areas.
National Journal
Might Public Broadcasting Follow BBC Model? As politicians in Washington debate defunding public media outlets like NPR and PBS, out of a mix of concern for the deficit and political animosity for the concept, there's one larger piece of context worth considering. America is the only major democracy in the West to rely almost entirely on commercial media to comprehensively inform its citizens.
Miller-McCune
Web Wiretaps Raise Security, Privacy Concerns In the old days, wiretapping was easy: Law enforcement officials just tapped a wire. Even with cell phones, police merely had to take a warrant to the phone company and tell it to tap the number. But now, in this age of Skype and instant messaging, things are a lot trickier, and law enforcement says it needs help.
NPR
Online TV Service ivi Loses a Round in Court A federal judge in New York ordered Internet TV service Ivi to shut down, finding that it violated the copyrights of a group of broadcasters and Major League Baseball. It was yet another example of a tech company trying in vain to stretch the boundaries of copyright law to avoid paying as much for content as its more conventional competitors.
Los Angeles Times
Why Netflix Should Worry About Amazon's Unlimited Streaming Amazon announced the launch of an unlimited streaming service for its Prime members at no additional cost, but the membership will continue to be $79 per year. Should Netflix be worried?
International Business Times
New Zealand: Google Launches Website to Locate Survivors Google has set up a service to help people affected by the New Zealand earthquake locate missing loved ones. The "Person Finder" allows people in Christchurch to upload or request information about individuals. The new website had records on around 9,000 people.
Daily Telegraph
YouTube in Negotiations to Stream Live NBA, NHL Games YouTube is in talks with the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League to show live games, building on the popularity of cricket's Indian Premier League last year.
Bloomberg News
MPAA Tries to 'Unfriend' Google in Court Fight over Digital Copyright Law Movie industry lawyers told an appeals court late last week that it should ignore an attempt by Google to get involved in an appeal of a case that they won -- even if Google is ostensibly on their side.
BroadbandBreakfast.com
Cell Phone Use Tied to Changes in Brain Activity Researchers from the National Institutes of Health have found that less than an hour of cell phone use can speed up brain activity in the area closest to the phone antenna, raising new questions about the health effects of low levels of radiation emitted from cell phones.
New York Times
Postal Problems In an effort to stay afloat, the Postal Service recently announced that it will be cutting thousands of jobs and reviewing up to 2000 rural post offices to see which may need to be closed. But many, especially in rural areas, say that these offices are still vital to the community. How will the postal service position itself in the future?
New Hampshire Public Radio
Workers Sickened at Apple Supplier in China Last week, when Apple released its annual review of labor conditions at its global suppliers, one startling revelation stood out: 137 workers at a factory here had been seriously injured by a toxic chemical used in making the signature slick glass screens of the iPhone.
New York Times
U.S. Army Using iPhone App to Train Missile Crews Looking through the iTunes App Store reveals that, for better or worse, there's an app for just about everything. You can find Apps to entertain yourself with, create to-do lists and recipe keepers, to name a few. And it turns out that there's now an app that will train you how to launch a Patriot missile. The U.S. Army has created a bunch of apps to be used for training Patriot missile crews.
The Escapist
Free Trove of Music Scores on Web Hits Sensitive Copyright Note The International Music Score Library Project, has trod in the footsteps of Google Books and Project Gutenberg and grown to be one of the largest sources of musical scores anywhere. It claims to have 85,000 scores with thousands being added every month. That is a worrisome pace for traditional music publishers, whose bread and butter comes from renting and selling scores in expensive editions backed by the latest scholarship. More than a business threat, the site has raised messy copyright issues and drawn the ire of established publishers.
New York Times
Upcoming Events
L.A. Media Reform Summit 2011
Feb 26: Los Angeles, CA
FCC March Open Meeting
Mar 3: Washington, DC
Net Neutrality: Who Owns the Internet?
Mar 8: New Brunswick, NJ
NTEN 2011 Lobby Day and Annual Conference
Mar 17-Mar 19: Washington, DC

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