figrd

News of the movement for July 13, 2011

It Pays to Be Murdoch. Just Ask the U.S. Government Rupert Murdoch may not garner as much attention for his financial savvy as he does for his journalistic escapades, which last week led to the shuttering of Britain's oldest tabloid. But that doesn't make his money management any less impressive. Over the past four years Murdoch's U.S.-based News Corp. has made money on income taxes.

David Cay Johnston, Reuters

Damned If You Do or Don't: How Murdoch Reporters' Bribes to British Cops Violate U.S. Law News International Limited, the British arm of the Murdoch empire, is a subsidiary of News Corp., a publicly traded American company which also owns the Wall Street Journal and Fox News. Because of this, experts say, News Corp. and all of its subsidiaries come under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a Watergate-era law which makes it a crime for U.S. companies to participate in bribery abroad.

Jake Bernstein, Pro Publica

It's Official: News Corp. Withdraws BSkyB Bid What a bitter defeat for Rupert Murdoch. His News Corp this morning just finally made clear it has withdrawn its bid for full control of British Sky Broadcasting. Had Murdoch been successful, he would have been the UK’s leading television gatekeeper determining what channels could thrive or fail. BSkyB also is a major provider of broadband and phone services, which makes it a dependable source of cash.

Nikki Finke, Deadline Hollywood

Rockefeller Urges Probe into News Corp. for Phone Hacking Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) urged regulators to look into whether News Corp. had violated any U.S. laws when its British journalists gained unauthorized access to several individuals' voice mails to pursue stories.

Sarah Lai Stirland, TPM

Prosecute News Corp. The facts of News Corp.'s criminal behavior are already pretty well established in Britain and indicate violations of American law. The News Corp. case presents a pretty simple test for Attorney General Eric Holder: The U.S. government should go after Murdoch's media company for its corrupt practices and revoke its TV licenses if it's found guilty. Licensure and relicensure by the FCC require that the licensee abide by the law and serve the public interest. News Corp. appears to have blatantly violated this basic standard.

Eliot Spitzer, Slate.com

The Daily Show Sums Up Murdoch News of the World Scandal The Daily Show's John Oliver does a tremendous job summing up just how big a story the implosion of the Rupert Murdoch-owned News of the World is in his home country: "Do you know how hard it is to disgrace a British tabloid?"

Media Bistro

FCC Not Involved in Review of News Corp. Scandal The FCC is not looking into News Corp and its role in a phone hacking scandal at its British newspapers. "There is obviously a process going on in the UK, and that is not a process we expect to get involved in or interfere with," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said.

Reuters

Free Press Blasts Newport TV's Attempt to Intimidate Free Press says that Newport Television's demand that it stop using station logos as part of its campaign against virtual duopolies is not a violation of copyright law, but "a clear and outrageous attempt to intimidate Free Press and to silence commentary on this important issue."

Harry A. Jessell, TVNewsCheck

Copyright As Censorship: Newport Television Abusing DMCA to Try to Silence Criticism Here's another case of someone abusing copyright law (and the DMCA specifically) to try to stifle criticism. Newport Television sent a bogus cease-and-desist to Free Press for using a logo in a video about media consolidation. They also issued a bogus DMCA takedown to YouTube, who took down a YouTube video explaining the issue. This is a clear case of abusing copyright law to stifle and censor critical commentary.

Mike Masnick, TechDirt

Take Back the Media Years of runaway media consolidation have diminished the diversity of voices on the airwaves, gutted our nation's newsrooms and wrested more and more media out of the hands of the people. But a rising wave of new nonprofit journalism efforts, new opportunities for local radio and digital justice coalitions are planting the seeds of a movement to take back our media.

Josh Stearns, Orion Magazine

Former San Antonio Mayor Perpetuates AT&T Mega-Merger Falsehoods Former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros advocates giving Latinos tools to succeed. But he's straining his credibility as he shills for the AT&T-T-Mobile merger and repeats AT&T's falsehoods on the deal's purported benefits for Latinos. This merger would mean higher prices with no real coverage benefits. AT&T’s false claims about it are bad enough. They sound even worse coming from people who purport to speak for our communities.

Tech Tease, San Antonio Current

FCC Votes to Take on 'Cramming' The FCC moved to crack down on "cramming," proposing new rules designed to make it easier to detect and remove illegal service charges on customers' wireline and wireless phone bills. In a notice of proposed rulemaking, the Commission is seeking new rules to increase disclosure requirements for mystery fees. The rules include advising customers about how to block the fees, segregating third-party charges to one section of the bill and instructing customers about how to file a complaint.

Brooks Boliek, Politico

Doped-Up Sockpuppet Gophers: Washington Times Dials Up Net Neutrality Hysteria Heartland Institute's Bruce Edward Walker wrote in the Washington Times that the FCC commissioners are "nothing more than sock puppets mouthing "the leftist ideology" of Free Press." This is absurd. What Walker fails to explain is why would Free Press attack the Commission's Net Neutrality rules as a "squandered opportunity" that "heavily favors the industry they are intended to regulate and leave consumers with minimal protections."

Simon Maloy, Media Matters

Metered Billing: It's a Lack of Competition, Not Congestion The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission has been holding hearings over the last few days about its controversial (and for the moment suspended) move to let Bell Canada bill independent ISPs on a wholesale byte-by-byte basis. Newspaper reports suggest that at least some of the commissioners aren't buying arguments that the telcos need usage-based billing to "discipline" consumers so that they won't congest networks with excessive downloading.

Matthew Lasar, Ars Technica

The Local Community Radio Act mandates the government to expand the Low Power FM service, creating the potential for thousands of new community radio station licenses across the country! Radio Summer is a chance for independent media lovers to hit the road, host a volunteer, lead an event and spread the word about this amazing opportunity. Join the Radio Summer team and empower communities to seize the airwaves!

Dying to Tell the Truth in Pakistan Pakistan's army and its intelligence agencies, especially the top spy agency, the military-controlled Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, have long been the most powerful institutions in a state where the military has ruled for half its history since Pakistan was created in 1947. And the army and the ISI don't like anyone looking too closely into their affairs -- as Pakistani journalists have found to their peril.

Huffington Post

Do Bloggers Need an Ethical Code? The strength of the blog lies in fact that it can represent an individual voice. But how can we know how information is gathered and whether the writer(s) of the blog is employing ethical and honest practices in writing? Is it possible, is it right, to unite the blogoshpere under a code of ethical practice?

World Editors Forum

Netflix Imposes Significant New Price Increase Netflix is facing very steep price hikes as they begin renewing contracts with copyright holders who are uncomfortable with the amount of market power Netflix has quickly accumulated, and those prices will be passed on to users. Netflix also announced that they are separating unlimited DVDs by mail and unlimited streaming into separate plans, essentially doubling the monthly fee.

Broadband Reports

Why Netflix Changed Its Pricing Plan Why did Netflix change its pricing plan? Netflix says such a heavy discount for a DVD-by-mail plus streaming wasn't sustainable. But there's another reason: By forcing subscribers to choose, it's likely betting that most will go streaming-only, thereby lowering the infrastructure cost of supporting them.

GigaOM

Righthaven Accused of Avoiding Paying Legal Fees Owed In the continuing saga of Righthaven, the firm is trying to hold off on paying the legal fees ordered by the court in one of the many cases so far. The defendant, Michael Leon, and his lawyers from the Randazza Group have filed a motion that rips into Righthaven, claiming that the company is looking to avoid paying.

TechDirt

Culture Is Anti-Rivalrous Economists talk about rivalrous and non-rivalrous goods, but culture is neither rivalrous, nor non-rivalrous; it is anti-rivalrous. Anti-rivalrous goods increase in value the more they are used. For example: language. A language isn't much use to me if I can't speak it with someone else. You need at least two people to communicate with language. The more people who use the language, the more value it has.

TechDirt