High-tech group Arts+Labs and George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy & The Internet are hosting a network and technology policy forum on Thursday morning. The event, moderated by former FCC Chairman Richard Wiley, is being webcast live here. Here's the rundown:
Panel #1 - Networks for the Future (9:30-10:30)
Bret Swanson (Entropy Economics, WSJ Contributor)
S. Derek Turner (Research Director, Free Press)
Robert Curtis (FCC Director, Network Deployment)
Christopher Yoo (University of Pennsylvania Law School)
Panel #2 - Network Management and Delivering for the Consumer (10:45-11:45)
Richard Bennett (Information Technology and Innovation Foundation)
Robb Topolski (New America Foundation)
Dave Farber (Carnegie Mellon University)
Harold Feld (Legal Director of Public Knowledge)
Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg took issue Wednesday with proponents of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's so-called network neutrality plan who have suggested that network providers like Verizon and content providers like Google, Amazon and others occupy fundamentally different parts of the Internet ecosystem. The view that the Web is made up of "dumb pipes" on the one hand and "smart applications" on the other is a mistake, he told an industry conference in Chicago. "It fundamentally misreads how innovation happens in a dynamic and collaborative industry," he added.
"Our industry has shown that we can work with the government as well as our partners and competitors to achieve mutually desirable goals of more competition, consumer choice and broadband expansion. But we can't achieve these ends if we interrupt the flow of private capital and delay the cascading productivity impacts of a more networked world," Seidenberg said in a keynote at SUPERCOMM 2009 on the eve of a critical FCC meeting where commissioners will start crafting so-called network neutrality rules. He also warned against "pitting network providers and applications developers against each other in a zero-sum game."
Meanwhile, an open letter signed by 30 business investors in technology companies was sent today to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Wednesday. Prominent venture capitalists --including five of the top ten ranked investors on the 2009 Forbes "Midas List" - support "the Commission's ongoing efforts to adopt rules to safeguard the open Internet." The proposal will drive "investment, job creation, and consumer welfare," they wrote.
Read more about Genachowski's game plan and Thursday's Commission meeting in CongressDaily AM Edition here (subscription required).
... Sen. (and Saturday Night Live alumnus) Al Franken, D-Minn., appearing at the Future of Music Coalition's annual policy summit, which runs Monday and Tuesday at Georgetown University. Franken delivers a day one keynote at noon in the university's Gaston Hall, 37th and O Streets, N.W., followed by another keynote at 2 p.m. -- in the same location -- by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. In addition, Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., a House Energy and Commerce member, as well officials from the U.S. Copyright Office and Justice Department will join high-tech and entertainment industry executives for numerous panels on the challenges and opportunities facing creators and fans in the rapidly evolving music business.
Read a full rundown of this week's tech policy events at CongressDaily's TechCentral here.
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman capped off Wednesday's U.S. Chamber of Commerce intellectual property summit by touching on a range of issues -- from patents to copyrights to trademarks. How does the former head of the now defunct Judiciary Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property Subcommittee keep abreast of the flurry of IP activity while heading up a panel with broad jurisdiction over international and diplomatic issues? "I can walk and chew gum at the same time," he said.
Berman said he hoped that the Senate will act on a version of a foreign relations reauthorization bill that would include language to increase resources and training for enforcement of IP rights. A bill he introduced, which overwhelmingly passed the House in June, would require the Secretary of State to appoint 10 new IP attachés to serve in embassies or other diplomatic missions with priority placement given to countries with particularly egregious IP regimes.
On the ongoing debate over whether and how to overhaul the U.S. patent system, Berman said he was hopeful that legislation could move forward. He noted that the Senate is poised to pave the way in the 111th Congress. Berman also said President Obama's nomination of the first White House IP enforcement coordinator last week should lead to "a more coherent and comprehensive federal policy." Rigorous enforcement and a focus on digital piracy should be at the top of that office's agenda, he said.
Days after an agreement was reached aimed at ensuring a permanent relationship between the U.S. government and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, experts from civil society, government, industry and academia will gather to discuss their hopes and fears about the future of the Internet. Topics at the Friday summit, being held at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, include cybersecurity, freedom of information in a Web 2.0 world, and privacy. Earlier this week, ICANN pledged to establish a review processes to help assess and improve its mission and operations. Read more in CongressDaily here (subscription required).
Speakers at the Internet Governance Forum-USA include Markus Kummer of the UN Secretariat for the global IGF; National Telecommunications and Information Administration chief Larry Strickling; and Lee Rainie of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Other participants include Electronic Privacy Information Center Executive Director Marc Rotenberg; and TechAmerica President Phil Bond. The closing plenary, which will feature Ambassador Phil Verveer and Richard Beaird of the State Department, will cover upcoming deliberations over the global IGF - a process now in its fourth year. Read more about the event here.
A new law taking effect this week in the Bahamas, which would restore copyright protection for U.S. pay television content, is a small but important illustration of how ensuring respect for intellectual property and implementing trade commitments can create markets for American innovators, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said Wednesday. The new law would provide legal protection against unauthorized broadcasts of American programming and, if properly implemented, could mean "that literally overnight, American cable companies will have a new export market for their shows."
Kirk told a U.S. Chamber of Commerce IP conference that his team is committed to creating similar opportunities with the country's larger trading partners as well as smaller ones. He said this can be accomplished with the help of tools like the USTR's "Special 301" process, which has evolved into a year-round affair, not just an annual report card on the world's worst IP offenders. The USTR on Wednesday launched five out-of-cycle Special 301 reviews that had been announced in April.
"We are committed to using the Special 301 process to highlight the need for reforms to address new challenges like Internet piracy, as we did this year with Canada, and also using the process to recognize meaningful progress, as we did this year with Korea," Kirk said. He added that his is committed to robust and results-oriented dialogues to make progress on IP issues. In the coming weeks, Kirk will travel to China and India for bilateral meetings and IP will be an important component of those talks.
For more coverage of Kirk at the Chamber's IP summit, read CongressDaily's PM Edition.
The Obama administration is weeks away from unveiling a comprehensive open government directive to push agencies toward greater accountability and transparency, Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra said Wednesday at a high-tech conference. The directive will lay out a structured schedule for the release of data in a machine-readable format and institute reporting requirements for agencies to describe how they will involve the public in open government initiatives, Chopra said.
He also told the crowd at the Gov 2.0 summit that more interactive Web-based platforms are in the works. The Obama administration launched an Internet-based dashboard in June that provides details about every major federal IT project at a single location, including each initiative's goals, schedule, cost outlays, key personnel, and contractors used. The OMB also runs Data.gov, a service that provides the public raw feeds of government information. Read CongressDaily's story here for more details (subscription required).
Some recent stats provided by OMB:
• The IT dashboard has received 53 million hits since its launch on June 30.
• The dashboard displays data from 28 agencies, information on more than 7,000 federal IT investments and detailed data on more than 780 large projects.
• The Data.gov catalog which, as of September, has 110,865 data sets, allows the American people to find, use, and repackage data held and generated by the government.
Washington reawakens next week after its late summer slumber and there are plenty of high-tech events taking place on and off Capitol Hill. Here's a quick rundown:
• The Gov 2.0 Summit takes place Wednesday and Thursday. Notables include White House Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra; Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra; Deputy CTO Beth Noveck; Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas; Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf; Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey; Facebook's Tim Sparapani; and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.
• The Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Privacy Coalition unveils a privacy report card for the Obama administration on Wednesday at the National Press Club. A panel of privacy experts will also discuss the administration's performance on several critical privacy issues.
• The House Judiciary Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee holds a Wednesday hearing on expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and on Thursday holds a full committee hearing on digitizing literature as a result of controversy surrounding the Google Books project.
The National Association of Broadcasters has nabbed the FCC's two newest commissioners -- Republican Meredith Baker and Democrat Mignon Clyburn -- to speak at the trade group's upcoming radio conference held Sept. 23-25 in Philadelphia. Commissioners Baker and Clyburn, who attended their first FCC meeting last week, are expected to discuss regulatory issues impacting the radio business and their priorities as new members of the agency. Baker most served as acting administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in the Bush administration and Clyburn joined the FCC from the Public Service Commission of South Carolina.
Other notables speaking at NAB's Radio Show include Scott Goodstein, who most recently served as external online director for President Obama's presidential campaign, as well as a number of broadcasting executives from Clear Channel Communications, Radio One, Emmis Communications, Saga Communications, Spanish Broadcasting System, Regent Communications, ICBC Broadcast Holdings and others. R&B artist Brian McKnight, who hosts his own show on Citadel Media Networks, will also perform during the NAB Marconi Radio Awards Dinner on Thursday, Sept. 24. For more on the conference click here.
It's August, and the House is already in its summer recess -- with several legislators heading for the Other Coast. On Wednesday, House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. -- both of whom are also co-chairmen of the Congressional Internet Caucus -- will be in Silicon Valley at the third annual State of the Net West conference at Santa Clara University. They'll be joined by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Aneesh Chopra, the Obama administration's chief technology officer.
The event, which draws a range of scholars, public interest advocates and industry executives, is organized by the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee and is an offshoot of a similar conference held annually in Washington. The conference begins a couple of days after a visit to Stanford University by newly installed FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, who will discuss telemedicine and health information technology along with Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. Read more about this week's tech policy events at CongressDaily's TechCentral site here (subscription required).
White House Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra believes a "huge, tectonic shift" is needed for government agencies to accept a new era of open government, which has become a major mission of the Obama administration. The bottom line, he told a high-tech conference on Tuesday, is that "at the end of the day we're stewards of taxpayer dollars and we need to be open and transparent around using that money." The latest project to launch in that space was in June when he unveiled a Web-based IT dashboard that sheds light on the performance of IT projects across government. As a result of that initiative, the Veterans Affairs Department said it was temporarily halting 45 projects that were found to be behind schedule or over budget.
"It's okay if a project is behind schedule as long as we understand what is causing the delay," Kundra said. "We need to understand the root cause so we can solve the problem." At the VA, the worst offender was 110 percent more expensive than planned and 17 months behind schedule. The agency plans to audit all the projects in question to determine whether additional resources or new management teams can get them back on track. "If we didn't highlight this and make data available, we would be continuing to plow good money after bad money," Kundra explained. Putting data out there through the IT dashboard and other initiatives forces agencies to take action and drive change across government, he said.
What about slowly aging Web offerings that predated the Obama era like FedBizOpps -- a contracting portal for commercial vendors and government buyers -- or the Federal Register's Web site? "We're looking at the lessons learned in investments from these platforms and making sure we can scale them," Kundra said. His team wants to ensure that the technology that supports those services is agile enough so the content can be repurposed. Similarly, legacy data systems used internally by agencies are being reviewed. "The key is to make sure we find those game-changing ideas and disrupt how we're thinking about the linear fashion in which we go out there and invest in technology," he said.
White House Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra and Defense Department Deputy Chief Information Officer David Wennergren on Tuesday stressed the importance of agencies embracing transparency while maintaining a focus on network security. During speeches at an open government conference, the pair emphasized the goals are not mutually exclusive. "We cannot have an either-or scenario," Chopra said, citing several recent examples of federal projects that accomplish both objectives. Wennergren said that risk avoidance doesn't work in the Web 2.0 world since "relentlessly sharing is what the future is all about."
"The more you block access, the more secure you feel. The less bad stuff gets in, the less good stuff gets out," he said, calling such a scenario a self-inflicted denial of service attack. Chopra also spoke about the Obama administration's aim to fundamentally change the culture across government "not just by words and regulatory activities" but also by facilitating what he called "frictionless platform generation." Early examples of this include wikis, blogs, and peer review platforms already launched by a range of agencies. Additionally, Chopra lauded DoD's information portal DefenseSolutions.gov, calling it a case study in how agencies can embrace technology and their user communities.
Much of Chorpra's comments were focused on the big picture -- how the United States can remain an "innovation machine" amid increasing global competition and rapidly changing technologies. The upside, he said, was that venture capitalists have begun showing success again by churning out innovative new companies. The downside is that the U.S. rate of growth across a number of innovation indicators -- like higher education attainment and the number of highly skilled scientists and researchers -- lags behind other countries. He cited a recent analysis by Rob Atkinson at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation as proof.
Former Sen. Mike Gravel, D-Alaska, a charismatic former candidate in the 2008 presidential election whose bizarre YouTube "Rock" video became an Internet phenomenon, chatted with Tech Daily Dose at the Personal Democracy Forum's annual conference Tuesday about President Obama's high-tech and cybersecurity agenda. As expected, Gravel has a lot on his mind. Enjoy!
When President Obama addressed calls for legalization of marijuana during his March online town hall, he proved that "when the people lead, the leaders will follow," Internet activist Jim Gilliam argued Tuesday at the Personal Democracy Forum's annual conference. Leading up to the big White House event, citizens were asked to vote on economic questions they wanted the commander in chief to answer. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws spearheaded a grassroots effort to push questions tying Mary Jane to economic improvement and job creation to the top of the heap. [Read related Tech Daily Dose coverage here].
"I don't know what this says about the online audience," Obama laughed during the webcast. "The answer is no, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy." Over 92,000 people submitted over 100,000 questions and cast over 3.5 million votes. More than 67,000 people watched the event online. After the town hall, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was pressed for details on the administration's pot policy, the California Budget Office released an estimate on revenue that could be generated by a marijuana tax, and Obama's drug czar Gil Kerlikowske said he would stop referring to the "war on drugs" because it was unhelpful.
"Obama knew what he was doing... He wanted outrage," said Gilliam, the creator of a Web site that imagines how the White House might work if it was run completely democratically by thousands of people over the Internet. On WhiteHouse2.org, decriminalizing marijuana ranks 22nd and legalizing medical marijuana ranks 44th. The site's top five user generated priorities for Obama include: replacing the federal income tax with a "FairTax;" restoring, upholding and defending the Constitution; ending corporate welfare; securing all U.S. borders; and letting banks that make bad loans go out of business.
Republican National Committee New Media Director Todd Herman stood before an auditorium full of technology experts on Tuesday, many of them left leaning, with the message that the Grand Old Party is preparing for a Web-based revolution. Tech-savvy conservatives have finished licking their campaign 2008 wounds and are ready to take advantage of the same kinds of Internet innovations that helped President Obama win his bid for the White House. "We'd be fools to not admit what happened," Herman told the Personal Democracy Forum's annual conference. The GOP was slow to rally Web supporters and got spanked on Election Day.
"I can tell you that's changing. Conservatives online are dying to organize," said Herman, who previously served as MSNBC's video evangelist. For starters, the RNC plans to re-launch GOP.com in about 45 days. While he refused to offer details on the new site's features, he said RNC Chairman Michael Steele told him to "take the lid off" when it comes to the party's Internet strategy. A memo Herman posted on GOP.com promises "[a] new look and a more enjoyable, modern, open and participatory way to share our ideals with the country." "The Web site you see today is difficult to update, hard to use, and locked in a Web 1.0 environment. It is also stale. It is in need of a massive spring clean," he wrote.
White House Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra on Tuesday unveiled a new Internet-based dashboard that makes available in a single location details about major information technology projects pursued by the federal government. Read more in CongressDaily's PM Edition.
On Tuesday, White House Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra and White House New Media Director Macon Phillips will unveil an Internet-based interactive dashboard that will make available in a single location details about every major information technology project pursued by the federal government. The big reveal will take place at the Personal Democracy Forum's annual conference in New York City. The Web site will let the public see each initiative's goals, schedule, cost outlays, key personnel, contractors employed, and where the effort stands in real time, Kundra has said. He launched a similar program as chief technology officer for the District of Columbia, where he worked before joining the administration. The plan is aligned with legislation introduced earlier this year by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Federal Financial Management Subcommittee Chairman Thomas Carper, D-Del., which called for a Web site to be updated quarterly with the price, schedule and performance details of major federal projects. Read more about the initiative in a recent CongressDaily story here and check in Tuesday for more details.
Blair Levin, the FCC official in charge of coordinating the development of the Obama administration's new national broadband plan, said Monday that a new Web site -- Broadband.gov -- will launch in a matter of days. His remarks came at the Personal Democracy Forum's annual conference where he spoke about the future of the Internet. Levin recently returned to the Commission where he served in the 1990s as chief of staff to former Chairman Reed Hundt. Before rejoining the FCC, Levin was managing director of Stifel Nicholaus and worked on President Obama's transition team. His speech was followed by a policy panel featuring Free Press Executive Director Josh Silver; National Cable and Telecommunications Association Executive Vice President James Assey; AT&T Vice President Hank Hultquist; and PDF co-founder Andrew Rasiej.
Meanwhile, Monday was FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's first official day on the job and he announced a handful of new hires. His chief of staff will be Edward Lazarus who hails from the law firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. Genachowski also appointed two senior advisors and two legal advisors to assist him on a range of policy issues. Colin Crowell, longtime telecom adviser to Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., will serve as senior counselor and Bruce Liang Gottlieb, who was legal advisor to Commissioner Michael Copps, will become chief counsel. Priya Aiyar, Sherrese Smith, Sherry Gelfand, Daniel Ornstein, Mary Beth Richards, and Ruth Milkman will round out his team. (Hat tip, NextGenWeb.org)
The longstanding belief that the U.S. government cannot fail continues to propagate a low tolerance of risk among agency Web managers despite the Obama administration's ambitious high-tech agenda, the team leader for a unit of USA.gov that provides online training and tools told a crowd at the Personal Democracy Forum's annual conference Monday. "We're told don't screw up because it will get on front page of Washington Post. That underlies everything you do," Sheila Campbell said. That culture of hesitancy paired with a personnel system that lets poorly performing employees stay in jobs without adequate tech training for many years, is impeding innovation, she added.
At the same time, watchdog groups that criticize the U.S. government for being slow to improve its Web presence need to realize that federal Web managers are drowning in data. Campbell acknowledged that no one truly knows how many government Web sites actually exist but said a good estimate is around 24,000 -- and some have more than one million pages apiece. Adding to the complexity is the fact that outdated content on those pages is not taken down in a timely fashion and laws like the Paperwork Reduction Act have not kept pace with the Internet era. Campbell said a variety efforts are underway to overhaul aging rules and recruit innovative people. President Obama has led by example, hiring Aneesh Chopra, Vivek Kundra, Beth Noveck and others.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is taking a page from White House Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra's playbook by announcing a new annual competition that will let his tech-savvy constituents repurpose raw government data to create innovative Internet applications. The forthcoming "Big Apps" project will be housed on NYC.gov and while the size of the initial data dump was not specified, Bloomberg told the Personal Democracy Forum's annual conference it would be "huge." "The point of collecting data is to manage information effectively... so why not allow the private sector to help us do so?" he reasoned during a keynote via a Skype video call.
Kundra spearheaded a similar project called "Apps For Democracy" while serving as chief technology officer for the District of Columbia government and in May launched Data.gov, a Web site that offers raw feeds of information from a range of federal agencies. Bloomberg's contest will offer cash prizes, publicity and networking opportunities to those who take part, he said. The billionaire businessman said he will also take the winners of the contest out to dinner "and we'll definitely order some apps." The 2008 D.C. government competition produced 47 applications in 30 days using open source programming for iPhones, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Google Maps and others.
The man who helped President Obama win his White House bid through a groundbreaking Internet mobilization effort offered some advice to the Republican Party on Monday during remarks at the Personal Democracy Forum's annual conference in New York City. To rebound in 2012, the GOP needs new leaders who not only understand technology but also can embrace "the wants, needs and desires of regular people across the country," new media strategist Joe Rospars said. "It will not only help them electorally but will also drag the leadership back toward the middle." During an exchange with Mark McKinnon, who advised Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on the campaign trail, Rospars argued the GOP has veered too far right and despite making some technological progress in recent years is still stuck in the pre-Web world.
"We got millions of people to do stuff... in a substantive way," Rospars said of the Obama campaign. "You have to capture something both at an emotional level and at a this-matters-to-me level." McKinnon agreed, saying the future of conservatism hinges on connecting with people in new ways. Republicans have to get "leaner, tougher and smarter" while using emerging online tools to spread the message that they understand what the American people care about. McKinnon said his party is suffering from a "leadership deficit" similar to the one Democrats experienced a decade ago. But he believes the GOP can regain its footing as voters begin to feel disenfranchised by the party in power. "I hope President Obama is an extraordinary success for the sake of our country [but] the hard stuff is just beginning," he said.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., is among the first in the political world to embrace ChallengePost.com, a Web site that lets users create and join challenges to accomplish goals. The New York City based start-up launched Monday at the Personal Democracy Forum's annual Internet and politics conference. Gingrich's wishes include:
• "Create a method of learning math and science that kids like, and that enables us to leapfrog India and China."
• "Create a method for reusing nuclear waste to make Yucca Mountain, Nevada unnecessary as a repository."
• "Create the first privately financed permanent lunar base."
• "Create a reusable system that could get people into space at 10% of the current cost, thus enabling genuine space tourism and launching an age of exploration."
• "Create a cheap method for turning large quantities of seawater into fresh water."
• "Create a modestly priced, mass-manufacturable hydrogen engine for cars, which would be the biggest single contribution to reducing carbon loading of the atmosphere and reducing subsidies through high oil prices to dictatorships."
• "Create a low-cost vaccine or preventive intervention for malaria -- possibly the single biggest potential improvement in the quality of life in poor tropical countries."
ChallengePost founder Brandon Kessler got the idea after seeing 23-year-old Colin Nederkoorn's contest to run Windows XP on an Intel Mac in 2006. Donations poured in, bringing the cash award to more than $13,000. The ChallengePost community can similarly add prize money to competitions they think are worthwhile. Read more here.
Arrive early and brace for a crowd if you'll be attending Tuesday's highly anticipated FCC nomination hearing, when Julius Genachowski, President Obama's choice to run the agency, appears before the Senate Commerce Committee. Also appearing at the session, which kicks off at 2:30 p.m. in Room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building, will be FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, a Republican who has been nominated for a second term. Genachowski -- a close friend and law school classmate of the president, and Obama's chief technology adviser during the campaign -- is expected to oversee an ambitious agenda if confirmed, with new broadband policies as the centerpiece.
Speaking of which...The Internet Innovation Alliance, a coalition of businesses and non-profits, hosts a Wednesday event at the Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. on the development of the FCC's national broadband strategy. Guest speakers at the gathering, which runs from 8:45 a.m. to 2 p.m., include West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin. And that's followed Thursday and Friday by the annual Broadband Policy Summit sponsored by Pike and Fischer, to be held at the Sheraton Crystal City Hotel, 1800 Jefferson Davis Highway in Arlington, Va. Keynote speakers Thursday are House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and the head honcho at the FCC pending Genachowski's confirmation: acting Chairman Michael Copps.
For more tech-related happenings this week, check CongressDaily's TechCentral page.
Vivek Kundra, the Obama administration's newly appointed chief information officer; Craigslist.org founder Craig Newmark; Mark McKinnon, former media adviser for President George W. Bush; and Joe Rospars, the Obama campaign's new media director, are among the keynoters at the sixth annual Personal Democracy Forum in New York City later this month. The June 29-30 conference will draw a range of Internet, new media and political experts who will discuss how technological advances and Internet trends are affecting politics and government. Tech Daily Dose readers can get a $100 discount on the registration fee by clicking here.
France's Constitutional Court on Wednesday struck down a key portion of a recently enacted law that gave the government the ability to disconnect Internet users who illegally download music and movies. Under the so-called "three strikes" regime, which President Nicolas Sarkozy endorsed and lawmakers approved in May, users who download content without paying for it would get an e-mail from the government followed by a letter and a third warning before their Web connectivity is cut off for as long as one year. Concerns about a similar proposal permeated talks between the United States and a handful of trading partners as they work toward completion of an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.
The high court also found that access to the Internet in is among citizens' fundamental freedoms that cannot be curtailed or interrupted without intervention from a judge. The ruling came as a number of foreign entertainment industry executives gathered in Washington for the World Copyright Summit. French Minister of Culture and Communication Christine Albanel was scheduled to speak Tuesday but she canceled due to the likelihood that the court would rule this week. International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers Secretary General Eric Baptiste broke the news to attendees, saying his group was disappointed with the decision.
Sarkozy's supporters are not wasting time formulating a new plan. International Federation of the Phonographic Industry Executive Vice President Shira Perlmutter told the conference that policymakers are already crafting a modified bill that will maintain the same graduated response approach but transfer some powers to a special court. The French movement was an important step forward in recognizing that music stakeholders need to work with Internet service providers, Perlmutter said during a session about the role of ISPs, which lacked a broadband provider representative. "It put in place a system that would be more effective and less draconian than having to sue a lot of individuals," she said.
One-size-fits-all policymaking does not produce favorable outcomes when developing countries are trying to formulate solid intellectual property regimes, World Bank Senior Vice President Anne-Marie Leroy told the World Copyright Summit on Wednesday. That's why her organization has supported a range of projects in various countries aimed at helping them stand up personalized IP protection processes and avoid the pitfalls of cutting and pasting regulations from other legal systems. In the late 1990s, the bank offered millions of dollars to Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico for that purpose, Leroy said. Additionally, a multi-million dollar trust fund program has supported investments in the music industries of Ghana, Senegal, Jordan and Nigeria.
"Domestic IP policies and laws should adapt standards that are well within their domestic institutional capacity to implement," she said, noting that it's important to avoid creating what she called "systemic internal inconsistencies" that eventually lead to failures in IP enforcement. Distortions in a country's IP framework provide gaps and opportunities for abuse and corruption, Leroy added. In the big development picture, however, intellectual property is only one component for stimulating competitive commercial infrastructures, she said. Other key ingredients include reforming tariff and tax policies; reducing the cost of trade; and advocating for export promotion policies.
Congressional Intellectual Property Promotion and Piracy Prevention Caucus Co-Chair Robert Wexler warned an international crowd of copyright executives Wednesday that the intellectual property policy push outside of Washington and Brussels has not gained enough steam. Most average citizens would be unable to describe what IP piracy is and others don't see it as a threat, the Florida Democrat said during a luncheon keynote at the World Copyright Summit. He cautioned that momentum for international IP infringers is building and offered as proof the fact that Sweden's Pirate Party won a seat in the European Parliament early Sunday. The group, buoyed by young people and first-time voters, became known earlier this year for its support of the controversial file-sharing Web site Pirate Bay.
Government and private sector efforts to make IP theft taboo have fallen short, he said. "Those of us who understand the importance of IP law fail to do the job of educating others toward our point of view," Wexler said, urging creators, governments and industry to spread a cohesive message. "We have a great story to tell but we must tell it better." Traditional advocacy is not enough because it gets lost in a sea of detractors who "don't necessarily play by the rules," Wexler said. Groups like Sweden's Pirate Party, which wants more free Internet content, woo supporters with attractive prose that is not based in fact, he said. "We end up with the difficult task of explaining the finer points of copyright law to a public that has little or no interest in an explanation," Wexler said.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Tuesday he is hopeful the Senate Judiciary Committee will move forward on its intellectual property agenda as early as this summer despite a packed schedule of judicial appointments, most prominently that of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Among the issues awaiting the panel's attention include a proposal to end an AM/FM radio royalty exemption; overhauling a portion of U.S. copyright law that deals with musical tracks, images, videos or other content whose owners cannot be easily located; and a bill to reauthorize expiring provisions of a statute that lets satellite systems retransmit local and distant TV signals into markets across the country. His comments at the World Copyright Summit echoed Thursday remarks by Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy.
"There's no question that radio play promotes artists and their sound recordings," Hatch, himself a songwriter. "There's also no question that radio stations profit directly from playing artists' recordings." Despite an oppositional lobbying blitz by the National Association of Broadcasters, a bill that would require payments to performers passed the House Judiciary Committee last month. Representatives from both camps faced off at the conference with NAB and Recording Industry Association of America executives predicting a lengthy, potentially multi-year fight. "The question is not will this pass, but when will it pass," RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol said. Digital Media Association Executive Director Jonathan Potter and Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn urged for a broadening of the effort to ensure parity across music platforms, including Internet radio.
Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn urged the Obama administration on Tuesday to employ "a nuanced, balanced" approach to naming key intellectual property posts in the federal government. President Obama has yet to name a White House IP enforcement coordinator, as mandated by a law that passed the 110th Congress, or Patent and Trademark Office director. She told the World Copyright Summit that the IP czar should not be a policymaker but instead must focus on harmonizing efforts by a range of agencies that have enforcement authority. "There needs to be someone to get them all on the same page," Sohn said, lauding the work of the Bush administration's key IP officer Chris Israel who was stationed at the Commerce Department. "We don't think the job should change -- it just has more gravitas," she said.
Copyright Alliance Executive Director Patrick Ross, who regularly finds himself at odds with Sohn's viewpoint, agreed that filling vacant IP positions are important and he has been pleased with the administration's appointments to date. His group, which represents major IP owners and content creators, was pleased to see two entertainment industry lawyers -- Thomas Perrelli and Donald Verrilli -- join the Justice Department. Sohn's group, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, the Consumer Electronics Association and other tech stakeholders complained in a letter to Obama that both previously represented "the concentrated copyright industries" and future appointments should be more evenhanded.
The 2009 World Copyright Summit kicks off Monday night with some star power: Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees hosts a cocktail party on the pavilion of the Reagan Building and International Trade Center - where the conference runs through Wednesday. Gibb is not the only cultural icon in D.C. for this week's gathering: Attendees also include filmmaker Milos Forman and artist Frank Stella. But if your taste veers more to policy than foreign films, abstract art or the "Saturday Night Fever"/1970s disco craze, there's plenty of that, too.
The formal part of the conference gets underway Tuesday with a keynote speech by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah (who occasionally takes a break from his day job by composing songs), and the Wednesday morning keynoter is Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (one of the Grateful Dead's better known fans). Also on the agenda: House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, who delivers a Wednesday afternoon keynote, and Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Intellectual Property Stan McCoy, who appears Tuesday.
And, if you miss Robin Gibb at Monday's cocktail party, you can catch him at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday when he delivers the closing speech of the conference - which is being hosted by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers, of which Gibb happens to be president. For further information, contact (202) 778-1305 or go to the summit's Web site. For more details on this week's tech and telecom policy events, visit CongressDaily's TechCentral page here.
The FCC has cleared the decks for a Wednesday public meeting slated to focus solely on the final phase of the nationwide shift to digital television signals on Friday, June 12 -- nine days after the FCC session -- when more than 900 stations will cut their analog transmissions. In a replay of previous agency meetings addressing the same topic, federal officials, broadcasters, advocacy groups and other stakeholders will provide status reports about the switchover. The meeting kicks off at 9:30 a.m. at FCC headquarters.
Meanwhile, the buzz over the Obama administration's Friday release of its comprehensive cybersecurity review continues this week -- initially with a noon briefing today sponsored by the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee. Panelists will discuss the report, the role of the forthcoming White House "cyber czar" and the potential challenges in implementing the recommendations coming out of the White House review. Included on the panel are former Homeland Security Department Assistant Secretary for Policy Stewart Baker; James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Business Software Alliance President Robert Holleyman; Greg Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology; and Marcus Sachs of Verizon.
The White House cybersecurity report will also be the subject of discussion and debate at the 19th annual Computers Freedom and Privacy conference this week. Attendees will hear from Susan Crawford, special assistant to the president for science, technology and innovation policy and a member of the National Economic Council -- who appears Tuesday. Other panels at the conference -- which runs through Thursday at George Washington University's Marvin Center -- will address issues including privacy, health IT, cloud computing, and Web safety. The conference also features a keynote by Craigslist founder Craig Newmark as well as officials from the FTC and FBI.
The season of springtime communications policy summits continues this week when the advocacy group Free Press -- a relentless critic of the Bush administration that starting getting its calls returned after Jan. 20 -- hosts a Thursday event featuring acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps and White House technology adviser Susan Crawford. The conference also will include a roundtable discussion with two former FCC chairmen, Reed Hundt and Michael Powell; Senate Commerce Committee staff member Jessica Rosenworcel; high-tech venture capitalist and Google investor Ram Shriram and Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott. It kicks off at 9:30 a.m. Thursday at the Newseum.
The Free Press summit takes place as the telecommunications community eagerly awaits a new chairman and two new commissioners for the FCC. The Senate Commerce Committee last Thursday abruptly postponed this week's scheduled confirmation hearing of Julius Genachowski to be the next FCC chairman -- amid indications that Republicans are coalescing around Meredith Baker, a former Commerce Department official, to fill a GOP vacancy on the commission. Pending that, the FCC Wednesday holds its monthly public meeting with a noticeably modest agenda -- as it stays focused on the June 12 completion of the nation's switchover to digital television.
Meanwhile, key Senate and House committees will summon Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to Capitol Hill for a series of hearings on the department's FY10 budget request, unveiled late last week. Napolitano is slated to testify Tuesday before the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee as well as the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. On Wednesday, Napolitano is scheduled to go before the House Homeland Security Committee and the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. On Thursday, the DHS' Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee will meet to hear presentations on the US VISIT and E-Verify programs.
On Wednesday, a parade of lawmakers will meet with high-tech executives at the Computer and Communications Industry Association's 36th annual Washington Caucus. Among those slated to speak are House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va.; House Science Chairman Bart Gordon; and Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.; Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Kevin Brady, R-Texas, are also scheduled to make appearances, along with FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz and several other Obama administration officials. The day-long session kicks off at 8 a.m. at the Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Meanwhile, the Wireless Communications Association holds a "policy summit" on Tuesday and Wednesday keynoted by Sean Maloney, an executive vice president at Intel. Congressional staffers, industry executives and advocacy group representatives are slated to speak, including AT&T lobbyist Jim Cicconi and Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott. The event is headquartered at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, 1000 H Street, N.W. Sessions will address the broadband stimulus program, network neutrality and spectrum policy, among other topics. The WCA holds the event as federal regulators shape a $7.2 billion loan and grant program that seeks to expand broadband connectivity to rural regions and other areas with limited or no service. For more details, read "This Week's Highlights" at CongressDaily's TechCentral Web site.
As health policy experts around the world continue to monitor the spread of the serious disease formerly known as "swine flu" (now called the "2009 H1N1 flu"), Nobel laureate Peter Agre offered attendees at an annual science and technology summit this week an easy way to greet one another without grasping hands. Agre is president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Watch his demo video above. Read more about the AAAS conference here.
The United States and European Union must be united in their approach to fighting intellectual property crime, former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez told a transnational conference on IP enforcement on Monday. "We probably have the most at stake," he said at the event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "It is a necessary partnership. Without it, I don't think we can fight [counterfeiting and piracy]." Gutierrez, who served in the Bush administration Cabinet from 2005 to 2009 and now works with the influential business group on trade policy, said solutions to many challenges in this arena "will come from the industries that rely on IP." "We have to innovate our way out of the crisis," he said. Gutierrez pointed to the fact that major U.S. brands were born during previous economic downturns. In the 1980s, Microsoft and Genentech came into being and during the Great Depression, companies like Hewlett-Packard and Texas Instruments emerged. "We have the ability to emerge successfully from this recession but it depends on our ability to protect IP," he stressed. "Now more than ever we can't allow for a world trading system to emerge where somehow intellectual property rights aren't protected." Read more about the conference in CongressDaily's PM Edition.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, fine-tuned his comedy act at a Motion Picture Association of America luncheon this week by telling a roomful of studio execs what he learned from the big screen:
• During all police investigations, it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.
• If being chased through town, you can usually take cover in a passing St. Patrick's Day parade any time of the year.
• It's easy for anyone to land a plane, provided there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.
• The ventilation system of any building is a perfect hiding place. No one will come looking for you, and you can travel to any other part of the building you want without being noticed, and there's never any dust or lint.
• If you need to reload your gun, you will always have more ammunition, even if you haven't been carrying any before.
• You are very likely to survive any battle of any war unless you show someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.
• A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating, but will wince when a woman cleans his wounds.
Melissa Hathaway, a top adviser to Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, offered what she called a "movie trailer" of the recommendations she made in a report to President Obama after finishing a 60-day federal cybersecurity review. Details of the examination and her findings, which were delivered to Obama and key White House officials late last week, will be made public once the president and the administration have had a chance to review the material. Nevertheless, Hathaway told the RSA security summit Wednesday that it is "the fundamental responsibility of our government to address strategic vulnerabilities in cyberspace and to ensure that the United States and the world can realize the full potential of the information technology revolution."
That responsibility transcends the jurisdictional purview of individual departments and agencies because no single agency has a broad enough perspective to match the sweep of the challenges, she said at the San Francisco gathering of high-tech and security experts. Hathaway also said dealing with tech threats requires "leading from the top" -- from the White House, to departments and agencies, state, local, tribal governments, the "C-suite," and to the local classroom and library. "The White House must lead the way forward with leadership that draws upon the strength, advice and ideas of the entire nation," she said in prepared remarks provided to the press.
The federal government cannot entirely delegate or abrogate its role in securing the nation from a cyber incident or accident, Hathaway said, emphasizing the importance of private sector support. "The public and private sector's interests are intertwined with a shared responsibility for ensuring a secure, reliable infrastructure upon which businesses and government services depend," she said. Hathaway closed with a bit of humor: "I almost forgot, this speech will now self-destruct, but don't worry... this is the Internet-age, there are already hundreds of copies which you can download online."
From Thursday's CongressDaily PM Edition...
When movie-studio executives meet in Washington next week, their message to the Obama administration and Congress will be straightforward: Hollywood contributes heavily to the U.S. economy, and policies friendly to movie and television production and distribution can help the country rebound. Unlike executives from other industries, members of the Motion Picture Association of America are not seeking handouts, the trade group's top lobbyist told CongressDaily. "We're coming to D.C. to highlight the positive impact of our industry and show that we're part of the solution," Michael O'Leary said. At the MPAA's Business of Show Business symposium Tuesday, speakers will underscore the millions of jobs and billions of dollars in wages they produce across the nation, much if it from off-camera work from local crews and catering to costumes and special effects.
Read the full story here (subscription required).
Senate Commerce Committee member John Thune, R-S.D.; Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.; Virginia Technology Secretary Aneesh Chopra; and Internet visionary Susan Crawford, who is now working for the White House's National Economic Council, will headline the inaugural State of the Mobile Net policy conference on Capitol Hill later this month. The April 23 conference, hosted by the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee, will bring together mobile and wireless policy pros and tech industry leaders to discuss policy and marketplace issues facing the dynamically evolving mobile Internet.
Panelists will probe key public policy issues on panels such as "Spectrum: Is the Lifeblood of the Mobile Net Running Dry?," "Privacy on the Go," and "What Policy Framework Will Further Enable Innovation on the Mobile Net?" The conference will also feature educational panels on such topics as "What is the Mobile Net: Understanding the Mobile Net Ecosystem", "Cloud Computing and Emerging Business Models in the Mobile Space," and "Mobile Network Infrastructure Trends." More information about the conference and the full agenda can be found here.
The Progress and Freedom Foundation is postponing its popular annual policy summit, which was to be held this August at Robert Redford's swanky Sundance Resort in Utah. PFF President Ken Ferree cited the nation's ongoing economic woes as the rationale for pulling the plug on the popular outside the Beltway event. "We do not think it prudent to spend our supporters' money, or ask others to spend scarce dollars, on a lavish conference at a remote facility," Ferree said in a press release. He said the free market think tank intends to reschedule the conference when economic conditions improve, and in the interim use its resources as efficiently as possible on local events and publications. The summer retreat for lobbyists and policy experts had been held in Aspen, Colo. for 14 years before the group decided to relocate for 2009.
The conference theme was supposed to be "A New Deal for the Digital Age" to set the stage for a searching inquiry about policy priorities in the Obama administration. Panelists and keynote speakers intended to discuss the future of public policy in the fields of communications, intellectual property and e-commerce. The summit is known for attracting big name speakers like former FCC Chairman Michael Powell, Sun Microsystems' Jonathan Schwartz, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Viacom founder Sumner Redstone. A PFF spokeswoman said in the near term, the organization will revitalize its congressional seminar series and is planning several events focused on the Internet, telecom industry and online child safety. The luncheon event examining the way forward for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which coordinates the administration of the domain name system, is scheduled for April 24.
The Motion Picture Association of America has announced the line-up of speakers for its April 21 Business of Show Business symposium in Washington, which will include a luncheon keynote by professional wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne Johnson. Johnson, who was known to World Wrestling Entertainment fans as "The Rock," got his big screen break in Universal Pictures' "The Mummy Returns" and appeared in box office hits "The Scorpion King" and "The Game Plan." In recent years, Johnson has established himself as a top leading man in Hollywood and was most recently seen in Walt Disney Pictures' "Race to Witch Mountain," which opened at #1 at the box office on March 13.
In addition to Johnson, speakers include Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La.; heads of film offices for Chicago, Philadelphia, and Georgia; "Angels and Demons" Executive Producer Todd Hallowell; Paramount Executive Vice President Chris Carey; Pixar Vice President Rob Cook; costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis; and Blue Sky Studios Chief Technology Officer Carl Ludwig. "So much goes in to making a film - from local crews and catering to handmade period costumes and innovative special effects - this event is a forum to showcase America's off-screen stars and give everyone a better sense of the business behind the movies," MPAA Chairman Dan Glickman said in a press release.
The Consumer Electronics Association later this month will honor Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., as the trade group's 2009 Digital Patriots. The awards will be handed out April 22 at a banquet that is part of the annual CEA Washington Forum. Blunt, who is a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and is the second highest ranking Republican in the House, is being recognized for his leadership on the digital television transition. Meeks is an outspoken advocate for international trade and its benefits for the U.S. economy and chairs the House Financial Services Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology. This year's Washington Forum will focus on technology policy priorities in the new administration. Event highlights include keynote addresses by David Plouffe, campaign manager, Obama for America; Paul Begala of CNN; and Tucker Carlson of MSNBC. Visits to Congressional offices will take place Tuesday, April 21 followed by dinner at the Newseum. For more information about the event, click here.
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman was a no-show at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association's 58th annual convention on Wednesday night. He was scheduled to keynote a $350 per plate dinner at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel. The banquet was a fundraiser for the Cable Pioneers group, which was scheduled to induct 25 men and women who have served the cable industry for more than two decades and made meaningful contributions in the industry's evolution. Waxman was busy on the House floor managing a bill that passed his committee last month that would give the Food and Drug Administration the authority to ban marketing and sales of tobacco to children.
The lawmaker wasn't the only one who cancelled an appearance at the 2009 Cable Show on Wednesday. Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.DC, were expected at an earlier event but had scheduling conflicts. On Thursday and Friday, attendees are scheduled to hear from House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va.; acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps; FCC Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Robert McDowell; other representatives from the Obama administration and industry analysts. For more about the Cable Show's public policy track click here.
The National Cable and Telecommunications Association's 58th annual convention being held at the Washington Convention Center this week will attract thousands of attendees as well as a handful of prominent lawmakers. Plus organizers are expecting a number of celebrity appearances during exhibition floor hours. Here are some highlights:
Cable Positive: MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, Thursday 2-3 p.m.
Comcast: Washington Redskins' quarterback Jason Campbell, Wednesday 4:30-6 p.m.
Fox Cable Networks: Major League Baseball's Lou Brock, Wednesday, 3:30-5 p.m.
Speed Channel: NASCAR's Richard Petty, Thursday, 11-12:30 p.m.
FX: The cast of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" (Danny Devito, Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton and Kaitlin Olson), Thursday 2-4 p.m.
SCI FI Channel: Colin Ferguson, star of "Eureka," Wednesday, 3 p.m.
NBCU: Olympic gold medalist Dan Jansen, Wednesday 4:30 p.m.
Bravo: Ariane Duarte of "Top Chef," Thursday 11 a.m.
CNN: Wolf Blitzer, Thursday 11 a.m.-12 p.m.
USA Network: WWE Superstar Batista, Thursday 1:15 p.m.
For more on the Cable Show, click here and read coverage in CongressDaily.
The Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday resumes its markup of legislation that would overhaul the U.S. patent system. The panel began consideration of Chairman Patrick Leahy's measure Thursday but saved the tougher topics for later. Proposals to address how damages are awarded in patent infringement lawsuits have been circulated among members, including language offered by Judiciary ranking member Arlen Specter and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to provide courts with clearer requirements on handling evidence of infringement and determining damages.
Meanwhile, the House Homeland Security Emerging Threats Subcommittee Tuesday will examine whether payment card industry data standards reduce cybercrime. The security requirements, created to reduce the number and size of data breaches, apply to all businesses that store, process, or transmit cardholder data. Homeland Security Department-funded intelligence "fusion centers" will be the focus of a Wednesday hearing by the House Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee. Members will discuss the department inspector general's December report on the state-run facilities, as well as recently adopted operational baseline capabilities for fusion centers.
Washington will be the center of activity for the cable television biz this week when the industry's annual convention returns to the nation's capital and its convention center after a 38-year hiatus. The packed agenda features several marquee policymakers and executives, with Senate Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., kicking off the event Tuesday night with a speech. Senate Commerce ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor and House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman will appear Wednesday.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, on Wednesday laid out his argument for why legislation he cosponsored with Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy should include an "inequitable conduct" provision that would rule patents invalid if owners are not forthcoming to the Patent and Trademark Office. The language was part of a bill that passed Leahy's panel last Congress but was axed from the version they reintroduced this year. "Inequitable conduct reform is core to patent reform, as it dictates how patents are prosecuted years before litigation," Hatch told a symposium on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
The inequitable conduct defense is frequently pled, rarely proven, and always drives up the cost of litigation, he said. If an inequitable conduct claim wins, a valid patent will be held entirely void, and the infringer walks away without any liability, he added. There is "virtually no downside for the infringer to raise this type of attack." Yet Hatch acknowledged the generic drug industry deems the inequitable conduct defense sacrosanct and any attempt to change it will be met with opposition. Once compromise is reached on that issue and on how to calculate damages in a patent lawsuit, "the rest of the bill will fall into place," he said.
With respect to damages, Hatch said specific language like "apportionment, contribution over prior art, or essential features" has been dismissed by many but at last week's Judiciary hearing, Hatch said he heard agreement on a gatekeeper approach where a judge instructs juries on what factors to consider in determining damages and agreement that damages should be based on the economic value of the invention to the infringed product or process. The bill has been listed for a Thursday mark up but will likely be held over. At the event, Hatch also told a joke with the punch line: "But you're a patent attorney, you don't know enough law to hurt anybody." Follow the jump to read it...
FBI agents raided the former District of Columbia government office of President Barack Obama's federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra Thursday and arrested two individuals as part of a federal investigation, FBI Washington Field Office spokeswoman Katherine Schweit said. Yusaf Acar, an information systems security officer, and Sushil Bansal, the founder of a local IT consulting firm that was awarded city contracts, were expected to be arraigned as early as this afternoon, but no other details were available at press time for CongressDaily's PM Edition.
Before being named to the OMB post last week, Kundra served as the city's chief technology officer under Mayor Adrian Fenty. As the raid was taking place, Kundra was at the Washington Convention Center speaking to the FOSE government IT conference. During his keynote, he discussed the challenges of changing federal agencies through technology. "It's not easy but it's not impossible," he told the crowd. "We can be leaders when it comes to innovation especially in these tough economic times." Part of his plan to engage the public is hosting weekend forums where he will "invite anyone who has ideas to share."
Watch C-SPAN video of Kundra's speech here and read more about Kundra's ambitious agenda from a recent teleconference with reporters here.
Henry Selick, director of the recently released 3-D, stop-motion animated film "Coraline," will keynote at the National Association of Broadcasters' annual April extravaganza in Las Vegas, organizers announced Thursday. On Monday, April 20, Selick will offer NAB Show attendees his thoughts on how digital technology has helped to revitalize the handcrafted approach of stop-motion animation. His film, distributed by Focus Features, offers what Selick calls "a fully immersive three-dimensional movie-going experience."
"Coraline," which is the first stop-motion animated feature to be shot entirely in stereoscopic 3-D, opened in U.S. theaters Feb. 6 and has generated over $40 million at the box office. Selick is also well-known for other directorial works including "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "James and the Giant Peach." The NAB Show takes place April 18-23. Other big names slated to attend include David Helfand, editor of "Weeds" and "That '70s Show;" "Hairspray" editor Michael Tronick; and "The Fast and the Furious" director Rob Cohen. Read more about the NAB Show here.
As the 111th Congress gets underway, the coming week includes several events that feature -- or are at least likely to touch upon - the intellectual property debate.
▪ Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy will discuss his committee's legislative agenda for the 111th Congress in a Monday speech at Georgetown University. While his address, entitled "Restoring Trust in the Justice System," is expected to center on oversight of the Justice Department in the new administration, Leahy -- who is currently moving to reintroduce legislation overhauling the patent system -- may also take the opportunity to discuss the U.S. patent and copyright regimes and other intellectual property issues.
▪ The chief executive of computer chip manufacturer Intel will visit Capitol Hill Tuesday afternoon to discuss how investments in innovation can help drive the nation's long-term economic growth. Intel CEO Paul Otellini will share the floor of the Russell Caucus Room with senators from states where the company has facilities like Arizona, California, New Mexico and Oregon. Otellini will speak earlier in the day to the Economic Club of Washington. That evening, he will attend a reception celebrating the merger of the Information Technology Industry Association and the American Electronics Association.
▪ The FTC Wednesday and Thursday will hold the second in a series of hearings exploring the evolving market for intellectual property. The session, which will feature a keynote by U.S. District Judge Sue Robinson of Delaware, will examine remedies for patent infringement. The topic of how damages are handled in patent lawsuits -- an issue that sunk sweeping patent legislation in the 110th Congress -- also will be discussed, as will the impact of permanent injunctions in the wake of a landmark 2006 Supreme Court case involving Internet auction site eBay.
▪ The annual Future of Music Coalition summit, taking place Wednesday, will focus on issues arising in the courts, Congress, and the FCC as well as at the U.S. Copyright Office. Acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps and FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein are scheduled to speak, along with representatives from Free Press, Media Access Project, Recording Industry Association of America, Songwriters Guild of America, among others.
A popular annual summer retreat for Washington technology and telecommunications policy professionals, which has been held in Aspen, Colo. for 14 years, will move to Sundance, Utah in 2009. Progress and Freedom Foundation President Ken Ferree said his think tank wanted to "do something unique" this year and the Sundance Resort -- situated on 6,000 acres of wilderness at the base of Mount Timpanogos -- is an ideal setting to bring a fresh feel to the Aug. 9-11 event. "I'm sure the attendees will enjoy the change of scenery," Ferree said. This year's theme, "A New Deal for the Digital Age," sets the stage for a searching inquiry about policy priorities in the new administration, PFF said in a press release. Panelists and keynote speakers will discuss the future of public policy in the fields of communications, intellectual property and e-commerce. The summit, which is usually held at the swanky St. Regis in Aspen, is known for attracting big name speakers like former FCC Chairman Michael Powell, Sun Microsystems President Jonathan Schwartz, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Viacom founder Sumner Redstone.
FBI Director Robert Mueller emphasized the importance of information sharing among federal, state and local law enforcement agencies Friday during a speech to the National Sheriffs' Association. He told the group that the modern day FBI is an intelligence-driven organization and as such has improved the quantity and quality of its intelligence reporting and enhanced its technology so that data can get into their hands faster. "The FBI relies on your eyes and ears and expertise as we work together to prevent both crime and terrorism," he told the crowd.
One example he gave was the launch of e-Guardian earlier this month -- a program that allows the FBI to quickly share information about suspicious activities. Mueller said the agency is in the midst of developing the Next Generation Identification system, which expands on the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System and will include advanced biometrics. Additionally, Mueller pointed out that sheriffs can access FBI intelligence reports through a database that supports over 120,000 partners and can search and compare cases nationwide through the National Data Exchange.
Two citizen journalists from the popular social networking community MySpace.com and video-sharing destination YouTube.com have been invited to the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland following online contests on both sites. Rebecca McQuigg from Los Angeles and Pablo Camacho from Bogotá, Colombia will represent MySpace and YouTube, respectively, reporting to their Web fans from the summit, which begins Wednesday and will attract over 2,500 participants.
The MySpace contest asked contestants to submit a video explaining why they should be chosen to report on the meeting for the MySpace community, as well as answer one of the following questions: If you were given the opportunity to take one person (living or historical) to Davos to make an impact on the annual meeting, who would it be, and why? If you could engage the entire MySpace community in doing one thing to help make an economic difference, what would it be? Why do you deserve the chance to attend the meeting as the MySpace special correspondent, and how will your participation engage the audience? Follow McQuigg's coverage here.
Camacho was one of over 250 YouTubers who participated in the Davos Debates, sending in video replies from all over the world including Afghanistan, Canada, Egypt, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Panama, the Philippines, Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. His coverage will be posted here. Tech leaders planning to attend the conference include Intel Corp. Chairman Craig Barrett, Cisco Systems Chairman John Chambers, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs, Google co-founder Larry Page, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith and others.
The tech-savvy generation that helped President Barack Obama win the White House is expected to play an important role in politics and policy in the new administration just as they did on the campaign trail. On Tuesday, a panel of political experts and youth organizers will explain how at "The State of the Youth Vote: Engagement Beyond the Election," an event cosponsored by the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management and 18 in '08 -- a nonprofit dedicated to mobilizing and engaging young people in politics and public policy.
NBC News youth correspondent Luke Russert will moderate. Panelists include:
▪ David Burstein, founder and executive director of 18 in '08
▪ Tom Manatos, youth outreach director for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
▪ Hans Riemer, former youth vote director for Obama for America
▪ Matt Segal, founder of the Student Association for Voter Empowerment
▪ Judy Woodruff, senior correspondent, PBS's "The NewsHour"
In the last three general elections -- 2004, 2006, and 2008 -- young voters have given the Democratic Party a majority of their votes, and for all three cycles they have been the party's most supportive age group, according to a post-election report by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. In 2008, 66 percent of those under age 30 voted for Obama making the disparity between young voters and other age groups larger than in any presidential election since exit polling began in 1972.
Over the weekend, the Smithsonian Institution assembled a group of more than 30 Internet and new media experts as well as curators, scientists and administrators to explore how they can make the museums' vast collections, educational resources, and staff more accessible, engaging, and useful to younger generations. "This is about a transformation -- going from a condition where 137 million objects are hardly ever seen by the public to one where they're seen by anybody who has access to the Web," Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough said in a videotaped welcome message.
Guests included Microsoft's James Bernard; Digital Library Foundation Executive Director Peter Brantley; MySpace Senior Vice President Allen Hurff; Facebook Associate Account Manager Jeff Kanter; Target.com Vice President Pete Kocks; Sun Microsystems Chief Gaming Officer Chris Melissinos; CD Baby founder Derek Sivers and a number of other top tech thinkers from industry and academia. Their charge was try to identify how to move the Smithsonian forward toward a "Smithsonian 2.0." About 24 million visitors come through the Smithsonian's doors annually but an estimated 175 million visit on the Internet. Read more about the event here.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Knight Center of Digital Excellence will host a Sunday discussion about how making investments in broadband technology can connect, enable, and transform communities. The event takes place in conjunction with the mayors' annual winter meeting in Washington. Panelists include USCM President Manny Diaz, mayor of Miami; Akron, Ohio Mayor Donald Plusquellic; Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibarguen and others.
At the organization's June meeting, members voted in favor of a resolution calling on the president, Congress and the FCC to develop a comprehensive national broadband strategy that includes high-speed deployment to cities as an imperative and preserves the ability of local governments to provide broadband capability and services within their communities. The resolution also urged the FCC to begin immediately collecting detailed information on broadband coverage and use and share said data with local governments.
The event precedes the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, who has spoken frequently about the need for America to lead the world in broadband penetration. "As a country, we have ensured that every American has access to telephone service and electricity, regardless of economic status, and Obama will do likewise for broadband," the transition team's Web site states. He believes that can be accomplished by overhauling the universal service fund; improving the use of U.S. wireless spectrum; promoting next-generation technologies; and tax and loan incentives.
Internet telephony and video service Skype has experienced a surge in worldwide subscribers and plenty of publicity since its launch five years ago but one of the biggest weapons in its PR arsenal recently has been Oprah Winfrey. The company's CEO Josh Silverman told the Congressional Internet Caucus's State of the Net conference on Wednesday that the talk show queen is passionate about his product and uses Skype regularly on her television program.
Winfrey uses the software's computer-based video calling capability to bring viewers and guests onto her show remotely. In the past, she would have had to spend money and resources on a satellite feed, he said during an on-stage lunchtime chat with Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who co-chairs the caucus with Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va. Silverman also noted that many local news outlets used Skype, which was acquired by Internet auction giant eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion, at the Democratic and Republican national conventions last summer.
Silverman, whose company's main issue on Capitol Hill is network neutrality, has not been impacted much by the global economic downturn. "Our user metrics are growing quickly -- faster now than a year ago," he said. Skype has more than 370 million registered users globally and is used in almost every country on Earth. Additionally, users have made 100 billion minutes worth of free Skype-to-Skype calls, according to the company's Web site.
Amid a growing sea of phishers, spammers and other Internet-based crooks, the most daunting cyber challenge faced by law enforcement agencies is identifying how best to secure the U.S. national high-tech infrastructure writ large, Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip told the International Conference on Cyber Security this week in New York City, which was organized by the FBI and Fordham University. "We must secure our cyber infrastructure in a manner that addresses threats from foreign armies, adversary intelligence services, criminals, and terrorists. It's hard to exaggerate how important this is or how hard it is to accomplish fully," he said in remarks released Wednesday. "We've made real progress in this area, but we all know there's a lot to do."
Filip outlined some successes like an FBI center in Pennsylvania that brings together private parties and government investigators together to work on cyber breaches and threats, but said that effort and others are in their early stages. The Justice Department and FBI are also ramping up collaborations with other agencies to address cyber espionage and cyber terrorism threats. That work is done at places like the Joint Terrorism Task Forces and the National Counterterrorism Center.
In the coming years, those who safeguard the IT space will encounter the same kinds of spies, criminals, terrorists, and armies -- "but we're now living in a world where technology moves much faster than the government typically moves, and where our adversaries are anxious to exploit every vulnerability that technological change can offer," Filip warned. For that reason, the government's response must be nimble and effective at working with the private sector, he said. He also mentioned President-elect Barack Obama's interest in creating a White House position to coordinate cyber policy across agencies but would not offer an opinion on the wisdom of that model.
FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Shawn Henry and Deputy Director Christopher M.E. Painter are among several key law enforcement officials slated to speak at the International Conference on Cyber Security next week in New York City. Henry, Painter and Louis Grever, executive assistant director for the FBI Science and Technology Branch, will speak on Tuesday while Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip will deliver remarks on Thursday. The event is being held at Fordham University at Lincoln Center.
The FBI has teamed with Fordham's Department of Computer and Information Sciences to bring together global leaders in emerging cyber threat analysis and enforcement for the first of its kind conference. This gathering of international cyber security experts will host more than 300 delegates from around the world, officials said in a press release. ICCS -- which is sponsored by Google, Booz Allen Hamilton, BAE Systems and others -- will consist of three full days, 50 unique lectures, cutting edge demonstrations and networking opportunities. Read more about the Jan. 6-8 conference here.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced Thursday that a "live exercise" of the next-generation of the department's automated process for collecting and sharing security information -- referred to internally and by many in the data security community as "Einstein" -- should be ready within six months. The cyber threat detection and mitigation program is currently operating in its second generation as part of a larger, largely classified Bush administration plan to heighten security of federal computer networks, which was brought to light in January and has been the subject of several congressional hearings. He said Einstein has been deployed within DHS and will be rolled out in other agencies "in short order."
Chertoff, who was speaking to participants of a cyber threat simulation staged by consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, also reflected on the government's systematic strategy for "reducing, if not eliminating" the cyber security problem. He said the danger falls into three categories: (1) Information being stolen, be it sensitive military data, financial material, or diplomatic or business plans. (2) Attacks that flood or topple a network -- like denial-of-service attacks on the domain name system. (3) Corruption or changes to a system that make it unusable and undermine public confidence and trust. Read more about Chertoff's talk in CongressDaily's PM Edition.
In a move likely to reignite questions in the blogosphere about Apple CEO Steve Jobs' health, the computer company late Tuesday announced that the keynote speech at next month's Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco will be delivered by Philip Schiller, the company's senior product marketing executive. Apple, which has been scaling back on international trade shows in recent years, also said that 2009 would be the last year it would exhibit at Macworld. Wall Street analysts and Apple investors have been abuzz over Jobs' health for some time.
"Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers," the company said in a press release. "The increasing popularity of Apple's retail stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com Web site enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways." In the wake of the news, Oppenheimer & Co. downgraded Apple's stock from "outperform" to "perform."
Thought leaders from the private and public sectors will convene in Washington on Monday to discuss how the Obama administration and the new Congress can broaden innovation in the United States and use the ongoing economic crisis as a catalyst to drive new investments in technology. The day-long forum is sponsored by the Economic Policy Institute, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the Breakthrough Institute, the University of California and the Ford Foundation.
Speakers include UC administrators, ITIF President Robert Atkinson, Sun Microsystems senior vice president David Douglas, venture capitalist Victor Hwang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Michael Piore and many others. At the event, UC researchers Fred Block and Matthew Keller will release a report that examines government's role in promoting innovation; the extent to which weaknesses in the U.S. system has affected deployment of new technologies; and what steps a new administration should take to ensure innovation to foster global leadership.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday the majority staff of the House Homeland Security Committee will host a series of discussions on the future of privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties at the Homeland Security Department. Topics include protecting civil liberties in a natural disaster; privacy implications of data-mining; privacy, domestic intelligence and information sharing; transportation security, privacy and civil liberties; border security, privacy and civil liberties; and cyber security. Click here for the full agenda.
From Tuesday's CongressDaily PM edition…
A senior policy adviser to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a conference of health IT stakeholders today to expect "a good Democratic HIT bill" early in 2009, although it remains unknown whether it will be a stand-alone measure or part of a healthcare reform omnibus. A handful of bills introduced this session "didn't really move the ball very far down the court" to health IT overhaul, said aide Wendell Primus, speaking at a Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society policy forum.
Legislation aimed at creating a nationwide system of electronic medical records sponsored by House Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell and ranking member Joe Barton passed their panel in July, while House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Fortney (Pete) Stark, D-Calif., introduced a version last month that would use Medicare reimbursement to prod physicians and hospitals to adopt new technologies. A similar Senate bill was introduced more than a year ago by Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Edward Kennedy and ranking member Michael Enzi. Read the full story here.
Chris Dawe, a legislative aide for Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., also spoke to the group but requested that his comments be off-the-record. A spokeswoman for Kerry summed up his remarks saying the senator "believes that the American people and Congress understand that now more than ever, reforming our fundamentally broken health care system is a national priority." "We cannot have full economic recovery without health care reform that controls skyrocketing health costs and ensures coverage for all Americans," she said.
Let's hear it for Hulu.com, the advertising-supported streaming video platform created by NBC and FOX where fans of the small screen can watch an array of television shows from a range of networks and studios. News Corp. lobbyist Rick Lane sang the Web site's praises at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce intellectual property summit on Wednesday where he admitted: "I absolutely love to watch 'Bewitched.'" "The quality is pretty good -- it's not HD but it's darned good," he said.
NBC Universal General Counsel Rick Cotton also raved about the site, pointing out that 90 percent of Web users who went online to watch comedian Tina Fey portray vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on "Saturday Night Live" (for the first time), looked to Hulu and NBC.com for the clip. In two weeks, the skit had at least 10 million views, which is 3 million more than the SNL skit "Lazy Sunday," which caused a copyright uproar several years ago when fans posted unauthorized copies on YouTube. Since that time, video-sharing sites have embraced software that filters for illegitimate content.
Arts+Labs co-chairman Mark McKinnon noted that 90 percent of commercial television is online now through platforms like Hulu, Netflix, Fancast, Sony PlayStation and the Web sites of ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, MTV and others. "It’s a tipping point I think for consumers," he said. I'm inclined to agree. For example, I would have never discovered the short-lived, smartly written FOX sitcom "The Loop" had it not been for Hulu nor would I have been able to catch up on old episodes of "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" or "Burn Notice." Not exactly high-brow, but then again neither is "Bewitched."
The chief executive for pharmaceutical giant Schering-Plough is hopeful that under a new presidential administration and a new Congress, headway can be made on a meaningful overhaul of the nation's patent system -- an effort that failed this year after months of negotiations between key members of the House and Senate and industry stakeholders. Fred Hassan told a U.S. Chamber of Commerce summit Tuesday that lawmakers must find a way to craft a bill that does not disadvantage some sectors while giving a boon to others. His industry was critical of proposals that emerged in the 110th Congress while major high-tech and media firms championed the effort.
"What we need to do is find a way to deal with both business models and come up with a solution that will encourage [both industries]," he said during a Q&A session following a keynote speech. "We still haven’t been able to come there. I hope that after the election we will find a way for both industries to find this common ground so we can make progress in the next administration." "What gives us a lot of comfort is that both industries are innovation driven and both believe in IP," Hassan said.
Hassan said he sympathized with the tech sector's concerns about the harm caused by "patent trolls," which would have been addressed in this session's legislation through specific changes to how patent disputes are handled in court. At the same time, he explained that a pharmaceutical company spends 10-15 years and about a billion dollars developing a new drug and language in the legislation could have jeopardized that work.
"We're concerned that a small patent challenge on a small issue might wipe out the whole platform, which is worth a lot of money," he said.
Continue reading Pharma Exec Hopeful For Patent Bill Progress.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Intellectual Property Center will host its fifth annual IP summit on Wednesday, Oct. 8 and boy oh boy is there going to be a lot to talk about. Lawmakers passed a major IP enforcement bill in the waning weeks of the 110th Congress and it awaits President Bush's signature. The trade group sent a letter to the White House Thursday evening urging Bush to sign the bill post-haste.
The summit’s overall theme, "It Starts With An Idea: Fostering Innovation in the 21st Century," highlights the importance of promoting an innovation-based economy that creates jobs, saves lives, and generates breakthrough solutions to global challenges. Speakers include: Chamber President Tom Donohue, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, NBC Universal general counsel Rick Cotton, News Corp. Vice President Rick Lane, Pfizer's Rich Bagger, Microsoft IP chief Susan Mann, and many others. For more information, click here.
FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein used One Web Day, an annual global celebration of the Internet's impact on society, to press for a more prominent national broadband strategy. "As a country, we face major challenges in broadband adoption, competition, speed, and affordability," he said at the New America Foundation on Monday, citing familiar statistics about lagging U.S. connectivity.
"Contrary to some views, I believe broadband penetration does matter -- we need to tap all our resources," he said. Broadband is slower and more expensive in the U.S. than it is in the countries with which we compete internationally and "consistently, the data tells us something is wrong," he said. Adelstein added that even if the country was #1 by all measures, "we [would] still need to press in a public/private effort to stay on top, as technology evolves."
At the One Web Day rally in Washington, which was one of many around the world, organizers embraced the initiative's 2008's theme of participation in democracy by launching an e-Democracy time capsule. They invited anyone to contribute text, images, sound, and video concerning Web-powered politics and a future in which online political participation can flourish. The capsule was closed Monday and will be opened in 2020.
Among those in attendance were Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md.; Alec Ross, an adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the Sunlight Foundation's Ellen Miller; BroadbandCensus.com's Drew Clark; John Wheeler of Democracy in Action and others. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Rep. Hilda Solis, D-Calif., were invited but could not attend.
Several thousand intellectual property attorneys from as many as 89 nations are gathering in Boston this week for the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property's World IP Congress. This year's convention, which features a series of breakout panels focusing on global IP issues as well as mock trials, marks the first time the group has met in the United States since the 1970s -- ancient history in terms of developments in technology and patent law.
“The topics at this year’s congress are especially timely and significant for the state of international patent law, starting with the movement to harmonize, or standardize, patent and trademark rules worldwide,” said program chair Philip Swain, a partner at Foley Hoag. “Harmonization helps address rampant counterfeiting by allowing true innovators and product originators to seek patent, trademark, and copyright protection in the countries where counterfeits are made."
Several reports of interest were prepared for the event:
(1) The impact of public health issues on exclusive patent rights
(2) Damages for infringement, counterfeiting and piracy of trademarks
(3) Liability for Contributory Infringement of IPRs
(4) Exhaustion of IPRs in cases of recycling and repair of goods
The information and communications sectors are experiencing one of the greatest periods of innovation ever as entrepreneurs compete to provide consumers with increased speed, mobility and content over broadband networks, a senior Verizon executive told the Progress and Freedom Foundation's annual summit in Aspen, Colo. on Tuesday. Future breakthroughs will depend upon appropriate public policy and industry standard-setting efforts, Verizon Chief Technology Officer Dick Lynch said.
Lynch urged a "change in mindset on the part of policymakers to acknowledge the realities of the 100-megabit world" and suggested that other industry participants be pragmatic as well. "The public interest can best be served by getting as much broadband in front of as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, and ensuring that investment keeps up with demand," Lynch said. "To a large extent, this is a matter of taking down the barriers to investment and refraining from erecting new ones."
Continue reading Dispatch From Aspen: Verizon Tech Exec Speaks.
National Telecommunications and Information Administration Director Meredith Attwell Baker keynoted the Progress and Freedom Foundation's kick-off reception at the think tank's annual summit in Aspen, Colo. on Sunday evening. Her thesis: "Unlocking Innovation - Has the Key Been Misplaced?"
[See the full agenda here.]
Baker, who is accustomed to speaking 24/7 about the digital television transition, promised she would refrain from those talking points and instead focused on the importance of crafting policies that foster innovation and growth while relying on private sector investment and free market competition. That balance is particularly important as the Bush administration "turn[s] over the keys to the next custodians of our nation’s telecom and information policies," she said.
During her talk, she hit on several topics including the ongoing discussion about network management principles and continued calls by some groups for "net neutrality." "I’m just not convinced this is the key that opens the door to innovation, but instead one that deadbolts it locked, shut," she said. Baker also spoke about broadcast localism and a la carte cable pricing.
The Congressional Internet Caucus will pair up with the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law to host their second annual State of the Net conference on Wednesday to probe key technology policy issues. The event is a West Coast spin-off of a popular summit staged in Washington each winter.
Headliners include Reps. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.; Mike Honda, D-Calif.; Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., as well as Seton Hall Law School professor Frank Pasquale; Stanford Law School's Lauren Gelman; eBay's Dan Doherty; and the Center for Democracy and Technology's James Dempsey.
Panel topics include: Will Our Reputations and Privacy Survive the Age of Social Networking? Can ISP Immunity Survive the Onslaught of Web 2.0? The Movement of Information from the Crowd to the Cloud. More details can be found here.
Congress is gone for five weeks for its annual summer recess, and much of the rest of Washington is taking a breather -- or preparing to do so -- in advance of the Democratic and Republican national conventions later this month and early next month. But leaders of the tech sector will still be busy this week on both coasts.
High-tech industry leaders head to San Jose for a couple of interconnected conferences. Building Blocks -- sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association and Digital Hollywood -- promotes platform development, including the design, development and distribution of audio, video and mobile electronics. In conjunction with that event, peer-to-peer file sharing executives will gather for the Distributed Computing Industry Association's first Silicon Valley summit.
Meanwhile, back east in the Big Apple, the American Bar Association's annual meeting starts Thursday -- with a number of key technology-related issues on the agenda. Panel topics at the New York gathering include the future of the music industry; changes in voting technology; text and mobile marketing; patent litigation; handling electronic evidence during a trial; and privacy and security in a networked world.
The National Institute of Justice holds its annual conference in Arlington, Va. this week and the agenda includes several tech-centric sessions. Here's a quick rundown:
Cell Phone Forensics
With the ubiquity of the cell phone, today’s criminals are leaving behind evidence of their crimes on devices that they often carry with them. Evidence on these devices includes pictures, contact lists, global positioning system information and call logs. Panelists will present findings from two NIJ-funded studies that developed new ways for law enforcement to access evidence from mobile technology.
DNA Tools For Tomorrow
In recent years, scientific and technological research has advanced rapidly. But forensic scientists know that to take advantage of technological innovations, they must harness and adapt such innovations to use in the crime lab. Panelists will present NIJ's newest DNA research and development projects.
Crime Analysis & Policing: New Technologies
Technological innovations help law enforcement work more efficiently, but integrating new technologies is not always easy. Panelists will present results from a national survey about crime analysis/mapping and its integration with patrol.
The Media Access Project hosted its third "Innovation ‘08" roundtable on Wednesday where tech and telecom experts discussed policy recommendations for the next president. The think tank, which is dedicated to open and diverse media access, held its first two forums in Silicon Valley in the past month.
Wednesday's event was scheduled to feature key representatives from the presidential campaigns of Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain as well as other top industry and policy experts. Speakers slated to appear included former FCC Chairman William Kennard, AT&T Chief Privacy Officer Dorothy Atwood, former FTC Commissioner Mozelle Thompson, and others.
Details of the event (which I wasn’t able to attend due to pressing business on Capitol Hill) are available here.
Biotechnology visionary G. Steven Burrill made some pretty interesting predictions for his industry through 2020 at the Biotechnology Industry Organization's annual conference in San Diego, Calif. this week.
By 2020 Burrill predicts that:
▪ Wal-Mart, plus other direct to consumer healthcare delivery institutions, will become the place to go for medical treatment.
▪ Nano-devices in the blood will diagnose and repair problems.
▪ Patients will carry their genome and health records on a smartcard.
▪ To be successful, companies will have to retool from being full-integrated to a virtually-integrated model
▪ People will be able to purchase organs off-the-shelf or grow their own.
▪ Implants and prostheses that mimic biological functions, restore functions to existing organs or tissues, or augment those functions will appear.
▪ Demand for bio-ethanol, bio-diesel, and other alternative energy sources will drive innovation in the sector.
Members of the American Antitrust Institute will have plenty to discuss at their annual conference, which kicks off on Wednesday at the National Press Club. It's been a busy year for competition and consumer protection issues, mergers and related topics in industry and on Capitol Hill.
In addition to the group's presentation of a forward-looking report on competition policy for the next administration, a few highlights include:
A More Expansive View of the FTC: FTC Watch's Art Amolsch; former FTC Commissioner Thomas Leary and former FTC adviser Robert Skitol.
Media Issues: Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck shareholder Allen Grunes; University of Baltimore professor Robert Lande; Glover Park Group partner Jonathan Sallet; and Stanford Group researcher Jaret Seiberg.
The Politics of Antitrust: Computer & Communication Industry Association President Ed Black; Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook; and Harvard Law School professor Einer Elhauge.
More information is available here.
Members of the American Civil Liberties Union from around the country flocked to the Washington Convention Center on Monday for the watchdog group's annual conference. As you can see by the photo above, the annual event is a popular one (more than 1,500 attendees).
Senate Judiciary ranking member Arlen Specter will speak to the group later in the day about legislation he and Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy have championed to protect reporters from being forced to reveal confidential sources in federal court. The Pennsylvania Republican's keynote will open a panel discussion titled "The War on Terror: An Exchange About Censorship, Surveillance and Guantanamo."
On Tuesday, Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter will attend a luncheon honoring ACLU President Nadine Strossen who will leave the organization later this year.
Security expert Bruce Schneier, founder and chief technology officer of BT Counterpane, offered some insight (and humor?) at a Monday briefing by the Center for American Progress about the state of identification authentication in the United States in the years since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Schneier's talk was accompanied by a slideshow presentation that featured a fictional Transportation Security Administration "Airport SecurePASS" with a headshot of al Qaeda's most famous face and the following information:
▪ Name: Osama bin Laden
▪ Nationality: Saudi
▪ Residence: Varies
▪ Profession: Evildoer
"We pretend there's some linkage between identity and intentionality," Schneier said. "That’s where we're making the mistake. Evildoers all have ID cards and they'll continue to get them." His bottom line -- "there are limitations to ID-based security."
Read more about the event in CongressDaily's AM edition.
Consulting firm Gartner's annual IT security summit has a new home this year -- the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. After years at the centrally located Marriott Wardman Park in Washington, D.C., the firm moved the popular event, which starts Monday, to the not-so-convenient and recently opened National Harbor in Prince George's County, Md.
Keynoters include Arlan Andrews, founder of science fiction think tank SIGMA; high-tech visionary Greg Bear; political satirist PJ O'Rourke; futurists Robert Sawyer and Bruce Sterling; and Google's Scott Petry. The conference theme is "The Next Ten Years in Information Security" -- an interesting angle in a world of rapidly advancing threats and new technology solutions.
Longtime White House reporter Trude Feldman, who is best known in Washington circles for the fact that no one really knew for whom she worked or where her work appeared, turned up at the Computer and Communications Industry Association's annual Washington Caucus at the Willard Hotel on Tuesday -- just in time for lunch (where she pulled up a chair beside Mike McKeehan, Verizon's director of Internet policy).
A recent Fishbowl DC blog post noted the frail but forthright Feldman has frequently been cited in White House transcripts as being associated with "Trans Services" but her last association was with the World Tribune Company. Over the years, the tenacious scribe has interviewed every U.S. president since Lyndon B. Johnson, according to her bio on WorldTribune.com.
Perhaps Feldman now has a penchant for tech policy. She was also spotted at the Consumer Electronics Association's Digital Patriots Dinner last month, which honored Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy and House Oversight and Government Reform ranking member Tom Davis.
Rep. Rick Boucher, one of the Computer and Communications Industry Association's best friends on Capitol Hill, skipped his scheduled keynote at the trade group's annual Washington Caucus on Tuesday. Sources told Tech Daily Dose that the Virginia Democrat confirmed his attendance Monday night but CCIA President Ed Black announced right before his scheduled timeslot that Boucher had called in sick.
The prominent member of the House Judiciary Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property Subcommittee is the sponsor of a bill introduced last February that would amend the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by changing some provisions that ban the use of technologies aimed at defeating IP protections. CCIA was one of the proposal's biggest industry backers in the 110th Congress and in prior sessions.
Boucher has been rumored to be a front-runner for the top spot at the IP subcommittee in the 111th Congress, when its current chairman Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., is expected to take the helm at the House Foreign Affairs Committee. CCIA and its high-profile Silicon Valley member companies watch the panel closely and routinely weigh in on its actions.
Thought leaders on the topics of U.S. competitiveness and the science, math, engineering, technology workforce seemed to be pretty firm believers in a "tough love" strategy for preserving America's front-runner status in the global economy on Tuesday. A chorus of speakers at a National Academies symposium said the United States must do better in funding, training and supporting students who pursue those fields.
National Academy of Engineering President Charles Vest said stakeholders must ask themselves: "How can we garner the national will to take the essential step of funding the America Competes Act?" "The time for action is now," he warned, saying America faces numerous challenges and "the enemy I fear most is complacency." "If we ignore the obvious task at hand while others beat us at our own game, our children and grandchildren will pay the price," he said.
Lockheed Martin Chairman Emeritus Norm Augustine said the "cruel outcome" of the widely cited 2006 report on U.S. competitiveness that he and others authored called "Rising Above The Gathering Storm," was that other countries have been faster to implement its recommendations than his own. The paper "motivated others while we did very little." Meanwhile, businesses have found a solution to challenge they face -- moving factories and labs abroad. "That’s not a solution that anyone in American industry likes," Augustine said.
Continue reading U.S. Competitiveness: 'It's The Economy, Stupid'.
Former astronaut Sally Ride, who in 1983 became the first American woman in outer space, was a panelist at a morning session at the National Academies' U.S. competitiveness convocation on Tuesday. She kicked off the day, alongside Intel Chairman Craig Barrett and Georgia Institute of Technology President Wayne Clough, by quoting late astronomer Carl Sagan: "We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology."
(Photo Credit: Andrew Noyes)
Three years after the National Academies' landmark report on U.S. competitiveness -- titled "Rising Above The Gathering Storm" -- was released, leaders from government, business and the education community convened Tuesday to debate how much progress has been made since in bolstering math and science education and strengthening the nation's research enterprise. Read more in CongressDaily's PM edition.
Just under 40 percent of time consumers spend listening to "radio" is via delivery modes other than terrestrial AM and FM broadcasts, according to a study released Monday at the Radio and Internet Newsletter's annual gathering in Las Vegas. That could be an indicator of the increasing prominence of satellite radio, cable radio, Internet-only webcasts, podcasts, and online simulcasts of AM/FM content.
The study, sponsored by Solutions Media Group, Web radio innovator Ando Media and RAIN, indicated all of online streaming (Internet-only webcasters plus AM/FM streams) accounts for 16 percent of total radio listening (split evenly between the two). Satellite radio and cable each account for 11 percent. Since the study was conducted online and was based on self-reporting, take it with a grain of salt.
RAIN's Kurt Hansen said the results were "certainly a bit more ‘ahead of the curve’" than a typical poll of the general population. Read more about the study and the summit here.
Actor-screenwriter-director-producer Tim Robbins will deliver the opening keynote at the National Association of Broadcasters' annual convention in Las Vegas next Monday. Robbins will speak about the changing face of entertainment and how new distribution and content creation opportunities impact Hollywood, according to the trade group.
Other notables include Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, executive producers of ABC's "Lost;" DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg; DreamWorks Chairman Roger Enrico; Hewlett-Packard's Todd Bradley; and Jason Kilar, CEO of Web-based video service Hulu. Last year's show drew more than 100,000 attendees and more than 1,600 exhibitors.
In Monday's CongressDaily PM edition: Maryland Democrat Donna Edwards [pictured above, left] took a hard line today against communications giants such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon Communications potentially blocking or degrading competing content carried over their broadband networks. "I want to be able to decide for myself whether something [offered online] is useful or appropriate [even] if that means everything under the sun has to come my way for me to sort through it," she told the Freedom to Connect conference. Read the story here. Also pictured: Micah Sifry and Alec Ross.
Former Technology Daily assistant editor Theresa Poulson, who is now with nationaljournal.com, took part in a unique conversation about women and the high-tech industry on Monday. Here is her generous dispatch, written exclusively for Tech Daily Dose.
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Online media pioneer Arianna Huffington gave fellow tech-savvy females advice Monday on how to grow their social capital, or, as she put it, on "expanding your own tribe," at the Women Who Tech telesummit -- a series of phone and Web panel discussions aimed at bringing together women using technology in the non-profit and political worlds.
When launching The Huffington Post, she said she reached out to 500 friends, asking them to be the first bloggers at the news and commentary site. The online publishing product grew from there and has expanded to include 1,800 contributors.
Huffington said she was able to build a vast social network organically throughout her life by doing work that she is passionate about. "The heart of it is your original drive to make your life more purposeful: The key is to find joy in your purpose," she said.
She also noted that relationships with networking contacts are personal as well as professional, and that the time shared cooking quiche in the kitchen of MoveOn.org cofounder and fellow panelist Joan Blades works in tandem with their professional relationship.
Panelists took part in some female bonding, commiserating over the barriers women face in the workplace. "In the world of technology, there is this much lower representation of women and that's something that we'll hopefully be able to shift dramatically," said Blades, who is also a cofounder of Momsrising.org, a group that advocates a more "family-friendly America."
Internet visionary and law professor Susan Crawford had a simple message for attendees of an annual assembly of grassroots Internet enthusiasts on Monday: "Life is short. We might as well tackle some big questions while we're here." She told the Freedom to Connect summit in Silver Spring, Md. that "ideals have to be joined to will" because "an ideal by itself doesn't change the world."
That belief is evidenced by Crawford's creation of One Web Day, an Earth Day-inspired occasion observed yearly on Sept. 22 since 2006 with the purpose of globalizing "a constituency who cares about the future of the Internet," she said. During her speech, Crawford called for Web users to become "a countervailing force" that can change the Internet for the better.
The FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection will host a half-day roundtable discussion on phishing education on Tuesday. The examination of the practice of sending fraudulent e-mails or setting up fake Web sites to lure recipients into providing personal or financial information comes, appropriately enough, on April Fool's Day.
The event will provide an opportunity for experts from business, government, the tech sector, the advocacy community, academia, and the media to discuss new strategies for increasing awareness of the issue. The forum will begin with a guided discussion on the problem and current efforts to fight phishing attacks and educate consumers.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, introduced a bill recently to curb the practice by making phishing a deceptive practice under the FTC Act. The legislation is co-sponsored by Senate Commerce ranking member Ted Stevens, R-Alaska and Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. Get more information about the event here.
Verizon Chief Technology Officer Richard Lynch told the Tech Policy Summit on Thursday that his firm's philosophy on handling copyright issues reflects his belief that "we are not the enforcers of the Internet." "Our job is to deliver the bit streams that our customers either ask for or send," he said. His comments came as Comcast and BitTorrent ended a feud over whether the cable giant blocked customers from sharing content.
Despite reported attempts at filtering for pirated content by other broadband providers, Lynch said he was unsure whether Verizon could technically accomplish that even if he wanted to. He noted that his firm is collaborating with child safety advocates to blacklist Web sites that provide illegal child pornography. "That, we wholeheartedly believe, we can help out with," he said.
(Photo Credit: Andrew Feinberg/CapitolValley.net)
Legislation that would drastically alter the U.S. patent system has at least a 50 percent chance of passing in this Congress, Patent and Trademark Office Director Jon Dudas predicted Wednesday at the Tech Policy Summit. He told CongressDaily he is “much more optimistic because a very real conversation has begun.” The Commerce Department spoke out against some elements of the bill in a February letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, but “it is [the] will of the Bush administration to get this through,” he said. Read the full story in Thursday's CongressDaily PM edition.
On Wednesday evening over a glass of wine on the patio of Chateau Marmont, I got to know Loopt, a Silicon Valley startup whose social mapping tool allows friends to find one another using their GPS-equipped cellphones.
Loopt, which was founded by a Stanford University computer science major, is currently available on Boost Mobile and Sprint Nextel. Brian Knapp, the firm's vice president, said the application provides a novel answer to two popular questions: (1) "Where are you?" (2) "What are you doing?" The product, as described in its tagline, wants to be "your social compass."
Rachelle Chong, a former FCC commissioner who is now on the California Public Utilities Commission is part of the Loopt community. Chong, a self-described technology junkie, seemed intrigued by the tracking tool. Knapp, who is also the firm's chief privacy officer, prefers to call the offering "location sharing."
I’m a Sprint customer and Knapp sent me an invitation to try out the service as well. I'm not sure yet whether I'll opt-in. My location patterns would look something like this: "Office -> Capitol Hill -> Office -> Capitol Hill -> Office -> Capitol Hill -> Office." Not very interesting.
I would love to get members of Congress in on the game. That would be a lot easier than stalking them in hallways and in between hearings.
Viviane Reding said "digital conversion is here, it is real and it is a powerful driver of change." For the tech user, that means the availability of more services through devices that can be universal without "making all things alike." For regulators, the change "is about removing technological barriers, opening up technological platforms, and creating a larger space for innovation." "Convergence is to ICT (information and communication technologies) what globalization is to trade," she said. Policymakers need to be open and flexible while continuing to ensure that laws impacting converging sectors "compliment each other worldwide and provide legal certainty," Reding said.
(Photo Credit: Andrew Feinberg/CapitolValley.net)
I had the pleasure of capping off the first day of the Tech Policy Summit in Los Angeles on Wednesday by conducting a "fireside chat" with Rep. Howard Berman, the California Democrat who heads the House Judiciary's Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee. While the conversation lacked an actual hearth and blaze, I think we generated plenty of heat with the topics covered.
Berman answered questions about patent reform; so-called "orphan works" copyright legislation; efforts to enhance U.S. intellectual property enforcement; a legislative proposal to eliminate an exemption granted to AM and FM radio stations, which allows them to broadcast music without paying royalties; and a range of other issues that have kept him busy in the 110th Congress.
Since I was conducting the Q&A, I wasn't able to take notes on Berman's remarks. But, Andrew Feinberg at CapitolValley.net did a great job live-blogging the event. Here's his post.
Tech Policy Summit attendees had a full afternoon -- and plenty of opportunities to discuss hot-button topics in technology policy. Try as I might, I couldn't make it to everything I wanted to (because I still haven't found a way to clone myself and I'm operating on three hours of sleep).
Thank goodness there was plenty of caffeine and sugar sitting around to prolong the buzzzzzz.
Here's a quick rundown (*according to the most recent agenda):
(Photo Credit: Andrew Feinberg/CapitolValley.net)
Hewlett-Packard Labs Director Prith Banerjee (pictured above, far right) speaking at the Tech Policy Summit on Wednesday called on the federal government to advance an "innovation stimulus package" to help the nation stay competitive in the global marketplace. Read the full story in CongressDaily's PM edition.
Patent and Trademark Office Director Jon Dudas made a hard sell on Wednesday for his agency's accelerated examination program during a keynote at the Tech Policy Summit in Los Angeles. While the United States moves patent applications quicker than most other nations, the PTO still has a massive backlog and the recently launched initiative can help, he said.
Dudas said the program promises a 12-month final decision on patentability if applicants abide by a number of guidelines. To qualify, they must file electronically; conduct a search of "prior art" and submit all prior art that is close to their invention; include only 20 claims; and agree to an interview with an examiner, among other prerequisites.
"In every case we've been able to do that exam within one year," Dudas said. In one instance, there was approval within 17 days for a technology that would have otherwise taken more than 20 months, he said. The percentage of applications approved through the program is almost double that of the traditional route. That's because applicants have their ducks in a row when the examiner sits down to review the materials, he said.
(Photo Credit: Andrew Feinberg/CapitolValley.net)
The rollout of wireless technology leader Qualcomm's new broadcast endeavor known as MediaFLO is "going slower than we would have liked," the company's CEO Paul Jacobs told the Tech Policy Summit in Los Angeles on Wednesday. The mechanism streams TV content to cellular phones and other handheld devices.
Verizon Wireless is the only provider currently selling equipment and signing up subscribers for MediaFLO but AT&T has indicated it will launch the service soon, he said. Jacobs reasoned that Verizon hasn’t yet executed an advertising blitz because "they're waiting for us to build out our network completely." The February 2009 deadline for the digital TV transition will help Qualcomm launch the service nationwide, he said.
MediaFLO, which offers nine channels, is available in 50 markets. Major networks like CBS, FOX and NBC have signed on to provide content as have ESPN, Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon. "From the content-side, it's been great. This is a new opportunity to reach people more frequently throughout the day," Jacobs said. "It's not just TV, it's TV you can have with you all the time."
I'm off to Los Angeles on Tuesday for the second annual Tech Policy Summit, which takes place Wednesday and Thursday at the Renaissance Hollywood hotel. I'll be conducting an on-stage Q&A with Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., and covering a variety of keynotes and panel discussions.
The relatively small gathering, which was held in Silicon Valley last year, is a great place for learning and networking with industry insiders. The theme for the 2008 summit is "Markets in Transition: Collaborating to Drive Technology Innovation and Adoption," which guarantees plenty of dialogue about U.S. competitiveness and high-tech convergence.
Scheduled speakers include Berman, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, Patent and Trademark Office Director Jon Dudas, BitTorrent President Ashwin Navin, Craigslist.org founder Craig Newmark, Hewlett-Packard Senior Vice President Prith Banerjee and many others.
Look for conference coverage in CongressDaily's PM edition, CongressDaily's TechCentral and on the Tech Daily Dose blog later this week.
More than 1,000 educators from school districts across the country convened in Washington, D.C., last week for the Consortium for School Networking's annual conference. Attendees explored the role technology plays in providing U.S. students with the skills necessary for success in the 21st century.
"Every year the conference provides a forum for educators and thought leaders to trade anecdotes, share best practices, and come together in a truly collaborative fashion with one main purpose - to discuss how to strategically use technology to improve K-12 learning," CoSN Board Chair Sheryl Abshire said in a press release.
Conference topics ranged from "21st Century Learning: Embedding New Skills and Assessments" to "Unleashing the Transformational Power of One-to-One Computing in K-12." Other sessions examined trends in education technology like the influence of MySpace.com and advancing teaching and learning through Internet2.
CoSN also honored leaders in education during an awards ceremony. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., was among the winners. She received a nod for "Outstanding Achievement Award for Excellence in Public Service."
Murdoch Won't battle Microsoft for Yahoo
San Jose Mercury News
One of Yahoo's potential white knights in its struggle to avoid being taken over by Microsoft just put his charger back in the stable. News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch told a Bear Stearns conference in Palm Beach, Fla., today that he's not going to battle the Redmond software giant for Yahoo.
"It would be fun to beat Microsoft," he said. But "we're not going to get into a fight with Microsoft. They've got a lot more money than us." Murdoch's News Corp. has been touted as a possible savior of Yahoo and there were reports of discussions between the two companies. Apparently they went nowhere.
Read the full story
Comcast CFO Says Our High-Definition Service Is 'Great'
Dow Jones Newswires
Comcast Corp. Chief Financial Officer Michael Angelakis said Monday the company's high-definition offering is a "great service," but acknowledged that rival DirecTV, a satellite provider, has done a "better job" of marketing its HD channels.
Angelakis, speaking during a discussion at the annual Bear Stearns Media Conference in Palm Beach, Fla., said although Comcast is capable of adding more than 150 HD channels to its lineup, "not every HD channel deserves to be in HD, and there are lots of HD channels that aren't watched very much."
Just in case you're a lot closer to Austin, Texas than, say, Capitol Hill, you should know that the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival is taking place as I type. The conference, part of the larger SXSW music extravaganza, is a leading event for emerging technologies and it's one high-tech pow-wow that I've never been able to attend.
Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg keynoted on Sunday; Frank Warren, founder of the PostSecret Project (an online collection of 200,000 personal, decorated anonymous postcards) was slated to speak Monday; and videogame designer Jane McGonigal takes the stage Tuesday. A lengthy list of panel sessions can be found here.
Capitol Valley (and oodles of other bloggers) are in Texas for the event. Read some coverage here and here. The 11th Annual SXSW Web Award Winners have also been announced. Congrats to the winners.
Oooo I nearly forgot to blog about my former editor Danny Glover's harsh remarks at Wednesday's Politics Online conference about congressional reluctance to embrace new technology platforms. His comments came at a session called "Open Source Government: Can Peer Production Create Better Public Policy?"
Glover, who now runs the Media Research Center's Eyeblast.tv (an online video site with a conservative twist), said only a handful of the 535 members of Congress are engaged online, he said. They're "behind the curve" with respect to blogs, podcasts and video, Glover said. "They are still very much in the early adopter phase," he said. "Everyone else is in the Web 2.0 phase. Congress is maybe Web 0.5."
Johanna Shelton, who recently joined Google after a decade on Capitol Hill, had a rosier view. She said lawmakers are becoming more tech-savvy and their Web sites are improving. "Members intuitively understand that they need to use new technologies to get their message out," she said.
Pajamas Media CEO Roger Simon has some interesting ideas up his sleeve as his four-year-old blog aggregation service tries to capture online audiences in an increasingly crowded market. The mystery author-screenwriter-blogger gave me a sneak preview on Tuesday at the annual Politics Online conference in Washington.
His company's weekly political show, which airs Thursday evenings on XM Satellite Radio's POTUS '08 channel will soon be carried on YouTube thanks to a recently inked partnership deal with the content-sharing site. The video version of the program will feature interviews with players from the leading presidential camps plus an assortment of news and notes from the campaign trail, he said.
"We think the media company of the future is multidimensional," said Simon, who views his firm as the modern-day version of the Associated Press. Pajamas Media now has correspondents in 50 countries "and we don’t care whether they're bloggers or not." Those resources have helped Simon scoop traditional news outlets -- like when Benazir Bhutto was killed and he happened to have a scribe on the ground in Islamabad.
Pajamas Media is "definitely growing in page views on the main site and with our affiliates" and revenue is up as Simon pushes forward with syndication plans. The future, however, is uncertain (which is not uncommon in the turbulent online media space). "We're here for the next few years -- beyond that I don’t know," he told me.
Planning for this year's Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet conference, taking place Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington, was truly community-driven -- perhaps to reflect the growing importance of people-power, both on- and offline.
This is the first Politics Online summit that was peer-produced, with many conference sessions created and voted on by the public, organizers said. It's also the first time that winners of the IPDI's Golden Dot Awards, which recognize excellence in online campaigning, were decided by the public (more than 3,000 ballots were cast).
The conference facility itself is also very people-friendly with a reasonably fast wireless connection, a Yahoo-sponsored smoothie bar and a Google-sponsored lounge offering candy to sugar fiends and granola for the healthier set.
The American Cable Association sent its annual pre-conference swag bag to reporters this week and it's a fun one. In 2007, the trade group embraced a baseball theme but this year, the April 7-9 summit will be racing inspired. Goodies included a seat cushion, key chain, toy race car, soda/beer cozy, and tote bag.
The conference tagline is "Going the Distance to Connect Hometown America" and the program has cutesy phrases like: "Grab the wheel and fast track your policy concerns." While visiting Washington, ACA members will canvass Capitol Hill and "lift the hood" to reveal the secrets of lobbying success, according to the booklet.
Here's a shameless plug for the Personal Democracy Forum, a fantastic annual gathering of new media experts. This year, the conference is June 23-24 at Rose Hall, the new home of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Confirmed speakers include Michael Arrington of TechCrunch; Esther Dyson of EDventure; Stanford University's Lawrence Lessig; Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall; Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist.com and so many more. Watch the video above to sample the excitement.
After covering high-tech policy issues for some time now, one thing I have realized is that when FTC Commissioner Jonathan Leibowitz gives a speech, you can always plan getting some useful information -- and a laugh or two.
During a luncheon keynote on Wednesday at the Congressional Internet Caucus' annual "State of the Net" summit, the former Senate staffer and Motion Picture Association of America executive, made some colorful observations about social networking sites.
"I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm new to social networking," he started off. "When I signed up for Facbeook, I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, but I'm having a lot of fun with it."
So far, Leibowitz said he has reconnected with an old high school friend and has received a "cyber heart" from his wife. He also discovered that his father is a member of the online community and when the younger Leibowitz tried to "friend" the elder, it took him two weeks to respond.
"Lots of it is interesting from a sociological perspective," said the Democrat, who has been a commissioner since 2004. "A Republican who never spoke to me in real life friended me on Facebook and has been trying to get me to be a supporter of [House Minority Leader] John Boehner," he chuckled.
Later in his riff, Leibowitz mentioned that he befriended venture capitalist and Barack Obama campaign adviser Julius Genachowski (who was featured on a panel earlier in the day). "That's not a candidate endorsement," he said, explaining that both are sports enthusiasts and Genachowski "tends to school me on the basketball court."
I just "friended" Leibowitz. Let's see how long it takes him to respond.
Update: Six hours after my post, he "friended" me back. Nice work!
Congressional Internet Caucus co-founder Rep. Rick Boucher told a small crowd on Tuesday evening that the Web has come a long way since he and former Rep. Rick White started the group 12 years ago as a way to encourage fellow lawmakers and their staffers to embrace what was then a nascent medium.
The Virginia Democrat's remarks kicked off a reception preceding the organization's annual "State Of The Net" conference, which will draw Internet policy enthusiasts of all stripes to the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
"Little did we think that [Internet] issues would evolve to where they are today," Boucher told the invitation-only cocktail party. The ubiquity of the Web is exemplified in the diversity of the summit's panel discussion topics -- from energy efficiency to healthcare, he said.
"Back in 1996 we never dreamed that broadband would take place over wireless technology," Boucher said. Now, with an eye on the FCC's auction of spectrum in the 700-megahertz band and increased attention to vacant broadcast spectrum known as "white space," the possibilities are endless.
To keep pace with the changing landscape, the Internet caucus has expanded in interesting ways, he said. The group recently held its first foreign gathering of global Internet experts in London and plans are afoot to host similar events in the future.
While the evolution of the Web has raised new issues, some subjects have endured, Boucher noted. Questions about how to promote intellectual property rights "when copyrighted items traverse the net" was an issue then and remains a political hot-potato today, he said.
Continue reading Rep. Boucher Kicks Off Internet Caucus Conference.
The ill-fated 1960s movie gimmick known as "Smell-O-Vision" (releasing odors during the projection of a film so the viewer can "smell" what's happening) might be revived in the wireless world -- or not.
In response to a question at the World Economic Forum panel on new frontiers in handheld innovation, Sony Corporation CEO Howard Stringer (jokingly?) said he was "prepared to think about" incorporating smell to make mobile computing a multi-sensory experience.
Stringer was part of a panel discussion on Friday (that also included FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker). They chatted about how the mobile phone is reshaping the consumer experience.
At the same session, Rep. Edward Markey, head of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, grilled China Mobile Communications Chairman Wang Jianzhou about the detailed information his company can collect from subscribers.
The Massachusetts Democrat said there is a "bone-chilling quality" to a company or country having access to the type of data that Wang said his firm was able to obtain. Markey asked if his corporation could "just start listening in on a device" -- an action prohibited by law in the U.S., unless permitted by a court order.
From the O'Reilly Radar:
During a World Economic Forum panel on "New Models of Leadership," political consultant David Gergen asked Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales if the principles of his popular online user-generated encyclopedia could be applied to the global warming problem. Wales replied that wikis could be helpful to assemble the knowledge of the world about possible solutions.
From TVNewser:
CNBC's "Squawk Box" aired a segment on Friday morning in which Maria Bartiromo interviews rock musician Bono, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Dell CEO Michael Dell. During the chat, the Dell and Microsoft execs announced their partnership with the Red campaign. Bono said $58 million has already been raised. Click here to watch the interview.
Video blogger Loic Le Meur is keeping tabs on the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week. In this clip, he talks with tech blogger Robert Scoble, digital media guru Esther Dyson and goes on CNN to discuss the massive international conference.
BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis is at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland where he live-blogged a surprise session on Thursday featuring Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and the Google Foundation's Larry Brilliant. The event was moderated by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.
Some excerpts:
Larry Page talks about the renewable-power-cheaper-than-coal initiative. Buying a lot of electricity, Google knows that the cheapest came from coal. The cost of electricity as a percentage is going up, he says, and is approaching the cost of the computers themselves. So they want to get it cheaply and get it green.
Startups can work selling green energy at 10 cents per kilowatt hour because there is a demand for renewable energy, he says, but that does not bring real change. “Our primary goal is not to fix the world,” he says, but they do have the power to drive things forward, to get to three cents.
Sergey Brin says they are concentrating on three energy sources: solar-thermal, deep geothermal, and high-altitude wind; if he had to add one, it would be photovoltaic. He says that windmills are on a par with coal but are intermittent and they think it can be even cheaper by using high-altitude wind, through kites, which are cheaper to make that metal windmills.
Friedman asks whether they can succeed in this space without taking more of a political position. Brilliant says very few of the people fighting against the climate change movement are bad people: “the have children, they have grandchildren.” He says that the movement has not done a good enough job to communicate.
Read the full post here.
(Courtesy World Economic Forum via Flickr)
The World Economic Forum's annual meeting kicked off in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday and technology is an integral part of the overarching discussion. See Technology Daily's PM Edition for all the details.
Several popular Web entities are covering the conference this year, including Jeff Jarvis of the BuzzMachine blog; progressive news site The Huffington Post; former Microsoft tech guru Robert Scoble who writes the Scobleizer blog; and TechCrunch.
You can keep tabs on what they're saying at www.davosconversation.org. BBC, CNN and others are also posting to the site.
When Nuala O’Connor Kelly joined General Electric as the conglomerate's privacy chief in October 2005, she knew there might be some perks. One of them, she told an American Bar Association conference on Friday, is getting a good deal on refrigerators -- and presumably other appliances manufactured by the multinational.
Her role, which she said is considerably less stressful than her previous post as the first Homeland Security Department chief privacy officer, has come with a steep learning curve. "We have so many divisions, I'm still trying to figure out what all of them do," O'Connor Kelly joked.
GE, which owns NBC (as well as businesses that manufacture electrical and lighting equipment, medical devices, aircraft jet engines and plastics), has "one of the biggest consumer databases in the world," she said. But don't worry, O'Connor Kelly is there to make sure that all the information GE collects about you stays safe and secure.
The Department of Homeland Security is hosting a two-day workshop on the privacy and civil liberties implications of closed-circuit television surveillance. Panel discussions involve perspectives from the technology, law enforcement, community, international, and legal and policy arenas. In an age of Web wonders, CCTV, which some think of as an old-school, convenient store security tool, gets lost in the shuffle. But as speakers on Monday noted, CCTV has come a long way in the digital age. Read more in Technology Daily's PM edition. The photo above was taken at the deli on-site at the conference. It just seemed appropriate.
The Congressional Internet Caucus wants your latest, greatest, coolest gadgets to display on Capitol Hill. The group has begun searching for innovators to set up demos at its 11th annual exhibition scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 30.
The event kicks off the congressional session each year by showing off new and emerging technologies that illustrate the latest tech policy issues with interactive, hands-on demonstrations.
More than 600 lawmakers, staffers, reporters and government and private sector representatives are expected to attend. The exhibition will immediately follow a day of tech policy discussions at the caucus's annual State of the Net conference.
Last year's participating companies included Google, Kodak, Microsoft, MySpace, NBC-Universal and many more. Think you've got what it takes? Application materials are available here.
Cable television giant Comcast announced a partnership with the Internet Keep Safe Coalition (iKeepSafe) at the Family Online Safety Institute conference on Thursday. The new relationship will provide parents and teachers with tips, tools and resources to promote cyber safety awareness.
Comcast and iKeepSafe will also partner with state attorneys general, local community groups and with medical and public health organizations to bring a Web safety campaign to communities served by the cable provider.
"The Internet is a great place that can bring people and communities closer together, but we also want to make sure that young people grow up knowing how to use the Internet safely and responsibly," Comcast Vice President Joe Waz said in a press release. Waz also spoke at an afternoon panel at the FOSI conference.
To promote the partnership, Comcast's booth at the summit was staffed by a life-sized McGruff the Crime Dog and Faux Paw the Techno Cat. The characters also roamed around during lunch, posing for pictures with attendees -- including one journalist who will remain nameless (It wasn't me. I'm freaked out by giant, costumed humans.)
A Verizon Communications executive told a Family Online Safety Institute summit on Thursday that "kids who do risky things in the real world, do risky things in the virtual world" and those who know better, stay away from Web destinations that can get them into trouble.
Nevertheless, Kathryn Brown, the company's senior vice president for public policy, said parents, educators and other adults have an obligation to educate themselves. "We don’t have a lot of experience" in teaching children the do's and don'ts of the Internet age.
"We've equipped our kids pretty well about smoking, drugs [and] drunk driving … because it was part of the experience of our youth and the dangers we saw," Brown said. "We've got to catch up. If we lack experience, we need to learn."
Read more coverage from the FOSI summit in Technology Daily's PM Edition.
When Vint Cerf, the man cited as one of the fathers of the modern-day Internet, sat down for a chat with the State Department's David Gross at the Family Online Safety Institute conference on Thursday, something seemed amiss.
Before answering questions formulated by Gross, the agency's communications and information policy coordinator, Google's chief Internet evangelist noted that his last name is spelled C-E-R-F, not C-E-R-T, as the gigantic projection screens on either side of the stage avowed.
The good humored Cerf made a crack about whether his mouth needed freshening (Certs is a popular breath mint manufactured by Cadbury-Adams). After a bit of audience laughter, the session commenced. Organizers promised that they spelled his name correctly in the program.
Read more coverage from the FOSI summit in Technology Daily's PM Edition.
A Justice Department symposium on telecommunications policy that I was covering on Thursday turned tragic when one of the speakers, a Maryland state delegate, collapsed and later died. Jane Lawton had just finished her remarks at the podium when the incident occurred.
The 63-year-old Lawton, who also serves as the administrator of cable and communications services for Montgomery County, Md., died of an apparent heart attack after giving a rousing sermon on preserving local franchise authority for cable television [Read more in Technology Daily's PM Edition].
Lawton formerly served as a systems engineer for IBM and was a past president of the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors. She was also involved in the Federal Communications Bar Association and Women in Wireless Leadership Forum.
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said in a statement that he was "shocked and saddened" by her death. Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett also issued a quote saying Lawton's death was "a significant and tragic loss" and that her "expertise in cable matters was unprecedented."
The Washington Post also has coverage of the community leader's passing.
Update: Assistant Attorney General Thomas Barnett, who spoke prior to Lawton, released a statement late in the day, saying her "vibrant spirit, dedication to public service, and expertise in the telecommunications industry is well known to those she served."
Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, urged the FTC to address invasive online advertising practices. His statement came on the first of a two-day agency conference on behavioral targeting.
"When consumers search for information online, they may be unaware of marketers in their wake, who are scooping up the digital traces of consumers’ online activities and compiling profiles that could undermine privacy," he said.
The FTC should "promptly investigate the privacy impacts of Internet tracking and targeting techniques to ensure that loss of privacy is not the price consumers must pay to realize the benefits of online commerce."
Members of the American Intellectual Property Law Association are in Washington this week for the organization's annual conference and they expect to get down and funky on Friday night. That's when the famed Pointer Sisters will perform for attendees.
The Grammy-winning group is best known for the classic dance song "I'm So Excited." IP lawyers are best known for being insanely smart, subdued and (and in this increasingly litigious, IP fueled economy) busy. This will give them a much-needed opportunity to let their hair down and cut a rug.
Web marketers, statisticians, Internet analysts and other tech-savvy types have convened in Washington this week to discuss the future of doing business effectively online. The four-day eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit kicked off on Sunday.
Conference organizer Jim Sterne posted a video on YouTube letting folks know what they could expect at event. He described it as "an incredible I.Q. minefield that you can wander around in and new ideas go off with every step you take."
Some of the video, which you can watch here, is filmed while Sterne is driving, which I found a bit worrisome, but it's a good way to provide a sneak peek into what promises to be a stimulating series of presentations for Web heads.
Billy Tauzin, the president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday that his industry is the "soft underbelly" of the intellectual property infringement problem.
"We're the place where people go if they want to violate IP rights," he said at the business group's annual anti-counterfeiting summit. If the federal government does not stand up to infringers, "IP respect begins to die across the world," the former Louisiana Republican congressman said.
"The skinny is we're in trouble and it's getting worse," Tauzin continued, and PhRMA is pushing for "stronger, not weaker trade pacts" that include IP provisions. Stakeholders must "insist that the rights of Americans who pay for most of this R&D" are better protected, he said. "I can only tell you that it’s a challenge we all face."
Dan Glickman, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, echoed Tauzin's call for bolstered IP policies, saying that in film and television, "we're barely holding our own" against bootleggers. He suggested that various players in the IP space share best practices, since "we all have different ways of dealing with piracy."
Continue reading Industry Leaders Call For More IP Enforcement.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican and longstanding supporter of strengthened intellectual property rights, told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce anti-counterfeiting and piracy summit on Wednesday that he finally made some money off his music hobby.
Hatch said he told an American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers group that he received a royalty check for $57 and the crowd reportedly erupted into applause. That's because most of them had never gotten a royalty check under the country's current IP regime, he said.
Music was an integral part of Hatch's life at a young age and even though he grew up poor, his parents always let him experiment with different instruments. At age 6, he began taking piano lessons then he advanced to the organ and violin, according to his music Web site.
Hatch's albums, which span patriotic, religious and romantic themes, are available for sale here. You can even listen to a few tracks for free online.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Craig Morford may be new to Washington but he didn’t waste any time finding the right venue to discuss the government's intellectual property protection efforts. Morford, a 20-year veteran of the Justice Department, spoke at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday (Read more in Technology Daily's PM Edition).
Morford, who has spent his career fighting crime in the field, came here from Tennessee where he served as a U.S. attorney. He was appointed in August to replace Paul McNulty, one of a half-dozen Bush administration officials who have departed in recent months.
At the Chamber's annual piracy conference, Morford admitted that he is "still overwhelmed by the rule of law … and the institutions that make the law." He also said he has been wowed by the city's cultural offerings like the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, which he visited over the weekend with a friend -- who happens to be a pilot and patent lawyer.
NBC-Universal CEO Jeff Zucker couldn’t help but promote Thursday night's season premiere of the network's critically acclaimed comedy "30 Rock" during his speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday.
Zucker, who talked mainly about challenges to fighting intellectual property piracy, marveled at how technology has made the show (a favorite of mine) and other NBC programs accessible "wherever and however the consumer wants to consume" them.
Soon after "30 Rock" debuts, Internet users can surf over to NBC's Web site to watch a streaming version of the show or download it for a limited time. On Amazon.com they can buy it for good. Fans in some parts of the country can also watch on-demand and certain cellular telephone providers make the show available on handheld devices.
In a few weeks, "30 Rock" will be available for streaming at Hulu.com, a new Web venture between NBC and News Corp, Zucker said, and old-fashioned types can wait until the end of the season to buy the DVD.
Speaking at a conference on the state of free speech, association and the press in the post-Sept. 11, 2001 society, American Civil Liberties Union President Nadine Strossen on Thursday reflected on a memorable headline from a favorite news source.
The media outlet was The Onion, a popular satirical online newspaper, and the bold-faced type blared: "Bush Asks Congress For $30 Billion To Help Fight War On Criticism." The humorous article was posted July 2, 2003. [Read the full story here]
While the ACLU enjoys criticizing the Bush administration, "violations of civil liberties cut across party lines," Strossen said. Although many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle "have been too complicit in the administration's abuses," Democrats and Republicans have been working to rectify breakdowns in First Amendment rights, she said.
A conference being called the "first-ever international policy forum on the participative Web," or the expanding use of the Internet’s capabilities for creation and exchange, will take place on Oct. 3 in Ottawa, Canada.
The forum, jointly organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and Industry Canada, will ask questions such as: "What does the future hold for the participative Web? What are the implications for enhancing confidence and trust in the Internet? What is the government role in providing the right environment for stimulating Internet innovation and economic growth?"
The event will consider how governments are addressing emerging models for creation and distribution of digital information. "More open approaches to information creation, exchange and diffusion are being taken up extensively in government, education and other areas," OECD stated.
Discussions at the forum will contribute to a planned OECD meeting on "The Future of the Internet Economy" in Seoul, South Korea in June 2008.
-- Winter Casey
High-tech experts debated the interplay between social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook and users' privacy expectations at the Pike & Fischer "Legal Risk Management in the Web 2.0 World" summit.
Panelists included Xanga.com Chief Security Officer Stephen Kline; FTC attorney Phyllis Marcus; Microsoft's Rob Dolin; Cyveillance General Counsel Adam Palmer; and Holch & Erickson partner Markham Erickson.
Questions addressed included whether consumers give up substantial privacy rights when they post their information on social networks and what responsibilities Web sites bear in protecting their users from cyber criminals.
Moderator Christopher Wolf of the Proskauer Rose law firm, said social networks are "turning notions of privacy absolutely inside out." Congress, agencies, state attorneys general and privacy advocates are all wrangling with the issue, with different beliefs about what needs to be done.
Kansas congressman turned agriculture secretary turned Motion Picture Association of America Chairman Dan Glickman started Tuesday's Pike & Fischer "Legal Risk Management in the Web 2.0 World" summit with a joke.
I'll spare you the details, but it involves a Jewish rabbi, a Hindu priest and a congressman driving cross-country together. Why? Who knows. They wind up getting stuck in a snowstorm, can't travel further, and approach a farmhouse looking for refuge.
The farmer's home is full but he says the trio can sleep in the barn with the farm animals. The weary travelers agree and about 15 minutes later the farmer is awakened by a knock at the door. It's the rabbi who explains that he cannot lie next to a pig. Next comes the Hindu priest who complains he cannot sleep with a cow.
Finally, there's a third knock at the door. It's the cow and the pig.
Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., addressed the Future of Music Coalition annual policy summit on Monday afternoon, where he revealed his love for an eclectic array of tunes: "I love music. I know less about it than I'd like to know, especially about the music that is around today."
Nevertheless, the Senate Commerce Committee member said he jogs with a handheld XM Satellite Radio device and has a vintage jukebox in his basement. "It's a pretty good jukebox," he said, ticking off a few of the 50 records that he spins in his spare time. His favorite 45s include Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson, Elvis Presley, and the Rolling Stones.
"I don’t have Limp Bizkit … but I'm trying to keep freshening the music on my jukebox," Dorgan admitted. He did say, however, that he recently met with the Grammy award-winning rock band OK Go and they were well-dressed gents. They wore "neckties and the whole deal," Dorgan said.
Al "Carnival Time" Johnson, a New Orleans Mardi Gras icon for over 40 years, kicked off the Future of Music Coalition's annual policy summit on Monday with a rousing rendition of his latest song, "Lower Ninth Ward Blues."
Johnson, whose home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, is best known for his ditty "Carnival Time," which dates back to February 1960. There have been numerous releases of the track over the years and its creator has fought to secure his legal rights to it.
FMC Executive Director Jenny Toomey said her group has spent time in the Big Easy in the past year organizing what she called "musician activist camps." The events brought bands to the recovering region to "look at what's not happening" with respect to the reconstruction effort and talk about media policy, she said.
"There's no place to understand more clearly how important infrastructure is than in New Orleans," Toomey said. The historically musical city was failed by its infrastructure, from levies and local elected officials to federal overseers, she said.
Much has been said and written on the topic of technology and entertainment convergence and speakers at a Practicing Law Institute webcast on Monday added to that dialogue. Tech visionary Tim Stevens kicked off the event with some interesting thoughts about the "Net Generation."
The population known as "Gen N," whose age range is roughly 14-28, is defined by connections, participation and interaction, said Stevens, the CEO of Doppleganger, a provider of next-generation avatar-based virtual worlds.
There are 88 million Gen Ns in the United States alone and 96 percent of them connect to a social network at least once a week, he said. Communication between peers is paramount, Stevens added. That is evidenced by 99 percent growth in the social network arena over last year compared to 3 percent general Internet growth.
Among Gen Ns, 77 percent have said they could live without television but not without an Internet connection. They also believe, unlike previous generations, that user-generated content is "mainstream."
Therefore, traditional broadcast media must engage audiences in new ways, Stevens said in his presentation. A basic TV show or musician Web site is no longer sufficient because Gen Ns are not satisfied with "a few clips and bios." Gen Ns want to be part of the entertainment experience and want to feel connected to the content and to other fans, he said.
ASPEN -- Harvard University Law School professor Larry Tribe referred to the infamous quote from the Supreme Court Justice he once clerked for -- Potter Stewart as he discussed first amendment rights and censorship Tuesday. Tribe said he would know violent content when he saw it.
But Tribe said censorship must be approached with caution during a speech at the Progress and Freedom Foundation's Aspen Summit.
"You can say your purpose is noble, you're not trying to create uniformity, just trying to protect kids," Tribe said. "But that does not mean you can do it with a law that's imprecise."
Tribe clerked for Stewart from 1967-1968. Stewart is well known for the obscenity case Jacobellis v. Ohio in 1964 in which he wrote that hard core pornography was hard to define, but "I know it when I see it."
Tribe joked he worked for Stewart back in the days when one of the benefits of being a clerk was watching porn in the Supreme Court basement to search for obscenity and said he did ask Stewart if he had ever encountered hard core pornography.
"He said 'just once off the coast of Algiers,'" Tribe said, noting Stewart had served in the Navy, but would not elaborate on what he actually saw that reached the mark while traveling near the capital of Algeria.
ASPEN -- Federal Trade Commissioner William Kovacic defended a policy some in Washington criticize -- the revolving door between government and the private sector. He spoke at lunch Monday at the Progress and Freedom Foundation's annual Aspen Summit.
Kovacic has served as an antitrust and consumer protection consultant to governments in Armenia, Benin, Egypt, El Salvador, Nepal, Russia, and Vietnam to name a few. He has also sat with European counterparts during his several stints at the FTC from 1979-1983 and again as general counsel for the FTC from 2001-2004. He said main difference in Europe is government bureaucrats remain in their positions throughout their career and do not have the perspective gained from time in the private sector.
"I can't imagine doing the job I do now without representing the other side," Kovacic said. He said it was precisely his work as an attorney trying to get through "the decidedly unreasonable government agencies" that is now a benefit for him as an FTC Commissioner.
ASPEN -- This hasn't exactly been live blogging, but there have been a few highlights from the Progress and Freedom Foundation summit this week that should not go without mention.
Scott Wallersten, senior fellow for communication policy at PFF, opened the first panel with strong motivation to keep the 10-minute opening speeches on track, warning those who go over may mysteriously find their return flights canceled. Some didn't look too worried about the prospect of remaining in Aspen.
Stanford University economics professor Roger Noll, who spoke about telecommunications policy in a converged world, said that threat didn't mean much for him as he drove to Aspen. The freedom also expanded to his speech.
Noll said the FCC "is not working," He cited one action as evidence that the FCC delayed digital radio, but fined Clear Channel "a few million bucks for taking payola." Noll also referred to the opening presentation by Harvard's Dale Jorgenson who showed charts to prove his point that job loss due to IT innovation ultimately boosted productivity.
"If the FCC is eliminated, I know you guys would be out of work, but as Dale's chart shows, there will productive jobs for all of you," Noll said as FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell sat at the panel on the far end of the table.
Some folks are natural live-bloggers and some, well, simply give it the old college try. Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, tried his hand at it on Monday morning at the Progress and Freedom Foundation's conference in Aspen, Colo.
Here's the result, posted on the Technology Liberation Front:
8:17 am - Bacon! And there’s sausage patties too, but bacon is what really excites people.
8:25 am - Am I the only one wearing sneakers?
8:35 - A little chilly here in the conference room.
And - to summarize - I’m not too big on liveblogging.
But don't worry, Jim followed up with an interesting dispatch.
463 Communications' Sean Garrett is in Aspen too, blogging about what really matters: "The real interesting stuff happens here outside of the panels. Like watching DC-types jump over fountains of water at 2:00 a.m." Click here to see the fuzzy camera phone photo.
As you might have guessed from Sunday's night's introductory post, Technology Daily's own Heather Greenfield is in Aspen, Colo. this week for the Progress & Freedom Foundation's annual conference. The event is one of my favorite outside-the-Beltway gatherings for Washington insiders.
This year's speakers include Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Harvard Economist Dale Jorgenson, FTC Commissioner William Kovacic, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe and many others.
PFF Acting President Tom Lenard promised that "all the major issues that are very contentious will be discussed" -- including the FCC's 700 MHz auction, copyright issues, patent reform, online child safety issues and privacy. "The interplay between industry, government and academics produces fascinating discussions," he said in a press release.
Heather will be filing stories for the PM Edition over the next few days and contributing to the blog when she's not busy schmoozing at the swanky St. Regis Hotel, the location for the yearly assembly. The forecast in Aspen for the next few days is plenty of sun with highs in the low 80s. I hope she finds time to for an afternoon hike or two.
ASPEN -- Ambassador David Gross of the State Department opened the Progress and Freedom Foundation's annual Aspen Summit Sunday evening as those attending adjusted to the altitude and the wine, with the later not helping much.
Gross said there is no doubt people still look to the United States for intellectual leadership. He cited the tremendous growth of the communications industry. He said the number of Internet subscriptions has increased four times in just the last six yuears to 1.2 billion subscribers. Gross added that cell phone users have grown from 600 million in 2001 to 3 billion this year.
"What does this mean?" Gross asked. "The world is changing and changing in our direction."
Electronic commerce entrepreneurs, rejoice. The American Bar Association is looking out for you. Over the weekend, the group launched www.SafeSelling.org, a free resource for individuals and small businesses interested in starting Web enterprises or venturing into online sales.
The Web site, which debuted at the ABA's annual meeting in San Francisco, is organized around frequently asked questions that arise during the creation, launch and operation of an online business.
"We wanted the site to be intuitive for the typical small business owner," said Jonathan Rubens, editorial director of SafeSelling.org. "From obtaining a domain name to protecting customer privacy, our SafeSelling.org site offers a complete range of logically listed mini-topics to help our target audience find the facts they need."
Other topics on the site include payment processing, delivery and fulfillment, selling out-of-state or internationally, advertising and marketing, and customer authentication and security, the ABA said in a press release.
SafeSelling.org is a companion site to Safeshopping.org, which provides information about purchasing items safely on the Internet. The ABA had a jam-packed agenda at this year's conference. Read more coverage in Technology Daily's PM Edition.
The FTC will host a two-day town hall meeting this fall aimed at bringing together consumer advocates, industry representatives, tech experts, and academics to discuss issues raised by the practice of tracking consumers' activities online to target advertising.
The conference on "behavioral advertising" is a follow-on to conversations that emerged at a November 2006 FTC forum on tech and business developments expected to shape consumers' experiences in the next decade, the agency said.
The town hall will be held Nov. 1-2. Read more here.
The YearlyKos convention in Chicago has come and gone. Some tidbits...
Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga addressed the masses. Watch the video here.
Due to "the people's business" back in Washington, the stars of the "Meet the Leaders" panel were unable to make it to the Windy City. The no-shows included Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
Attendees got a sneak peak at a trio of not yet released films -- "The 11th Hour," an in-depth look at environmental policy; "Chicago 10," which relives the trial of eight prosecoturs who protested the Vietnam War; and "In The Valley of Elah," an examination of the personal cost of the Iraq war.
Former Washington Post writer and senior Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal set the stage for a discussion among bloggers Rob Levine, Cara DeGette, Ezra Klein and Abdi Aynte. Read more from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., reportedly "blew the money question" and got booed by a crowd of lefty bloggers and slammed by her rivals for saying she would keep taking cash from lobbyists to fuel her presidential bid. The New York Daily News has more.
The New York Times recounts a particularly interesting exchange between gun control advocate Nancy Robinson and Andrew Rasiej, the co-founder of techPresident.com.
The Young Turks from Air America Radio live-blogged at the convention.
Of course, there's plenty more from the big event. Search the blogosphere for additional perspectives.
The University of Texas at Austin is hosting an interesting conference on Friday and Saturday called "New Agendas in Journalism and Citizenship." The Center for Citizen Media's Dan Gillmor is giving a keynote about media literacy in a media-saturated age.
Other sessions will cover online media and civic journalism; mass media and blogging; the public's relationship with digital content; news-seeking and information overload; the many faced 'you' of social media and more. For those of us who cannot make it to the Lone Star State, there appears to be a webcast.
A parade of high-tech experts shared their views on unsolicited mass e-mail and how it is evolving in the 21st century at a Wednesday spam summit sponsored by the FTC. [Read Technology Daily's PM Edition for details].
Here's what some speakers had to say on the first of the two-day conference:
Part I: The Incentive
Patrick Peterson, vice president at IronPort Systems, said spam is fueled by capitalism and its creators are "talented and genius" and their efforts are geared toward maximizing profits, he said. Their job is getting harder though "because they are operating in an incredibly hostile environment." That means spammers must constantly change their approach to stay ahead of law enforcement and industry filters, he said.
Andrew Klein, senior product marketing manager for SonicWALL, said spammers have gotten much more resourceful in recent years. In the early days of malicious junk e-mail, the focus was on selling credit card numbers through chat rooms for pocket change. Then, along came "botnets" -- armies of software robots that hijack computers and steal personal and financial data -- and the battleground changed forever.
(Photo Credit: Ian Martinez)
The Telecommunication Industry Association's blogging machine Ian Martinez snapped a series of photos at the NXTComm conference in Chicago of exhibition hall booths that caught his eye. There were some architecturally stunning ones to be sure, but I bet he didn't capture a shot of Elvis with a coffee maker (from my CES blogfest).
Grassroots activism has become a multiplatform venture, said media panelists at the 2007 Take Back America conference. Collaborations between bloggers, filmmakers, and Web sites combined with the efforts of local activists on the ground were responsible for the spring shutdowns of two presidential debates Fox News sought to host. The debates were controversial for Democrats due to arguments over whether or not Fox News could be an unbiased host, and whether it should be considered a legitimate news source, panelists said.
“The victory you just saw described could not have happened without various groups, sometimes with different agendas, coming together to fight the good fight,” said panelist Robert Greenwald, director of the film “Outfoxed” and creator of Brave New Films, which is currently focusing on the production of political viral videos that have become prominent on YouTube.
The collaboration between Greenwald’s company, MoveOn.org, African-American political organization ColorOfChange.org and Air America created “mutually reinforcing activism,” said Adam Green, communications director for MoveOn Civic Action. “This is what movement activism really is,” he said. -- Sarah Myers
CHICAGO -- The morning session of the NXTComm conference here today was lively and full of humor -- much of it at the expense of the presenters.
Randall Stephenson has been chairman and CEO of AT&T for just more than two weeks now, and he said he has learned a major lesson during that short period of time. "The chairman still has to take out the trash at home and feed the dog," he said. "I learned that the hard way!"
At another point in the conference, Matt Ross, the group chief technology officer at BT, polled attendees about whether they have voice-mail systems on their home telephones, personal mobile phones, work mobile phones and office phones. When nearly 2,000 folks in the audience said yes to all of the above, Ross said, "I suggest counseling."
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, meanwhile, appeared at the show by live video conference and looked quite haggard . The reason he could not make it to the prestigious event in person? His wife is expected to deliver the couple’s second child today in Washington.
Telecom executives here joked that being the dutiful dad, Martin did not want to miss the "latest rollout" in his family.
-- Gene J. Koprowski, for Technology Daily
If you're not in Chicago for the NXTcomm conference, Ian Martinez would be happy to show you what you're missing. The Telecommunication Industry Association spokesman posted a pretty cool video on his trade group's blog on Monday -- a behind-the-scenes peek at the exhibition hall before attendees arrive. In the self-shot video, Martinez is assisted by what he calls his "SNFATBC" or Superstar Nerd Fest All-Terrain Blogging Cart.
Conference keynoters include Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers; FCC Chairman Kevin Martin; Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg; AT&T Chairman Randall Stephenson; General Electric Vice Chairman Bob Wright; and Motorola CEO Ed Zander. Read more about NXTcomm here.
The keynote presentations at Monday's Gartner IT Security Summit were interesting (see Tech Daily's PM Edition coverage), but I had to take a moment before returning to the press room to stroll through the expansive exhibition hall to see the gadgetry on parade.
One thing I noticed immediately is that the tchotchkes being given away at booths were plentiful -- so it must have been a good quarter for the computer security sector. Disclaimer: I picked up a few pens, a notepad and a tin of breath mints.
While I was wandering, I realized that this must be the year of the "mini-mouse." VeriSign and several others were handing out those little buggers, which have retractable cords and plug into laptop USB ports. Handy for business travelers I guess.
Meanwhile, SurfControl was passing out Etch-A-Sketch key rings and intrusion prevention provider Snort had a barrel full of squishy pig-shaped stress relievers that employees were stuffing into the hands of anyone who came near the booth.
The giveaways certainly don't stack up to the stellar conference goodies I remember when I attended events during the dot-com boom, but I'm sure attendees were pleased with the loot. It's like trick-or-treating for adults. Who could resist?
In an ideal U.S. copyright system, content creators would have control of the materials they create, rather than having to hand over the reins to "big commercial companies," which impose strict technological protections, digital libraries expert Karen Coyle said Wednesday.
Digital rights management "has been a market failure" due to consumers' dislike of "tightly controlled materials," she told a copyright summit at the University of Maryland University College. The only true success story, Apple's iTunes store, has thrived because people "love their iPods so much they'll go through anything to get songs onto it," she said.
Technological protections are not all bad, Coyle said. University libraries license material and limit access to their communities, she said. Shields are also needed "if we want to keep our private thoughts private" on PCs that are connected to public networks. "We live with certain amounts of protection that we're comfortable with," she said.
Center for Democracy and Technology Staff Counsel David Sohn said he favors pushing DRM in "a more flexible direction." "Our hope is that the public becomes sufficiently knowledgeable in the DRM debate and is able to apply pressure in the marketplace," he said.
EMI Music Group's recent news that it would make available DRM-free tracks on iTunes and Amazon.com generated a lot of buzz, but it is unclear whether other major labels will follow suit. "It remains to be seen to what extent the movement extends beyond music," Sohn added.
Read Technology Daily's PM edition for more coverage of the conference.
The International Summit for Community Wireless Networks -- a major gathering of community wireless networking developers, implementers and allies -- took place at Loyola College in Columbia, Md. over the weekend.
Sessions explored a host of topics including: social networks and wireless applications; European and South American community wireless developments; low cost PCs and community networking; the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act; and national policy and regulatory battles affecting community wireless.
Read more about the conference here.
After a morning sharing electrical outlets -- sort of -- and drinking mimosas and coffee, new media activists began introducing themselves ahead of the un-conference. Most of the big name bloggers and new media people for the campaigns attended the main Personal Democracy Forum conference Friday but did not stick around for the un-conference Saturday.
The exceptions were two new media consultants for the John Edwards campaign. One described their purpose as "win without evil" during the limited 2-3 word introductions. Most of the people staying on Saturday were activists helping different causes with new media.
The agenda was still evolving as of a few minutes before 11am with people voting for topics on a wiki site.
"This is your event -- not our event," said Andrew Raseij, who founded the Personal Democracy Forum website and organized the Friday conference.
New media strategists for presidential candidates John Edwards, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, had a minor debate of their own during the final panel discussion at the PDF Conference in New York Friday.
Zack Exley, a consultant who worked for John Kerry in 2004, said that "nobody believes email especially from the candidates." Michael Turk, who worked for President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, said many candidates are using the Web more as a broadcast medium than real social networking. Exley agreed, asking when we would see candidates spending time daily contacting groups on Facebook.
Peter Daou, who works for Clinton, said that is being done, but it will never supplant visits to meet voters.
Mindy Finn, who works for Romney, questioned whether responding to an individual blogger is the best use of a candidate's time, but said he thinks a candidate should leave messages on Facebook aimed at specific communities.
Steve Heiferman, Meetup CEO said that information from blogs are useful and so are YouTube videos for generating interest in an issue, but he cautioned that "Content is not king. Contact is king."
"The revolution will not be YouTubed," Heiferman said.
He said candidates like Howard Dean used Meetup last election cycle to organize supporters at meetings and many more candidates are doing it during this presidential primary. Heiferman said it's great companies like Google organize the world's information, but organizing people is what changes democracy.
Heirferman offered a demonstration of Meetup at the end of the PDF conference in New York Friday. Afterwards conference organizer Andrew Raseij joked he had just copyrighted the quote Tthe revolution will not be YouTubed," -- a take off on the book titled "The Revolution Will Not Be Broadcast."
Google CEO Eric Schmidt said a dictatorship is a more challenging governing model in the age of the Internet. He said dictators typically control borders with tanks along with the national TV station to keep people in and information out.
But Schmidt said keeping information out is more of a challenge, offering examples of countries like Bahrain blocking access to Google Maps after citizens were using Google to peak at the palaces behind the walls of residences of those in power.
Schmidt said the irony was that an uproar led Bahrain to end the censorship and then the photos that initiated the original censorship got even more attention.
He also explained that even though China censors information in some Google search results, Google at least informs those doing the searches when they are not being given all the information. Schmidt said this happens in about one in every 10,000 searches in China.
Rep. Stephen Urquhart, R-Utah, issued a challenge to political bloggers to have passionate discussions on middle ground rather than extreme political positions. "We need to push the conversation to the middle," Urquhart said. "Otherwise we're disenfranchising Americans and helping rot out the core."
But during questions and answers several audience members said that may be easier said than done. One said that it's easy to get people on one political extreme or another to talk than they middle. Her theory was the middle was just not passionate. Another chimed in that the attitude of many moderates is they'll pay attention and vote closer to the election.
Urquhart, however, questioned whether moderates were really apathetic or disgusted by the animosity in the political discussion.
Andrew Raseij, who founded Personal Democracy Forum, challenged presidential candidates to become the tech candidate by committing to a platform of six policies -- or offer alternatives.
1) Declare the Internet a public good
2) Make wireless spectrum available for public use
3) Instead of No Child Left Behind education policies leave no child unconnected
4) Firm support of network neutrality to maintain equal access to content
5) More transparency in the democratic process by making information available online
6) Create a citizens tech corps to help get area back online after a disaster
Raseij asked online activists and bloggers at the conference to help press candidates for their response to such a platform.
Microsoft online safety expert Craig Spiezle told a Direct Marketing Association conference on Friday that he has witnessed an evolution in the "three V's" -- volume of e-mail, vectors of attack and velocity of change. "It's not just unscrupulous marketers. We're seeing botnets, image-based spam and phishing," he said.
Bulk commercial e-mail containing pornography and sex-related offers has dropped a great deal in 2007, Spiezle said, but scams are on the rise. "We're seeing a tremendous amount of spoofed mail purportedly coming from the FDA," he said. Greater efforts to implement e-mail authentication could help diminish that threat, he added.
Read more about the DMA summit in Technology Daily's PM Edition.
You didn't expect a roomful of new media folks to just sit and listen did you?
Dozens of laptop screens light the otherwise darkened audience section of an auditorium at New York's Pace University as bloggers write in real time about the Personal Democracy Forum conference. In addition to those filing for their own blogs like MyDD.com or Redstate.com, people can also chat and comment on the speakers at a special site set up for the conference. http://pdf2007.confabb.com/conferences/PDF2007/details
Google CEO Eric Schmidt joked that it looked like a Google meeting with people staring at computer screens rather than the speaker. He said it used to bother him and he even tried a laptop ban -- for about a week -- until he realized that instead workers were text messaging on their Blackberries under the table.
Author of "The World Is Flat," Tom Friedman is about to explain the subtitle of this conference "The Flattening of Politics."
Stanford University professor and leader of the Free Debates Coalition, Larry Lessig, opened the conference explaining how technology has democratized political speech. He emphasized how the ability to remix video like presidential debate footage is critical. He said if proprietary networks don't want to put the footage in the public domain like CNN has done, they should not be allowed to host debates.
He offered the analogy of putting putting voting booths inside Disneyland and the need to buy a ticket to get in to exercise the right to vote.
Reprinted from May 2, 2007 PM Edition of National Journal's Technology Daily
E-Commerce: Lack Of Radio Airplay Has Musicians Turning To Web
By Andrew Noyes
Up-and-coming artists are making inroads in American culture by furnishing tracks for hit television shows like ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" and attracting fans on the Internet, but "the one place they're not getting exposure is through mainstream radio," Rep. Mike Doyle told a music policy conference Wednesday.
Only about 10 percent of music on traditional radio stations is independent, while that number is closer to 40 percent on Web radio services, the Pennsylvania Democrat said at the Future of Music Coalition's annual summit. Rapidly merging media outlets add to the problem, and he finds the trend "disturbing on a number of levels."
Corporate consolidation further homogenizes what is transmitted over the airwaves and has reduced the diversity and independence of the broadcasts, he said. "We have to talk about how we make sure that innovative and aspiring musicians have potential to earn a living from their art," he added.
Continue reading Lack Of Radio Airplay Has Musicians Turning To Web.
Experts from Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, Fleishman-Hillard, Ketchum, Ogilvy Interactive and other new media and public relations outfits were slated to rendezvous at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington on Monday for a conference called World Wide Web Washington.
There's no policy angle, so the event's chances of getting ink in Technology Daily are slim, but there are some interesting discussions planned. Session titles include: "Why Interactive Media is Vital in Business Today," "Rich Media: Grins of Delight and Genius Design," and "Interactive Media Impact in Washington" (a look at how interactive media will impact the nation's capital in 2007 and beyond).
The Future of Music Coalition assembled an all-star panel to squabble over network neutrality at its policy summit on Wednesday. Speakers included NetCompetition.org's Scott Cleland; Media Access Project Assistant Director Parul Desai; Public Knowledge Persident Gigi Sohn; and rock band R.E.M.'s longtime adviser Bertis Downs.
In my humble opinion, none of them really advanced the ball beyond what has already been said (over and over again) in recent months. Sohn cheered legislation to ensure a level playing field for online content and Cleland said the last thing that highly competitive network providers want to do is block anyone from accessing cool Web tools. Next topic please.
Satellite radio providers Sirius and XM may spend a lot of time fretting over whether their multibillion dollar merger proposal wins approval from the Justice Department and FCC but there are bigger fish to fry, Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro told the Future of Music Coalition conference on Wednesday.
If the recording industry wins its copyright infringement lawsuit against XM, the satellite music firm could be responsible for fines adding up to "trillions of dollars," he said. The suit, filed in 2006, is based on recording capabilities built into some recently-introduced XM receivers like the Pioneer Inno.
Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Penn., also mentioned the XM-Sirius merger in his morning keynote. "If both are at full capacity right now, what artists and music are going to be cut to make room for Howard Stern on XM and for baseball at Sirius?" Stern is Sirius's marquee entertainer and Major League Baseball is one of XM's most valued offerings.
Yale University's Access-To-Knowledge (A2K) conference is going on this weekend and unfortunately, I'm not there. About 300 leading scholars and activists from more than 40 countries attended last year's summit.
This year, organizers want to build on that momentum to help "set the agenda for access to knowledge policy and advocacy, and deepen the understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of access to knowledge issues," the conference's site said. The chief topic is mobilizing the private sector, governments, technologists and civil society around A2K issues.
Those of us who were not fortunate enough to attend can keep up to speed with the project by reading the A2K conference Wiki here.
Privacy International Director Simon Davies, a loud critic of Britain's national ID card scheme, isn't confident in identification procedures used by the U.S. government either. During a speech at an FTC conference on Monday, he pointed out flaws in the agency's own security practices.
"I can go to Kinkos and [create an ID with] a picture of a dog and my name on it and it would be perfectly acceptable," he joked. Not wanting to single out the FTC, Davies also told a story about lax ID authentication procedures he experienced during a Department of Homeland Security visit last month.
The two-day FTC meeting was organized as a forum for discussion among public sector, industry and consumer representatives about better ways to authenticate identities of individuals in the U.S. Read more about the conference in Technology Daily's PM edition.
LAS VEGAS -- Reps. Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Greg Walden, R-Ore., will co-chair a new Digital Television Congressional Caucus formed in conjunction with the National Association of Broadcasters.
Boucher unveiled the caucus during a Tuesday speech to the American Cable Association in Washington and described it in a short video on display at the NAB convention on Monday. Both Boucher and Walden sit on the House Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. Boucher is also a member of the House Judiciary Committee.
Caucus members plan to educate other lawmakers and the public about the shift to digital TV signals on Feb. 17, 2009. To reach citizens in rural areas, they will conduct town-hall meetings and use the media to spread the word.
Also on Tuesday, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat, warned during remarks at the broadcasters' convention that the transition could be a "mess" that leaves some citizens without access to television signals. To address such problems, the caucus will focus on educating both the public and other lawmakers about the switchover and how it will impact Americans.
But the group is not expected to address one of Copps' key concerns -- that funding be boosted for a $1.5 billion federal coupon program designed to ensure that an estimated 20 million Americans can afford equipment needed to keep many older analog sets functioning after the deadline.
In a separate but related development, NAB will brief congressional staffers about the digital transition on April 30, association spokeswoman Shermaze Ingram said.
-- David Hatch
UPDATE/CORRECTION: This entry has been rewritten to reflect information obtained after first posted and to correct the previous reference to the April 30 briefing as a press event about the caucus.
A Commerce Department official told a Computer and Communications Industry Association conference on Tuesday that improving the U.S. "deemed export" licensing policy is a "difficult problem" that boils down to answering the broader question of "how to deal with foreigners."
The department's Bureau of Industry and Security created a federal advisory committee to review national security, technology and competitiveness dimensions of the deemed export issue. Assistant Secretary Christopher Padilla said he is eager to hear the panel's recommendations.
"Openness is America's trump card, whether it's trade, foreign investments, people or ideas," he said. If the government does not have a workable deemed export program, companies will simply outsource the work or move overseas, he noted.
Concerns about foreign agents stealing controlled technologies are "very real" but the problem does not threaten all industries. One question the agency has asked the panel to address is whether there is a better way to focus the vetting process.
"We're not as worried about people coming here to work on telecom as we are about people coming here to use a biological fermenter in a lab that can make some sort of evil, nasty technology," Padilla said. The vast majority of licensing done is in the telecom realm, he pointed out.
Arizona Republican Rep. Jeff Flake told members of a high-tech trade group on Tuesday that he believes the private sector is making progress in setting its own guidelines for doing business in countries whose governments suppress Internet free speech rights. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and other U.S. firms came under fire on Capitol Hill in the 109th Congress for their investments in China.
Flake said he trusts the market "more than some might" and recent meetings with representatives from affected corporations show that they are working on the issue. "I don't think you want to wait for government to decide which countries you can operate in," he said at a Computer and Communications Industry Association conference. "I'd rather put our stamp of approval on [an industry-created plan] than try to come up with something ourselves."
He also weighed in on the FBI's improper use of secret subpoenas for electronic records called "national security letters." He said the current standard for how the agency oversees the program is "a little too loosey-goosey." Flake said the government must ensure that its surveillance tools do not overreach.
While he said he wished Republicans still controlled Congress and the White House, Flake noted: "We'll probably strike a better balance given the divided government." Key committees in the Democrat-led House and Senate have already held hearings on the controversial FBI program.
Campaign strategists and others had a chance to find out more about Web 2.0 technology that will eneable more communication and collaboration on the Internet during a conference hosted by George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet.
"The magic of Web 2.0 is the convergence of a lot of different web services just got opened up," said Aaron Welch, who co-founded Advomatic after his work on the 2004 presidential bid for Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean .
David Bennett, a resident at IPDI, said those wanting to use the tools will need to prepare with the right architecture and offered more technical advise on what is needed in a good content management system.
The so-called "macaca moment" in which former Sen. George Allen , R-Va., called his opponent's volunteer a name on video was mentioned so many times at an online political conference sponsored by George Washington University's Institute for the Internet, Politics and Democracy that panelists joked they were playing Bingo. A panelist threw the word in out of context during a discussion on campaign databases, saying he was trying to help a friend win the game.
But during an earlier panel, when macaca was mentioned, the deputy editor of Slate. com, David Plotz, said he hoped it would lead to greater tolerance "for people saying something stupid and allowing people to be more human.
Jeff Jarvis, who runs the BuzzMachine and techPresident blogs, said that acceptance can only come if bloggers do not go crazy over macaca moments and fuel them.
Google gurus offered tips on how to promote websites in Google searches during a morning workshop at an online conference hosted by George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet.
Advice to make sites more friendly to the Google algorithm included encouraging others to link to your site, "making suring you're using your words," and that those key words are really readable. Google doesn't pick up a word buried in a graphic like a logo. Another "mistake" is a form requiring a zipcode or other information to get to the site keeps Google from searching there.
To see if Google is seeing your site and what the obstacles are, Google employees suggested a tool at www.google.com/webmasters along with a blog to find out more about making changes.
The dilemma of providing a platform for free expression without helping escalate the nastiness is one Google considers in coming up with its policies according to Elliot Schrage, vice president of global communications for Google. He spoke at politics online conference Thursday at George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet.
"In the last few years the Internet has experienced more drive by character assassinations of any medium in history," Schrage said. He said Google thought about taking down what he described as a "disturbing video" about the late son of Sen. John Edwards, D-NC, who is running for the Democratic nomination for president. "But we ultimately decided we couldn't," Schrage said.
Schrage said identifying lies on the Internet, like one about Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., attending a madras in Indonesia are getting policed by Internet users much more quickly now. He also said he suspected those purposely putting out false information would face a backlash, but joked Google itself had no backlash staff.
"We're in an awkward situation. We’re not in the business to access truth or falsity. That's a path we don't want to take," Schrage said.
Political strategists are not ready to bury direct mail yet. In a panel discussion this afternoon at the Politics Online conference hosted by George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet, strategists predict direct mail will be around for a few more election cycles.
Michael Turk, who was the e-campaign director for President Bush in 2004 and most recently worked for the Republican National Committee, said the real power of the Internet now is supplementing other communications systems. He said one challenge is bringing the rest of a campaign on board with some of the newer strategies, explaining he faced that problem with some folks at the RNC who wanted every message "to be very scripted."
He said those who most need a conference like this are not the ones here, so he "can't pronounce the medium (direct mail) dead to anyone but the people in the room.
Mike Hare, who used to do communications for the US Chamber of Commerce, said direct mail "isn't completely dead" but it is expensive.
Mike Liddell, online communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said direct mail is "very effective" because it can be used to blast messages to those a campaign has not reached yet. He said "email is a participation based marketing medium," as there are limits to the number of messages sent to people who are not already supporters.
The next great innovation in Internet politics may be born this week, or at least that's the hope of a slew of online politics professionals converging at George Washington University over the next two days. They turn to the annual Politics Online conference to show them how to take advantage of the Web in new and wonderful ways.
The event, hosted by the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, regularly attracts more than 400 attendees from around the globe who come to hear from leading figures in the media, politics and the Internet industry.
This year's keynoter is Elliot Schrage, vice president for global communications at Google. Other speakers include WashingtonPost.com Executive Editor Jim Brady; BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis; Patrick Ruffini, new media strategist for Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Guliani; and Joe Trippi, who managed former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's Web-savvy bid for the White House.
Technology Daily will have coverage of the conference, so stay tuned.
Key leaders in intellectual property and technology commercialization gathered in Washington on Wednesday to discuss the pertinent industry issues and examine new challenges to innovation. The event was sponsored by the nonprofit Licensing Foundation.
Microsoft's Corporate Vice President Marshall Phelps spoke to the group about the need for patent reform legislation. Microsoft is a member of the Coalition for Patent Fairness, which has called for major changes to the U.S. patent system.
Other scheduled speakers included Brian Barret, associate general patent counsel for Eli Lilly and Company; Wes Blakeslee of Johns Hopkins University; Gerald Mossinghoff, a former assistant secretary of commerce; and Donald Ware, a partner at Foley Hoag.
The following guest entry was written by Julie Barko Germany, deputy director for the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. She is attending the South By Southwest festival in Austin.
What's more exciting: the new Apple iPhone or the possibility that 2008 will see the first mobile-powered political movement? Here in Austin at SXSW Interactive, the answer is "both."
I just finished speaking on the Mobile Active panel with Justin Oberman, Roger Desai, Jed Alpert and Doug Busk, where the discussion centered on how advocacy groups can use mobile technology more effectively. During the Q&A session, a member of the audience asked us if the iPhone will change the way Americans use mobile technology.
It will certainly make mobile technology cooler (iTunes! Video! Snappy design!). With a company like Apple backing it, the carriers will certainly listen. And yes, people will probably run over each other to buy one when the iPhone is released later this summer.
For a politically minded techie like me, it has the potential to do something else: change minds about how mobile technology can be used creatively and effectively in the political space to connect people in real time to a political cause and mobilize them to take immediate (and sometimes offline) action.
Text messaging ain't e-mail. And the mobile phone is useful for a heck of a lot more than sending SMS (text message) updates. You just have to look at it differently.
The following guest entry was written by Julie Barko Germany, deputy director for the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. She is attending the South By Southwest festival in Austin.
Technology overload. It's not as bad as it sounds. I don't have thumb cramps from using a Blackberry too much. I don't have iPod ears (that slight pain you get from using the standard iPod earphones for longer than an hour a day). I'm midway into my second day at SXSW Interactive, and I have a technology buzz.
With little more than an hour until my panel on mobilizing the masses with mobile technology begins, I'm sitting in the middle of the exhibit hall, I'm afraid of missing something -- talking with the right person, attending the five different panels I want to go to at the same time, getting a Firefox tattoo at the Mozilla exhibit booth.
I attended a panel on the rise of blogebrity (celebrity in the blog- and more recently the vlogosphere) yesterday afternoon. There's nothing too startling in 2007 about the idea that everyday people -- you, me, the teenager down the street, your boss -- can reach an audience of tens, hundreds, sometimes even thousands of people online creating something poignant, startling, or funny.
But what does this mean for politics? This morning over breakfast tacos in a pub, my father asked me if I thought an unknown everyman could ever run -- and succeed at obtaining -- a presidential nomination. An everyman as president? A vlogger as a serious candidate? At a place like SXSW, the idea doesn't seem too far off.
Or maybe that's just the technology buzz talking.
There is no doubt that the annual South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas is a feast for the senses. The live music smorgasbord has taken place every spring since 1987 and in subsequent years, organizers added interactive and film categories. The gathering has attracted a strong contingent of Web heads and independent moviemakers.
On Sunday night, attendees celebrated the 10th Annual SXSW Web Awards ceremony, the centerpiece of the multi-day event. Popular videoblogger Ze Frank was slated to serve as host and emcee.
Other notable Sunday sessions included:
• Every Breath You Take: Identity, Attention, Presence and Reputation
• Blogging Where Speech Isn't Free
• Digital Distribution: The Way of the Future for Gaming
• E-mail Disasters, Large and Small and How to Avoid Them
• Spam of All Kinds: Dealing with Online Abuse
• The Rise of the Blogebrity
One of SXSW Interactive's main events on Monday is a keynote by award-winning television personality Dan Rather. The former CBS anchor will discuss how emerging technology is shaping the news.
Also on Monday…
• User Generated Content: Friend or Foe
• Secrets of Doing More with Less in a Digital World
• Journalism in the Blogosphere: A Legal Guide to Internet "Press"
• What Does the Future Hold for Video on the Internet
And on Tuesday…
• Finding the Next Billion Internet Users
• Open Knowledge vs. Controlled Knowledge
• The Future of the Book: Dead or Alive?
• Music From the Masses: The Remix Revolution
• Net Politics: The Internet Can Make You President
• The Technologist Agenda: Political Activism for Geeks
For more about SXSW Interactive programming, click here and read the SXSW Interactive Community Blog here.
Those attending the Visa Security Summit in Washington are learning that there is a big difference between the loss of personal data and actual fraud. Panelists told an audience of mostly bankers and retailers that they don't need to worry much if data is lost, but if it is a targeted attack by hackers -- worry and take action.
But during the questions and answers session, those attending wanted practical advice on how to get the CEO to pay attention to security and invest in better practices before a security breach.
Try this at home says James Lee, chief public affairs officer at ChoicePoint: "Boss, the Associated Press is on the phone."
James Van Dyke, president of Javelin Strategy & Research suggested emphasizing that your brand is all you have and its value is based on trust.
Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the Chief Marketing Officer Council, says to try, "Our competitor has more trust and they're getting more business."
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which applies to the online collection of personal information from children under age 13, has been "working pretty well" since its enactment in 2000 and is flexible enough to evolve as new technologies are introduced, the IAPP heard Thursday.
Mary Engle, the FTC's associate director for the division of advertising practices, gave social-networking sites as an example. The agency recently settled its first case in that arena which involved Xanga.com. The Web site paid the government a $1 million penalty for collecting and disclosing youngsters' data.
Engle said the FTC will also "take a hard look" at legitimate companies whose online advertisements are being included in unwanted and potentially harmful computer software that is downloaded onto consumers' computers without permission. She said the agency will be sending letters to advertisers that have been flagged during FTC investigations to make sure they are aware of where their ads are appearing.
The mobile device marketplace poses new challenges for enforcing laws aimed at fighting unsolicited e-mail and other Web-based blights, the FTC's Lois Greisman said at the IAPP conference. Cellular phones and handheld computers provide a "tremendous opportunity for different types of consumer experiences" as well as fraud, she said.
Greisman, associate director of the agency's division of marketing practices, said a practice called "cramming" is of particular concern. Cramming is the addition of charges for undesired services to a subscriber's account. There are also "plenty of billing and payment issues" the FTC is tracking, she said. The appropriate inclusion of federally required disclosures on marketing e-mail is also a problem "on a screen that is very tiny."
Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy delivered a rousing keynote at the IAPP conference on Thursday where he offered attendees a tongue-in-cheek list of the "Top 10 Ways to Make Privacy the Boss's Concern." You can read more about his "don't-try-this-at-home" pointers in the PM edition of Technology Daily.
He was followed by FTC Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras, who spoke about her agency's enforcement actions and internal work to improve data security and privacy. In 2006, she brought the FTC into compliance with the latest privacy guidelines and is expanding the effort this year.
Majoras, who co-chairs an identity theft task force created by President Bush last year, said the group has made interim recommendations and will deliver its final strategic plan to the White House shortly.
What is a privacy professional? About 1,200 attendees at this week's International Association of Privacy Professionals conference know -- but footage of man-on-the-street interviews (played for the crowd on Thursday morning) showed that average Americans do not.
The question garnered blank stares, head-scratching and some pretty funny answers. "Is that like the FBI or CIA?" one interviewee asked. A mailman said: "I don't have a clue." Another guessed that a privacy professional is someone "involved with something deceitful and dishonest." Quite a few people simply said: "I don’t know."
IAPP Executive Director Trevor Hughes admitted that his 3,200-member group has "a bit of a PR problem." "Perhaps I know what you do, you know what you do, our bosses sometimes know what you do," but many people do not, he said. Privacy experts must better explain their role as "guardians of trust" in the digital age, he added.
To that end, the IAPP will soon launch a campaign to educate the public. The group will also begin "delegate tours" later this year to learn from and share experiences with foreign counterparts. IAPP officials will visit London, Paris and Berlin in June, Hughes said.
The Progress and Freedom Foundation's Adam Thierer spoke to the Freedom to Connect conference on Tuesday about the dangers of government-imposed data retention and age-verification mandates.
He warned that the country now faces a "serious threat of regulatory convergence" since some on Capitol Hill want to apply "broken regulatory models from the past" that governed broadcasting to "each and every platform or new technology out there."
The old paradigm was based on the scarcity of voices being seen and heard on television and radio, he said. But making that argument in the Internet age is "silly," Thierer said. That cannot be the hook on which the nation hangs its regulatory standards, he said.
Thierer said he spends much of his time "trying to fend off one bad regulatory proposal after another." Pitches for government restrictions have been made for videogames, social-networking sites, cellular phones and just about every type of Internet-enabled technology, he said.
There is a "real chance" that some type of data retention requirement for Internet service providers will come out of the 110th Congress, Thierer said. The Bush administration has been lobbying for such a mandate since last year. He also noted that state attorneys general may successfully impose age-verification rules in some states.
Thierer called both initiatives a "threat to online speech and communication." "We've been relying on the courts to hold the line," but the environment soon may change drastically, he said.
An Internet expert at the Freedom to Connect conference on Tuesday turned the tables on Yale Law School's Yochai Benkler by criticizing his book The Wealth of Networks. Benkler was the summit's cause célèbre the day before.
On Monday, he spoke about his tome, which states that new "networked information economy" allows individuals and groups to be more productive than commercial ventures. A handful of fellow pundits and audience-members cheered him on.
But Peter Swire, an Ohio State University high-tech legal scholar, argued that an "economic-ased objective is pragmatically useful" when analyzing the 21st century marketplace. "There are a thousand things I agree with in the book," but Benkler's chief thesis is not one of them.
The book's assertion that change depends on "social rather than proprietary market relations [is] a big claim," Swire said. He said he believes "the shift to non-market is not proven and likely to be substantially overstated."
Swire gave the domain name system as an example. It began with a collection of hobbyists but gave rise to a powerful commercial vehicle that is administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. "It would be very surprising to have the domain name system we have now if individuals were doing it on a volunteer basis," he said.
The public discussion about Benkler's book continues on his wiki.
Tomorrow's Freedom to Connect conference speakers include: Dan Gillmor of the Center for Citizen Media; blogger Mark Tapscott; Sunlight Foundation's Bill Allison; New America Foundation's Michael Calabrese; Progress and Freedom Foundation's Adam Thierer; cyber security expert Peter Swire and others. FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein is scheduled to keynote at 11 a.m.
Don't let James Salter's southern drawl and sense of comic timing fool you. The Atlantic Engineering founder is serious about pushing for greater U.S. broadband deployment. America will continue to lag behind its competitors and innovation will suffer "until this country gets wired a little better than it is today," he said.
Despite the need for better broadband, the Freedom to Connect speaker was critical of some methods of achieving the goal. Wireless services, copper lines and coaxial cable are all "bad for broadband," he claimed, readily admitting his bias. "I'm a guy that owns a company and I've got an agenda." His firm has connected a dozen cities through fiber-to-the-home technology.
Sanjit Biswas, co-founder of wireless mesh network provider Meraki, made a major announcement at the Freedom to Connect conference this afternoon. His initiative whose mission is to "bring affordable Internet access to the next billion people" will soon establish a pilot project in San Francisco.
The Google-funded start-up was first used in low-income housing communities in the U.S. and has since spread to more than 25 countries. The forthcoming Bay Area project will give 1,000 residents Meraki's cute little mini-repeaters "to see what kind of network they can build," Biswas said.
He hopes the first-of-its-kind grassroots effort will show other communities that the Internet can be deployed easily for free or at a low cost. There are already 15,000 Meraki users worldwide, he said.
Just in case you're wondering, Meraki (may-rah-kee) is a Greek word that means doing something with soul, creativity or love.
Technology Daily's PM edition will include coverage from the annual Freedom to Connect conference today but, as usual, there's always more to the story. So I'll be posting highlights from the event on the blog. You can find out more about F2C here.
Yale Law School's Yochai Benkler spoke this morning about his book The Wealth of Networks. He said "every connected person on the planet… now has the physical capacity necessary to make and communicate information, knowledge and culture."
That has changed the global marketplace because "most inputs into the core economic activities… are widely distributed in the population," he said. At stake is whether these forms of decentralized production will be sustainable, Benkler added.
Other morning speakers included Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas; Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn; the Consumer Federation of America's Mark Cooper; KC Claffy of the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis; and author and lecturer Elliot Maxwell.
The next big blogging event for Tech Daily Dose is the Tech Policy Summit in San Jose, Calif., Feb. 26-27. The Silicon Valley gathering is a new, invitation-only affair that brings together influential leaders from the private and public sectors to contemplate critical policy issues impacting technology.
In addition to my blogging and coverage for Tech Daily, I will also be moderating a discussion about the successes and challenges of the current U.S. patent system. Jon Dudas, the director of the Patent & Trademark Office is among several all-stars on the panel.
For more information on the conference, click here.
Odds and ends from the State of the Net conference yesterday...
Google's senior policy counsel Andrew McLaughlin said his company routinely encounters countries' conflicting laws that force the Web giant to walk a legal and political tightrope. A recent example involved a user-submitted video on Google-owned YouTube, which the Indian government found "hugely offensive."
The video, posted by an Indian American comedian in New York, showed him pole-dancing while dressed as revered spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi. Indian leaders asked Google to remove the video even though the data was not located in India and YouTube does not have an official presence in the country, he said.
Despite Google's run-ins with foreign governments, McLaughlin does not think a U.S.-led global standard for take-down notices is feasible. "The best way to handle this is on a nation-by-nation, case-by-case basis," he said.
Meanwhile, Steve DelBianco of the Association for Competitive Technology spoke out about confusion over a proposal to designate a Web space for pornographic content. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which is currently considering the scheme, can only approve and create a contract for administering the .xxx domain, he said. "There's nothing that ICANN can do to force the adult entertainment industry to put content there."
The .xxx debate underscores a misunderstanding that exists about the governance and the technical management of the Internet. ICANN and participating governments run in "parallel lanes," DelBianco said. "Every once in a while, the U.S. government swerves over into ICANN's lane and creates the perception that ICANN is more than a technical manager."
Be sure to read Technology Daily tomorrow for more State of the Net conference coverage. Late in the afternoon, a panel of Internet experts debated international policy issues and challenges for businesses operating abroad. Speakers included Jeff Campbell from Cisco; Steve DelBianco of the Association for Competitive Technology; the State Department's David Gross; Leslie Harris of the Center for Democracy and Technology; Andrew McLaughlin of Google; and Alun Michael, a member of the U.K. Parliament.
Craving more insight into the patent reform legislation process? Well, here are some juicy morsels to chew on -- direct from a panel of congressional aides who spoke at State of the Net conference.
Aaron Cooper, a staffer for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said his boss and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, will likely introduce a bill similar to the one they sponsored last year (S.3818).
But Ryan Triplette, who works for the panel's Ranking Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, said her boss wants in on the action. He was not at the negotiating table last year so "we're not as wedded to S.3818," she said. The issue is a top priority for Specter. "This is something that can get done this Congress," Triplette said.
In the House, Reps. Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Howard Berman, D-Calif., will lead the charge. Amy Levine, a staffer for Boucher, said "you will see real initiative and a real drive to get patent reform legislation through."
Branden Ritchie, who works for Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., agreed that lawmakers "moved the ball pretty far" last year through a series of hearings and legislation. "We're looking forward to doing that again this time."
The next-generation of the Internet known as "Web 2.0" is "nothing more than Web 1.1," said luncheon keynoter Bruce Chizen, the CEO of Adobe Systems. "It's the implementation of everything we talked about five years ago," he said. Chizen predicted that in the next few years technologies that are rolled out "will make today's Web 2.0 experience antiquated."
Places where Web users connect will also change rapidly, Chizen said. "More people will be accessing the Internet through non-PC devices than PC-devices," he forecasted. Mobile handsets, videogame systems and automobile dashboards will be the new platforms for going online.
Speaking of Web 2.0, the Pew Internet & American Life Project released a report today focused on tagging content, an emerging hallmark of the new online environment. The document includes Q&A with Web expert David Weinberger whose book on the topic is forthcoming. Because tagging is useful when dealing with lots of information, Weinberger said the practice is "truly meaningful to individuals" and will be adopted more widely.
Read more about Pew's report here.
California Democrat Howard Berman, the chairman of the House Judiciary Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee, will continue the bipartisan effort to reform U.S. copyright laws that his predecessor, Texas Republican Lamar Smith started, panelists at a music licensing session said.
"I don't think there will be any shift in a major way. We'll have a seamless transition from one very strong defender of IP to another," said David Israelite, president of the National Music Publishers' Association.
The Consumer Electronics Association's Michael Petricone added that even though Berman counts movie studio chiefs among his constituents, he has always had an open-door policy for high-tech manufacturers.
Other panelists included Steve Marks from the Recording Industry Association of America; Walter McDonough from the Future of Music Coalition; and the Digital Music Association's Jonathan Potter.
Read more about Berman's vision for his subcommittee in Technology Daily's series on the committees of the 110th Congress.
An intellectual property panel on user-generated content started off with a chuckle-inducing video called Brokeback to the Future, a made-up movie preview that featured clips from Brokeback Mountain and Back to the Future.
The session featured Jim DeLong of the Progress & Freedom Foundation, Pam Samuelson of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology and Steven Starr from Revver.com.
Here's the video:
After the keynote, a panel discussed "Global Broadband Rankings: Is the U.S. Falling Behind or Positioned to Leap Forward?" Speakers included George Ford of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies; Mark Lloyd of the Center for American Progress; OECD's Taylor Reynolds; Progress and Freedom Foundation's Scott Wallsten; and CompTIA's Roger Cochetti.
During the Q&A, Public Knowledge's Art Brodsky asked: "What is it about the U.K. and some OECD countries that appear to produce better results" with regard to broadband availability and pricing?
Reynolds responded: "The U.S. has taken a different path than most OECD countries. [But] it all boils down to competition." How do we improve competition in the U.S.? Look to European and Asian models, he suggested.
Congressional Internet crusader Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., kicked off the summit this morning. He spoke about universal service reform, updating the federal patent system and the hotly debated "net neutrality" controversy. You can read all about the first two issues in our P.M. edition later today.
He had some interesting, albeit brief, thoughts on the proposed mandate for equal treatment of high-speed Internet content. Boucher said he wants to ensure that the Web remains open but also "doesn’t want to do anything in terms of a legislative remedy that has the effect of hobbling innovation inside the network."
Boucher fears that without net neutrality legislation, start-up Internet companies "may not be able to pay fast-lane fees" that he said broadband network providers may impose in the future. Stuck in the slow lane, the fledgling firms "won't become the next Yahoo or the next Google."
Until net neutrality is resolved, "every positive agenda item the broadband providers bring to Congress is going to be similarly blocked," the Congressional Internet Caucus co-chair warned. Those companies have not been lobbying on Capitol Hill so far this year, he said. For issues like video franchise reform, they are focusing on state-based changes -- "a longer, more tedious process," he quipped.
The third annual State of the Net conference, a bountiful feast for Internet policy professionals from government and industry, is being held today in Washington. The event also marks the tenth anniversary of the Congressional Internet Caucus.
Summit organizers have a jam-packed day planned. Sessions cover a variety of topics including intellectual property rights, privacy and security, patents and broadband. I'll be blogging here and there in addition to the stories I file for Technology Daily's P.M. edition.
But first, some delicious data…
A new poll conducted by Zogby on behalf of caucus showed nine out of 10 Americans believe the Internet has changed our expectations of privacy. Differences exist between what 18-24 year-olds believe is an invasion of privacy and what other respondents consider to be an intrusion.
About 35 percent of 18-24 year-olds consider someone posting a picture of them in a swimsuit to be an invasion of their privacy, compared to 65 percent of other respondents. Roughly 19 percent of the younger group said a publicly posted dating profile is an invasion of privacy, compared to 54 percent of others.
Meanwhile, 45 percent of younger respondents said they, or someone they know, has broken up with someone using e-mail or a text message. That contrasts with about 7 percent of all the other age groups polled.
More poll results can be found here.
New Media
Online Politics
Tech Policy
