People Still Get Their News From Local Newspapers And TV Stations?

from the massive-overreaction dept

I don't understand why people get so worked up about the FCC's various proposals to tweak the rules regarding how many TV stations and newspapers one company can own. The ownership of local newspapers and TV stations was important in the 20th century, when people only had a handful of choices on where to get their news. Local newspaper and broadcast television stations are becoming one small corner of a vastly larger media universe that includes dozens of cable television stations, thousands of news sites, and millions of blogs and podcasts. Nowadays, the real question isn't whether local newspapers and TV stations have too much influence; the question is whether anyone would notice if they disappeared.

Which brings us to FCC chairman Kevin Martin's New York Times op-ed defending his remarkably timid proposal to allow a newspaper in one of the 20 largest cities to purchase a TV or radio station—but not one of the metro area's four largest TV stations. Under his proposal, none of the FCC's other media ownership rules would be changed. In other words, a newspaper would be allowed to buy an also-ran TV station in a cacophonous media market like New York or LA, but the vast majority of cities would see no changes at all. Yet some members of Congress seem to think that even those miniscule changes are too much and have introduced legislation to require the FCC to spend even more time debating the issue, even though, as James Gattuso points out, that the FCC has been debating the issue for 11 years already. On the other hand, as ridiculous as the situation is, it's hard to have too much sympathy for the broadcasters. After all, they were happy to raise bogus fears of media concentration to stop the XM/Sirius merger this spring. Now the broadcasters are getting a taste of their own medicine.

Filed Under: fcc, kevin martin, media ownership, newspaper
Companies: congress, fcc

Congress: P2P Promotes Identity Theft! We Need New Laws!

from the maybe-one-of-these-will-stick dept

It would appear that the entertainment industry's friends in Congress are now trying to blame just about anything evil online on P2P technology. A few months ago, a group of representatives started saying that P2P technology had to be regulated because it was a national security threat. The reasoning behind this? Because some idiot gov't employees ignored policies forbidding the use of unauthorized 3rd party apps (or putting sensitive data on home computers) and misconfigured P2P apps... ending up in secure documents being available for download. In other words, even though the real fault was stupid gov't employees ignoring policies and misusing the technology... it was the technology's fault.

Apparently, that argument didn't generate enough support for a new law against P2P technology. So now the exact same group of Congressional Representatives is claiming that P2P technology is evil and must be stopped... because it promotes identity theft. The politicians (many of whom just so happen to come from places where large entertainment firms are based... though, we're sure that's a coincidence) are clearly trying to come up with an excuse (any excuse) to come up with new laws against P2P systems. Today's action involved asking the FTC to investigate this perceived threat from P2P systems and also asked whether the FTC felt it had enough enforcement powers to address this problem, or if it needed help from Congress. In other words, the well-choreographed dance has begun. We'll soon see legislation introduced to crack down on file sharing systems, officially in the name of stopping identity theft, but really thanks to campaign contributions from the entertainment industry who still hasn't realized that it's harming itself. The more they do this, the more real innovation will move elsewhere.

Filed Under: congress, identity theft, national security, p2p
Companies: congress, riaa

How Easily Congress Removed Protection From Citizen Journalists

from the no-profit?--no-protection! dept

The House of Representatives approved a bill this week that would give journalists protection to shield their sources rather than having to give them up. This is a rather important bill, and while there's little chance of it actually becoming a law at this point, Declan McCullough over at News.com does a great job showing how different versions of the bill continually watered down who was actually protected -- starting with anyone practicing journalism, shifting to those who made some money from journalism activities and finally moving to only covering those who make a substantial part of their living that way. Declan has the full text, highlighting the changes to each version. Of course, it's hard to see how this makes any sense. Why should your ability to make money from your journalistic efforts have any bearing on whether or not you can protect a source? Given the rise of so-called citizen journalism -- where just about anyone is a journalist -- why should only those who do it full time for money get protection?

Filed Under: congress, journalists, laws, protect sources
Companies: congress

Congress Accuses Yahoo Execs Of Lying About Handing Over Info To Chinese Authorities

from the uh-oh dept

Yahoo just can't win, it seems. The company is finally having a good day in the news, as its earnings topped expectations -- and almost at the same time, Congress accuses company execs of lying at a hearing. Last year, after the news media finally realized that the big American internet sites were cooperating with the Chinese gov't on certain things, Congress felt it needed to hold some grandstanding hearings to make it look like they cared or might actually do something. Of course, nothing much happened at all. However, someone in Congress has noticed that something that a Yahoo exec said in those hearings doesn't seem to square up with more recent news -- meaning that Congress is back in action, asking Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and the exec in question, general counsel Michael Callahan, to explain themselves at a hearing next month. The question is how involved Yahoo was in the Chinese effort to track down and jail journalist Shi Tao. Callahan told Congress that Yahoo had no info on the case, but documents released this summer suggest otherwise.

Filed Under: china, congress
Companies: congress, yahoo

Will Fox Sue Congress For Simpsons Parody?

from the d'oh! dept

If you follow politics outside of the tech world you've probably seen plenty of talk in the last week or so about the battle over SCHIP, the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The details of the debate really aren't worth getting into on a tech/business news site, but a bunch of Republican Congressmen put out what can only be considered a parody press release using characters from the TV show The Simpsons to try to highlight their side of the debate. This was so random and bizarre that a few people actually wondered if the Republican site had been hacked. That turned out not to be the case, but apparently none of the Representatives who put together the mock press release sought the approval of Twentieth Century Fox, who apparently is not at all happy that Simpsons characters are being used in this manner: "Twentieth Century Fox was unaware of the illegal use of characters from The Simpsons in this press release. Let me assure you, Fox did not authorize this use. Characters from The Simpsons may not be used in this manner…" Some would argue that parody is covered by fair use, but that may only be true if the parody is of The Simpsons itself, rather than using them for a parody of something else. Either way, while Congress has been bending over backwards to give the entertainment industry everything it wishes when it comes to keeping control over their creative works, it seems that even those same Representatives can think of cases where it made perfect sense to them to make use of characters without having to first license them. Somehow, why do I get the feeling this lesson won't stick and these same Reps will have no problem putting in place more stringent copyright laws that eat away at fair use?

Filed Under: congress, fair use, parody, schip, the simpsons
Companies: congress, fox, news corp

Why Does Congress Want Smart, Highly Educated Workers To Stay Out Of The US?

from the just-wondering dept

Whenever we write about H1-B visas, we seem to get attacked by people who confuse the fact that there are some companies who abuse the program with the overall benefit of getting smart, highly educated workers working for American companies -- rather than against them. It certainly fits with economist's Bryan Caplan's theory that many people have specific biases that blind them to the bigger picture. All four of those biases actually come into play on this issue. The anti-market bias that doesn't recognize the benefits of competition and assumes that protectionism helps an industry, when it actually hurts. The anti-foreign bias that obviously comes into play when people seem to be against immigrants because they're "not American" even if they help the American economy. The make-work bias that falsely assumes that it's better to have people employed right now than creating an economy that will produce more, better paying jobs in the future. And, finally, the pessimistic bias that assumes that because some foreign workers may take a job from a higher paid American, that we're all going to lose our jobs.

The reality is quite different. Competition is what drives innovation and progress. By having competitors, it pushes companies to continually improve their offerings and serve the market with better and cheaper products. That's a good thing. Protecting an industry is a recipe for killing it, as it simply allows foreign competitors to run circles around the domestic players, killing off the international market and making Americans worse off. Second, having smart, well-educated foreign workers working for US companies, rather than for foreign competition clearly helps the American economy by keeping those companies strong and innovating, rather than getting crushed by foreign competition. Finally, if those American companies can do better and create new desired products, they can create more jobs. Jobs are not a zero-sum game.

Unfortunately, these biases are strong and difficult to fight. Politicians driven by polls too often succumb to them. The latest news is that Congress is against letting in more H1-B workers, guaranteeing that those workers will instead go to work for foreign companies -- working against American companies. It's difficult to see how anyone can favor that, but that's the way it is unfortunately. It is true that the H1-B program has been abused by some companies. But the answer isn't to punish the H1-B program, but to punish the abusers.

Filed Under: h1-b visas, immigration
Companies: congress

Howard Berman To Force ISPs To Do RIAA's Bidding

from the the-representative-from-hollywood-strikes-again dept

First Congress tried to require universities to act as the RIAA's servants (or Congress would take away funding) and now they're trying to do the same thing to ISPs. Rep. Howard Berman (who continually lives up to his nickname of being the Representative from Disney), the head of the Intellectual Property subcommittee (which, as Larry Lessig has pointed out, is like asking a Representative from Detroit to head up the committee on auto safety), is about to introduce legislation that would require ISPs pass on RIAA/MPAA threat letters to subscribers (found via TorrentFreak). Of course, Berman doesn't seem to note that the entertainment industry process is based on extremely flimsy evidence and the whole "settlement process" amounts to little more than an extortion shakedown from the entertainment industry. It's not easy to fight back, and often people feel compelled to settle. With ISPs forced to do their bidding, it will only encourage the entertainment industry to send out notices based on even weaker evidence, since the whole thing has become a revenue generator for them -- and this will simply increase their channel -- all with government support. This is making a mockery of the intent of copyright.

Filed Under: copyright, isps, piracy
Companies: congress, mpaa, riaa

Are U.S. Educators On The Wrong Side Of The Copyright War?

from the sharing-information-is-a-good-thing... dept

Last month, the entertainment industry (with the help of Senator Harry Reid) slipped a nice little amendment into the Higher Education Reauthorization Act, which funds colleges and universities as well as students. The amendment would require universities block p2p file sharing or lose funding. A number of universities complained (reasonably) about the expense involved in doing so, but some are arguing that it's about time that universities got away from just the cost argument and stood against this on principle. John points us to an argument for why universities should be fighting back against copyright maximalism, noting that, of all places, universities should recognize the benefits of a freer flow of information, and how trying to artificially limit information only leads to problems. The author notes that the high price of college textbooks should be example number one of how copyright can hinder the educational purpose of a university by artificially driving up the price. Of course, these days it seems like too many of the myths from the entertainment industry have been accepted as fact -- so it seems unlikely that universities will stand up against dangerous copyright practices any time soon.

Filed Under: congress, copyright, p2p, piracy, politics, universities
Companies: congress

Unions Make Ridiculous Arguments Against Patent Reform

from the a-little-economics-would-be-good-here dept

Ronald J. Riley runs an organization called the Professional Inventors Alliance, which fights vehemently against any kind of patent reform that might make life harder for patent trolls or those who obtain horribly obvious or broad patents. He has been known to show up here at Techdirt to argue with us in the comments, but his arguments are based on the faulty assumption that pretty much all patents are good and anyone accused of patent infringement has clearly "stolen" the hard work of someone else. The fact is that that's very rarely the case. As we've seen repeatedly, many patents should never have been issued as they don't qualify as non-obvious or they're too broad. In those cases, patents are clearly an economic hardship, and there's plenty of research to back that up. Also, most cases of patent infringement occur when multiple companies come up with the same type of solution independently, which is hardly "stealing." No matter though. By focusing on the false idea that all patent infringement is stealing, it can be a very compelling case for those who don't delve into the details.

The latest news is that Riley has convinced the AFL-CIO to come out against the latest attempt at patent reform. Now there's a lot to dislike in the latest attempt at patent reform, and we'd be upset if it passed as is. But the two specific things that the unions are complaining about are the two most reasonable things in the reform package. The first would change how damages are calculated, so that if the infringing component is only a small piece of a larger product, the damages shouldn't be based on the value of the larger product, but the value of that small piece. That seems completely fair. Why shouldn't the damages be reflective of the actual value? It's hard to see why that's controversial, but it is if you hold completely irrelevant patents and you want to hold up those companies that are actually making useful technologies. The second complaint is with making it easier to contest a patent after it's been issued. This is also a no-brainer. Given how little review goes into a current patent, along with the fact that patent examiners are given incentives to approve, rather than reject -- combined with the length of time it currently takes to get a patent reviewed, the incredibly arcane rules that everyone is required to go through to contest a patent and the quick draw of some courts who refuse to wait for the patent office to review patents, it makes sense to have a better system to make sure a patent is valid. Why would anyone be opposed to improving the quality of patents... unless they hold questionable patents?

Unfortunately, Riley's organization appears to have blinded the AFL-CIO to what's really happening. In convincing them that this is about stopping theft, he apparently left out all the economic research showing that it would actually do plenty of harm to the industries that most employ AFL-CIO workers. That's because it would limit their ability to innovate, make it more expensive to do research, and open up opportunities for foreign companies to do a much better job innovating and beating us in the market. Of course, given the history of the AFL-CIO, they must be used to that kind of effect, because that's been the result of previous policies in previous decades. In the meantime, Riley is hoping that by getting the support of unions, Democrats will feel compelled to vote against patent reform -- and, in fact, a Wall Street Journal article on this same subject suggests that the AFL-CIO's letter has been effective in slowing the reform effort. Hopefully, though, someone will explain to both the unions and the politicians the basic economics of monopolies and how they slow competition and innovation. If the folks at the AFL-CIO would like a detailed explanation for why their letter actually goes against the best interests of the people they supposedly represent, they should give us a call.

Filed Under: congress, patents, unions
Companies: congress

Congressional Computer Crashes: Congressional Reps Too Confused To Vote

from the oh-no! dept

It's no secret that many members of Congress seem to not understand technology issues, but they sure don't seem to like it when their own technology malfunctions. The Raw Feed points us to the news that the Congressional computer that shows vote tallies in the House of Representatives went on the fritz Friday afternoon, leaving those poor Congressional Representatives with no large monitor to tell them how their colleagues were voting. Apparently, without having this information being prominently displayed, some were concerned that they wouldn't know if their votes were being accurately counted (they were), and therefore began debating whether voting should cease until the computer was fixed. Rep. Joe Barton pointed out that each side had their own computers with tallies, and if those tallies matched up, it seemed silly to delay the voting, but eventually the Representatives decided it was just too difficult and recessed while the machines were fixed. What ever did they do before computers?

Filed Under: computers, congress
Companies: congress