The Fair Play Fair Pay Act (HR-1733) is likely to play a major role in the House Judiciary Committee’s ongoing copyright law review, but its chances of success past the committee level remain questionable despite a push to neutralize arguments against the bill, industry lawyers told us. House Judiciary IP Subcommittee ranking member Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., introduced the bill Monday (see 1504130056). HR-1733 would require most terrestrial radio stations to begin paying performance royalties and would require digital broadcasters to begin paying royalties for pre-1972 sound recordings. The bill would also require satellite broadcasters to pay royalties at market rates.
Jimm Phillips
Jimm Phillips, Associate Editor, covers telecommunications policymaking in Congress for Communications Daily. He joined Warren Communications News in 2012 after stints at the Washington Post and the American Independent News Network. Phillips is a Maryland native who graduated from American University. You can follow him on Twitter: @JLPhillipsDC
Telecom and tech industry executives said the federal government should address issues that executives believe will be fundamental to the tech sector’s continued growth, including cybersecurity, privacy and patent reform. The federal government “needs to adjust dramatically” on those issues and do so at a faster pace than they have in the past, said Cisco CEO John Chambers during a joint 1776-TechNet event Wednesday.
The House Homeland Security Committee unanimously approved the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act (HR-1731) Tuesday, making it the third cybersecurity information sharing bill passed out of a House or Senate committee since the beginning of the year. Leaders of the House and Senate Homeland Security and Intelligence committees have said they want a combined bill that marries elements of HR-1731, the Protecting Cyber Networks Act (HR-1560) and the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S-754). HR-1560 and S-754 are companion bills that focus on information sharing between the private sector and the U.S. intelligence community, while HR-1731 focuses on establishing the Department of Homeland Security and its National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) as the main portal for private sector-to-government cyber information sharing. An industry lobbyist told us the House intends to vote on HR-1560 by April 23, while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor Tuesday that S-754 is among a set of bills he wants to bring up for a full Senate vote “in the near future.”
California Public Utilities Commissioner Mike Florio’s filing Friday suggesting the CPUC reject the Comcast/Time Warner Cable (TWC) deal further unsettles the commission’s review of the merger, industry observers in the state told us. Florio said in his alternate proposed decision rejecting the deal (see 1504100049) that Administrative Law Judge Karl Bemesderfer’s proposed decision approving Comcast/TWC with 25 conditions (see 1502170059) can’t effectively mitigate “adverse consequences” posed by the merger. Comcast “does not have a good record of abiding” by CPUC-imposed conditions and the company has contested all 25 conditions in the Bemesderfer draft, Florio said.
House Judiciary IP Subcommittee ranking member Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., House Judiciary Committee ranking member John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., and Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., plan to officially introduce the Fair Play Fair Pay Act Monday during an event sponsored by artist advocacy group musicFIRST. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., is the bill's other co-sponsor. The bill’s provisions are likely to reflect the provisions Nadler highlighted during a Recording Academy event in February, when he discussed his plans to introduce an omnibus package of previous music licensing legislation aimed at expanding the payments of performance royalties, music industry experts and attorneys said in interviews Friday. Broadcasters and digital media groups, which have opposed attempts to extend performance royalty requirements, said they don’t believe the bill is likely to advance further than previous attempts to address the issue.
The Department of Commerce Internet Policy Task Force’s March 13 request for comment on possible cybersecurity issues the IPTF should address through multistakeholder work is a continuation of its earlier work on cybersecurity issues, industry stakeholders told us. The IPTF’s reopening of its cybersecurity work shows that Commerce is seeking ways to explore cyber items not directly addressed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cybersecurity Framework, stakeholders said. NIST is one of the federal agencies that the IPTF comprises. The IPTF said in its request for comment (see 1503160059), published in the March 19 Federal Register, that it seeks input from industry stakeholders on cyber-related topics that veer away from securing critical infrastructure sectors while also complementing federal initiatives like the NIST framework that focus on those sectors. Comments are due May 18 (see 1503190059).
Conservative privacy advocates urged Congress not to automatically reauthorize the controversial USA Patriot Act Section 215, telling congressional aides during an R Street Institute event Wednesday to urge their bosses to conduct a thorough debate on the provision that authorized controversial NSA bulk collection of phone metadata. The phone metadata collection program was one of the major NSA surveillance initiatives disclosed through former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's leaks to the media beginning in June 2013. Without reauthorization, Section 215 and other key provisions of the Patriot Act are to sunset June 1, with May 21 widely seen as the last working day Congress can act on reauthorization, given the Memorial Day recess. The debate over Section 215 reauthorization is set to reignite when Congress returns from recess next week, while other legislators are pushing for more wholesale NSA surveillance reforms.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau said Monday it reached a $16 million settlement with CenturyLink and a $1.4 million settlement with Intrado Communications over the companies’ roles in the April 2014 multistate 911 outage. The FCC found in October that the outage, which affected seven states and resulted in more than 6,600 emergency calls not reaching public safety answering points (PSAPs), stemmed from a software error at an Intrado 911 call processing center in Englewood, Colorado (see 1410170057). The bureau said it calculated the fines against CenturyLink and Intrado based on the number of PSAPs served by the companies.
NTIA said it is immediately suspending its early build funding for the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System Authority’s (LA-RICS) construction of a public safety LTE cell tower network in the city, after recent votes by the L.A. City Council and L.A. County Board to halt construction of portions of the network. The Council voted 12-0 Wednesday on its motion halting construction of LA-RICS project towers at city police stations and fire stations. The County Board vote March 24 halted LA-RICS construction at county fire stations. The city and county councils’ votes to halt the project make it “clear that LA-RICS faces substantial challenges in fulfilling the project's goals by the statutory deadline of September 30, 2015,” an NTIA spokeswoman said Friday.
The Texas House’s State Affairs Committee is considering legislation that would buck a recent national trend of states pre-empting regulation of VoIP services by requiring partial Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) oversight of those services. A revised version of the bill, HB-2650, would give PUCT oversight of consumer complaints against VoIP providers and require those providers to either cap the length of subscribers’ contracts at 180 days or allow them to opt out of their contract without penalties after the 180-day mark. The bill has encountered opposition from industry, which lobbied for recent bills in other states to pre-empt regulation of VoIP. State Rep. Ed Thompson, HB-2650’s Republican sponsor, told us he believes it’s unlikely the bill will make it out of the State Affairs Committee but he wants to draw attention to the issue and find ways to improve VoIP providers’ self-regulation of consumer issues.