House members marched a slew of online child protection bills past the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday, after hearing a first-hand account by a teenager abducted and abused by a man she met online. The bills would increase fines and prison sentences for violators.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued its weekly tariff rate quota and tariff preference level commodity report as of October 15, 2007. This report includes TRQs on various products such as beef, sugar, dairy products, peanuts, cotton, cocoa products, tobacco, certain BFTA, DR-CAFTA, Israel FTA, JFTA, MFTA, SFTA, UAFTA (AFTA) and UCFTA (Chile FTA) non-textile TRQs, etc. Each report also includes the AGOA, ATPDEA, BFTA, DR-CAFTA, CBTPA, Haitian HOPE, MFTA, NAFTA, SFTA, and UCFTA TPLs and TRQs for qualifying apparel and/or other textile articles, the TRQs on worsted wool fabrics, etc. (CBP's weekly TRQ/TPL commodity report, dated 10/15/07, available at http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/import/textiles_and_quotas/commodity/cr071015.ctt/cr071015.doc.)
“There’s no time pressure” on the FCC to address an International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (ITSO) request to change Intelsat’s original licenses to reflect its obligations to maintain lifeline connectivity to developing countries, said David Gross, U.S. State Department coordinator for international communications and information policy. Gross and Richard Russell, the head of the U.S. delegation to the coming World Radiocommunication Conference in Geneva, spoke Thursday at a meeting of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy. Russell briefed the committee on the conference; Gross reported on State’s discussions with Vietnam and Mexico.
The U.S. Council for International Business has issued a press release announcing that Pakistan joined the ATA Carnet system as of October 1, 2007. ATA Carnets, which permit the temporary duty-free and tax-free import of goods, are an increasingly important tool for businesses engaged in international commerce. (USCIB, dated 10/02/07, available at http://www.uscib.org/index.asp?documentID=3747)
NCTA slammed the FCC for treating Bells differently from cable operators in a March order giving new video entrants a streamlined franchise approval process and capping some fees cities charge them. The trade group’s comments came in a petition to 6th U.S. Appeals Court in Cincinnati in Alliance for Community Media v. FCC. Five municipal groups and a dozen-plus cities also filed petitions, saying the FCC has no standing to intervene in local decision-making. The NCTA likewise said Thursday that the Communications Act limits FCC oversight of franchising. The Act names courts the sole arbiter of whether a city unreasonably refused to let a company sell TV, said NCTA. The briefs responded to Sept. comments to the court by the FCC, USTA and other franchise rule backers (CD Sept 19 p10).
NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker used a form of peer pressure to encourage unspecified hold-out companies to adopt existing technology to protect network content from unauthorized viewing and distribution on the Internet and through home networks. Speaking Wednesday at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Anti-Counterfeiting and Piracy Summit, Zucker’s remarks clearly were aimed mostly at Google’s YouTube. Unlike Microsoft and MySpace, it hasn’t adopted long-promised antipiracy technology to block unauthorized videos. But he said he hopes that in the next few months the largest Internet service providers and home networking and device makers will adopt filtering technology, which AT&T has said it’s working on.
Viacom was “reluctantly drawn” to sue Google’s YouTube, but won’t shirk regulatory and legislative battles involving copyright, including net neutrality, CEO Philippe Dauman made clear Monday. In a keynote to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Anti-Counterfeiting and Piracy Summit, Dauman said Viacom’s rising revenue from digital content, pegged at $500 million this year, was besieged by free online alternatives that made its licensed partners reconsider whether to keep paying.
Viacom was “reluctantly drawn” to sue Google’s YouTube, but won’t shirk regulatory and legislative battles involving copyright, including net neutrality, CEO Philippe Dauman made clear Monday. In a keynote to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Anti-Counterfeiting and Piracy Summit, Dauman said Viacom’s rising revenue from digital content, pegged at $500 million this year, was besieged by free online alternatives that made its licensed partners reconsider whether to keep paying.
The International Trade Administration and the International Trade Commission have each issued notices initiating automatic five-year Sunset Reviews on the above-listed antidumping and countervailing duty orders.
Intelsat users want the FCC to act on its request that the original Intelsat licenses be changed to reflect its obligations to maintain lifeline connectivity to developing countries. The FCC said the request by the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization remains pending.