The Copyright Office published a final rule Wednesday, setting adjusted fees, with an average increase of 41% proposed across the board. It is meant to “account for inflationary increases and the expected cost of information technology modernization over the next several years, and to more fully recover the costs of registration and recordation,” the CO said. The rule takes effect March 20.

Google's “unauthorized use” of Oracle computer code doesn’t fall under the “four-part fair use test used” by courts in copyright cases, the News Media Alliance said in a filing in a Supreme Court case Wednesday. The organization compared the use to Google’s “widespread and unauthorized use of news media content and its effect on the news media industry.”

Comments are due March 31 on an ICANN draft report on domain name collisions. These include situations where a domain is used in a private context and then delegated in the public domain name system (DNS) (see 1810240001). The report sets out findings of the Name Collision Analysis Project, which is charged with deciding whether delegation of .corp, .home and .mail and collisions in general, would harm DNS security and stability.

Google doesn’t have the tech industry support it claimed before the Supreme Court in Oracle’s lawsuit against Google’s use of Java programming code, Oracle Executive Vice President Ken Glueck wrote Monday (see 2001310027 and 2001130050). “A close read of Google’s Amicus briefs reveals that Google appears to be virtually alone -- at least among the technology community -- in seeking to weaken copyright for software,” Glueck wrote. The Internet Association, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, Microsoft, Mozilla, Reddit, Etsy and the Electronic Frontier Foundation back Google in the case. A wide range of consumers, developers, scientists and businesses agree open software interfaces promote innovation, and no single company should be able to monopolize it, said a Google spokesperson: “Openness and interoperability have helped developers create a variety of new products that consumers use to communicate, work, and play across different platforms.”

Google is investing in connected TV ad solutions to reach households at scale with messages that are relevant to users “and respectful of their privacy,” blogged Jake Jolly, product manager-Display & Video 360. A Comscore analysis commissioned by Google found marketers can reach 76 percent of all connected TV households in the U.S. and 89 percent of ad-supported connected TV households, or more than half of all Wi-Fi households. That will grow as connected TV penetration broadens, Jolly said Thursday. In addition to YouTube, Display & Video 360 provides access to nine of the top 10 most watched U.S. ad-supported connected TV apps from cable and broadcast channels. Google uses Identifier for Advertising (IFA) to manage connected TV ad frequency, and it can be disabled or reset by the user. Now, it’s working with inventory providers to support IFAs at the exchange and publisher levels, and advertisers can control frequency in a “user-first” way on apps such as Hulu, Pluto TV or Lifetime.

The FCC cleared $240 million of Connect America Fund support over 10 years for rural broadband deployment in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Oklahoma and Wyoming, the commission said Thursday. The agency estimates the funding, which broadband providers will start receiving later this month, will connect more than 100,000 unserved rural homes and businesses. Wisper ISP got more than $220.3 million for projects in six states, and Hughes Network got about $7 million in New York. This ninth wave of CAF Phase II is another step to close the digital divide, said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. The commission noted it’s the third wave where New York got matching funds for its state broadband program. That state recently raised concerns about possible exclusion from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (see 2002050011).

Built into Akamai’s 2020 revenue forecast is the assumption that it will “participate” in many of the new over-the-top video services “that are coming to market, and some that are expanding,” said Chief Financial Officer Edward McGowan on a Q4 call Tuesday. The network provider expects 2020 revenue growth to be in a range of $3.06 billion-$3.11 billion, vs. $2.89 billion in 2019, said McGowan. “In addition to more global expansion of existing OTT offerings that have been announced for later this year, we are aware of several new direct-to-consumer OTT launches planned for late spring and early summer” that haven’t been publicized, he said. Akamai also is counting on a big second-half revenue bounce from streaming for the Tokyo Olympics in Q3 and the presidential election “cycle” in Q4, he said. “It's really hard to call how successful these will be,” he said of the new OTT service offerings. “We have conversations with the customers. We know what their plans are. We make sure we build our capacity to be able to capture as much of the traffic that we can. But it really does come down to end-consumer demand.” Akamai’s goal is to “grow our share, have even more massive scale,” said CEO Thomson Leighton. “Already today, we're the go-to player, if you ask any of the big OTT guys, and we want to grow that further.”

Venture capitalists and antitrust enforcers share similar values and goals of favoring dynamic competition and seeing disruption as often a positive, DOJ antitrust head Makan Delrahim said in an address Wednesday, according to prepared remarks. He said DOJ is interested in whether any current digital platforms are so dominant, with the ability to restrict access to inputs or to distribution of products, that investors shy away from developing products relying on those platforms. He said there's a debate about the value of keep private data regarding how people interact with technology and websites, but there also are questions of what that information might be worth in different markets and how consumers might be served by rules that allow that data's collection and use.

The Office of Congressional Workplace Rights hasn’t incorporated “key cybersecurity management practices into the planning for its Secure Online Claims Reporting and Tracking E-filing System (SOCRATES) project,” GAO reported Tuesday. The independent office drafted a schedule for the project but “did not finalize and use this schedule to manage cybersecurity activities, such as the time frames for conducting information technology (IT) system security assessments. In addition, the office did not document project cybersecurity risks, such as the office’s reliance on external parties to implement responsibilities on its behalf.” GAO found those “weaknesses were due, in part, to a lack of policies and procedures for IT project planning,” which will continue to hamper OCWR’s IT projects until it begins establishing and implementing those policies. OCWR told GAO it’s “in the process of revising our IT systems project planning to ensure the development and implementation of policies and procedure incorporating key cybersecurity activities.”

Chinese military personnel were charged with hacking Equifax in 2017 and stealing personal data, DOJ announced Monday. A federal grand jury charged four members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army with conspiring to steal data from some 145 million Americans during a three-month hacking. Attorney General William Barr said this economic espionage “fits a disturbing and unacceptable pattern of state-sponsored computer intrusions and thefts by China and its citizens that have targeted personally identifiable information, trade secrets, and other confidential information.” Equifax CEO Mark Begor thanked DOJ for treating state-sponsored cybercrime with the “seriousness” it deserves: “Combating this challenge from well-financed nation-state actors that operate outside the rule of law is increasingly difficult. Fighting this cyberwar will require the type of open cooperation and partnership between government, law enforcement and private business that we have experienced firsthand.” The indictment doesn’t excuse Equifax deficiencies that enabled the breach, Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner, D-Va., said: “A company in the business of collecting and retaining massive amounts of Americans’ sensitive personal information must act with the utmost care -- and face any consequences that arise from that failure.” He urged support for his data broker legislation with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. (see 1905070066). The Chinese Embassy didn't comment. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., echoed Warner, saying companies become “irresistible targets” when cutting corners on security. He urged support for his Mind Your Own Business Act (see 1910170035). The indictments show a need for secure infrastructure, not “onerous privacy regulations,” Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Vice President Daniel Castro said Monday: “The ongoing debate about consumer data privacy has been muddled and misguided from the outset -- focusing the blame on corporate victims rather than on the perpetrators of state-directed cyber espionage.”