Decentralized trust mechanisms, which allow the transfer of digital content over a collective network of users -- the basis of the Bitcoin protocol -- could strengthen digital rights management (DRM), said academics and performance royalty advocates in interviews last week. The potential application of Bitcoin’s decentralized protocol in the exchange of digital content was discussed in an article (http://slate.me/1cRL7Uq) Feb. 17 by John Villasenor, a professor of electrical engineering and public policy at the University of California-Los Angeles, who suggested such a system could assist copyright law enforcement.
Frontier Communications’ $2 billion purchase of AT&T’s Connecticut wireline business is unlikely to mean major telcos are prepared to sell off similar statewide assets en masse, said industry experts in interviews. But they said telcos could consider similar deals in the future if it makes sense from a business perspective. Frontier said in December it’s buying AT&T’s wireline residential and business services in Connecticut, including that state’s portion of AT&T’s fiber network, as well as its U-verse video customers and some satellite-TV customers. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2014 (CD Dec 18 p9).
Digital resale company ReDigi’s new patent may violate the first-sale doctrine and the right of distribution of copyright holders, said critics and academics in interviews Thursday. Maintaining that the approved patent doesn’t permit copying of media files, ReDigi CEO John Ossenmacher cited the exclusionary rights that protect consumers after the first sale. The company was awarded a patent for the “management and resale of digital content” Wednesday. ReDigi’s cloud-based system makes copies of media files, but not between consumers, said Joe Hall, Center for Democracy and Technology chief technologist. “Space-shifting,” the equivalent of transferring media files from one’s desktop to laptop and the basis of ReDigi’s system, presents a fair-use question, said Derek Bambauer, a University of Arizona law professor specializing in Internet law and intellectual property.
Digital resale company ReDigi’s new patent may violate the first-sale doctrine and the right of distribution of copyright holders, said critics and academics in interviews Thursday. Maintaining that the approved patent doesn’t permit copying of media files, ReDigi CEO John Ossenmacher cited the exclusionary rights that protect consumers after the first sale. The company was awarded a patent for the “management and resale of digital content” Wednesday (WID Jan 30 p17). ReDigi’s cloud-based system makes copies of media files, but not between consumers, said Joe Hall, Center for Democracy and Technology chief technologist. “Space-shifting,” the equivalent of transferring media files from one’s desktop to laptop and the basis of ReDigi’s system, presents a fair-use question, said Derek Bambauer, a University of Arizona law professor specializing in Internet law and intellectual property.
A new technology political action committee and recently hired lobbyists likely will contribute to a push by high-technology companies for bills limiting strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP) and legislation that would cover data breaches, said a backer of such a PAC and a law professor in interviews this week. They said such groups may also push to limit what patent holders can do to sue tech companies over allegations of patent infringement. Yelp, which recently began a PAC, Snapchat, which like Yelp recently hired lobbyists, and other companies may use their influence to step up efforts to support making it harder for copyright owners to require websites to take down allegedly infringing content under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and potential problems surrounding revenge pornography, said experts. “Revenge porn” is a term used to describe sexually explicit images posted online without the permission of everyone depicted.
Verizon Wireless scooped up the parts of Arizona’s Mohave Cellular it didn’t already own, buying out portions held by Frontier Communications and Rio Virgin Telephone, Verizon said. “This transaction will expand Verizon Wireless’ footprint in northwest Arizona” covering 203,000 POPs, the company said. Plans are to integrate Mohave’s network into Verizon’s network and deploy 4G LTE “in the near future,” Verizon said (http://vz.to/14CEIMB).
Skype users face “persistently unclear and confusing statements about the confidentiality of Skype conversations, and in particular the access that governments and other third parties have to Skype user data and communications,” said privacy advocates in an open letter to the Microsoft-owned company on Thursday (http://xrl.us/bob636). The letter’s authors call for “a regularly updated Transparency Report” that includes Microsoft and Skype data collection and retention policies, Skype’s understanding of how third parties may intercept user data and how Skype responds to third party requests for user data. Signatories include the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, Reporters Without Borders and Dan Gillmor, director of Arizona State University’s Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship and an early journalism blogger.
Skype users face “persistently unclear and confusing statements about the confidentiality of Skype conversations, and in particular the access that governments and other third parties have to Skype user data and communications,” said privacy advocates in an open letter to the Microsoft-owned company on Thursday (http://xrl.us/bob636). The letter’s authors call for “a regularly updated Transparency Report” that includes Microsoft and Skype data collection and retention policies, Skype’s understanding of how third parties may intercept user data and how Skype responds to third party requests for user data. Signatories include the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, Reporters Without Borders and Dan Gillmor, director of Arizona State University’s Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship and an early journalism blogger.
Frontier has completed its 14-state systems conversion related to its 2010 acquisition of Verizon’s wireline operations, Frontier said. The conversion was done in three stages. The West Virginia operations were converted concurrent with the completion of the acquisition in July 2010. In October 2011, all acquired operations in Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina and South Carolina moved onto Frontier’s operating systems and the acquired operations in 13 states moved onto Frontier’s financial and human resources systems. This month, acquired operations in Arizona, California, Idaho, Illinois, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin were successfully moved onto Frontier’s legacy operating systems.
The FCC is waiting to hear from CenturyLink and Qwest about the kinds of conditions they would accept for approval of their deal, commission officials told us. Approval is not “imminent,” but the fact-finding has wrapped up, the officials said. The deal is reaching “the home stretch,” Stifel Nicolaus analyst Rebecca Arbogast wrote Friday, but a government shutdown remains “a threat.” She added, “We expect the FCC will impose duties” on the combined company “in certain areas -- including wholesale performance and broadband deployment/adoption, some of which could resemble previous conditions on CenturyLink-Embarq and Frontier-Verizon -- with additional obligations possible, but not as onerous as critics want.” CenturyLink’s acquisition of Qwest has been approved by all but four states involved, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, and Minnesota. The buyer is confident and has set an April 1 goal for final approval. The companies fully expect to have to comply with broadband deployment conditions, but are waiting for the FCC to lay out other conditions, a company official told us this week. “Further … concessions could speed the process, but extensive wrangling over final conditions -- or even a congressional fiscal impasse and federal government shutdown -- could slow it,” Arbogast wrote. The FCC is considering net neutrality obligations similar to those imposed on the Comcast-NBCU deal and is considering whether to ask the merged company to give up Universal Service Fund money, commission officials and a public interest advocate told us. The acquisition still faces resistance from CLECs including Paetec, which wants guarantees that the combined company won’t discard Qwest’s legacy operating system for at least three years. Negotiations among the companies continue but have not progressed, officials of each told us.