A number of movie studios, record labels, and other copyright-holding companies (and their related trade associations) have also written a pro-ACTA letter to Congress, which I first saw posted on Ben Sheffner’s blog. Minus the bizarre “distraction” claim, it follows the same basic pattern—that ACTA will benefit IP businesses and do nothing harmful.

The evidence for this? Still absent. Instead, the letter reiterates that changes in technology require online copyright enforcement, and thus a section of ACTA covering the Internet.

This probably shouldn’t require repeating, but I’ll say it again. A solution has to be tailored to solve the problem. Is ACTA properly tailored to solve copyright infringement? No one can tell.

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It’s not a surprise that the Motion Picture Association of America is a supporter of the so-called Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a proposed international copyright and trademark agreement that the public isn’t allowed to see. What is surprising is how willing the MPAA is to dismiss calls for an open and democratic process as a “distraction.”

In a letter addressed yesterday to Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the MPAA endorsed ACTA and then went on to say this:

This is a pathetic excuse for logic.

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• Scrapin' the Docket with Mr. X-Parte

Today’s episode of Scrapin’ the Docket is an interview with Neothings CEO Bill Paul. Bill recently filed his own ex parte letter (you don’t need to be Mr. X-Parté to file an ex parte) in the Selectable Output Control (SOC) docket. Neothings makes video matrix switches used in homes and businesses with complex A/V setups, so he knows a thing or two about how people use video in their homes.

In this interview, Bill talks about why analog High Definition video outputs are so useful, the problems with digital outputs, and how the very Hollywood executives pushing for SOC probably need analog to power their own home video setups.

Public Knowledge just filed comments urging the FCC to pay close attention to a study (PDF) it commissioned on broadband unbundling. The study, written by Yochai Benkler and his team at Harvard’s Berkman Center, examined international broadband regulatory practices.

This was not just another study chronicling the United States’ decline in Internet prowess. Instead, the Berkman Center team examined broadband markets in a number of different countries. They then tried to figure out what types of regulatory policies were the most effective at increasing broadband penetration and access.

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Late on Friday, a federal court in New York received a new version of the Google Book Search settlement. As with the old version, the new one was drafted jointly by Google and its erstwhile litigation opponents: the publishers and authors who sued Google for scanning their books without permission.

Substantively, the new settlement bears a great resemblance to the old one.

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• Oh Hollywood

A new PKTV series, “Oh Hollywood!” focusses on … well, it’s kind of self explanatory. In this first episode we highlight the recent goings on in Coshocton, a small rural town in Ohio, that provides free WiFi in public areas in the community. It’s a service that’s used by citizens, businesses, and even the local police. Last week, Sony Pictures Entertainment, a Hollywood movie studio, threateningly notified the city that allegedly someone may have illegally downloaded one its movies. And so, the city’s free public Internet access, used by hundreds, was shut down.

All together, now … Oh Hollywood!

It’s hard sometimes to know where to start when trying to figure out which criticism of Net Neutrality is the most misguided. Bullying and threats are always a good standby. The telephone companies have done it for decades as an all-purpose answer to anything they didn’t like. Pass X regulation and we won’t invest. Pass Y rule and we won’t deploy. Pass Z and jobs will be lost. Regulators are to be blamed for lower earnings.

The big media companies have it in their playbook also. If they don’t get another, bigger, badder protection/penalty against “piracy,” then all their wonderful content will be shut down. The penalties have increased steadily for years and they are still complaining and threatening to withhold content or even not create some new masterpiece. 60 Minutes ran a Nov.

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Last week the MPAA sent another letter to the FCC trying to defend its Selectable Output Control (SOC) proposal and calling out Public Knowledge. We sent a formal reply to the FCC today. All of this means that what we are doing is working, but it also means that the MPAA is not giving up. Here’s Mr. X-Parté to recap the action so far, along with PK’s response:

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• Scrapin' the Docket with Mr. X-Parte

There’s been a lot of back and forth in the FCC Docket at the end of October and early November between Public Knowledge, CEA and HRRC and the MPAA over Selectable Output Control — a technology that MPAA wants to use to turn off the outputs on the back of your entertainment system. This episode is Part 2 of 2 where Mr. X-Parte drills down on the MPAA’s recent filing. In Part 1, Mr. X-Parte quickly goes over the recent filings in the FCC Docket.

• Scrapin' the Docket with Mr. X-Parte

There’s been a lot of back and forth in the FCC Docket at the end of October and early November between Public Knowledge, CEA and HRRC and the MPAA over Selectable Output Control — a technology that MPAA wants to use to turn off the outputs on the back of your entertainment system. This episode is Part 1 of 2 that quickly goes over the recent filings. In Part 2, Mr. X-Parte drills down on the MPAA’s recent filing.

The MPAA’s attempt to get the FCC to allow Hollywood to impose Selectable Output Control (SOC) on consumers has gotten quite a bit of coverage in the tech-savvy blogosphere over the past few days.

I was reading through the comments on two prominent blogs’ postings, Boing Boing’s Tell the FCC to say no to Hollywood’s insane “Selectable Output Control” kill-switch and Gizmodo’s MPAA Still Trying to Plug Your Analog Hole with Selectable Output Control, and it appears that even among a very informed subsection of the public, SOC still causes a lot of confusion. The main point of confusion is the relationship of SOC to other forms of video DRM.

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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has made a good deal of intellectual property news recently, given their copyright and trademark lawsuit against the Yes Men for the latter’s fake press conference and website, in which they impersonated the Chamber and claimed that it was reversing its position on climate change legislation.

Of course, the Chamber is more than just a plaintiff when it comes to IP issues—they’re one of the reasons that more lawsuits like theirs may soon be replicated overseas. That’s because the U.S.

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Public Knowledge and other public interest organizations have been calling for transparency in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations since the United States Trade Representative (USTR) started the negotiation process. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests file by PK, EFF, and KEI are a testimony to this fact. Continuing this saga, PK and 15 other public interest, library, artist advocacy, and civil rights organizations sent a letter to the President yesterday, urging him to keep his promise of making government more open, transparent, and participatory and release the ACTA text.

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• Scrapin' the Docket with Mr. X-Parte

This is the first in a series of videos that will try and shed some light on what is going on at the FCC. Be sure to stay tuned for more exciting adventures with Mr. X-Parté!

As the Selectable Output Control (SOC) battle continues here in Washington, Public Knowledge just sent a letter to the FCC pointing out that movie studios are doing some of the best work to show why SOC just doesn’t make sense.

As you may recall, the entire point of SOC is to allow movie studios to release movies via Video on Demand (VoD) prior to the DVD release. The MPAA claims that without SOC protection, the VoD releases (which, unlike DVDs, are not protected and therefore theoretically easier to copy) would immediately be used to make perfect copies available to pirates. These perfect copies would destroy the market for DVDs, and ultimately destroy Hollywood. SOC protection would allow studios to protect VoD distribution and therefore save Hollywood.

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Just a quick note on some of the recently-surfaced news on ACTA’s Internet provisions.

• Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa has some details and analysis here;
• IDG/PC World has a good summary here
• And EFF has additional in-depth analysis and discussion here.

• 5 Minutes with Harold Feld

This the latest installment of 5 Minutes with Harold Feld, Harold explains what “Selectable Output Control” means, why it’s bad for consumers, why Hollywood is promoting it, and why the FCC should tell MPAA, “No!”

Public Knowledge recently celebrated its 8th birthday of defending citizens’ rights in the digital culture. Unlike any other public interest group in Washington or elsewhere, we are dedicated to ensuring openness at every layer of our communication system, and that includes the content layer. That’s why our work to ensure balanced copyright is so important - we cannot have an open Internet if large corporate copyright holders can exploit overly burdensome copyright laws to sacrifice legitimate speech at the altar of trying to stop piracy.

I discussed the clash of copyright and an open Internet at a talk that I gave to the Yale Law School Information and Society Project last week. Some in Hollywood, like Disney, were in favor of net neutrality in the late 90’s because they knew well the powers that the network owner has.

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My favorite poster on the walls here at Public Knowledge is one called “You’ve Heard This Song Before.” It collects the assorted FUD that has accompanied disruptive media technologies over the years. The death of American music in 1906 at the hands of the Player Piano, FM radio destroying the (shockingly still vibrant at the time in light of the success of the player piano) recorded music industry in 1925, the “assault” on the “economic life” of the movie industry by the VCR in 1982, and the “noose” around the neck of songwriters that would cease the creation of all records that was the recordable cassette tape in 1982.

I like this poster so much because each quote represents someone successfully working in the content industry being completely unable to understand the difference between change, death, and opportunity.

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Thomas Sydnor, a Senior Fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF) – more about them here – has proudly announced that moving away from the practice of copyright holders suing their consumers is a “step forward for common sense and the rule of law on the Internet.” While Public Knowledge certainly agrees with that sentiment, Mr. Sydnor appears to be stepping towards something even worse.

Suing Potential Customers is Not a Sustainable Business Strategy

It has been clear for some time that the practice of copyright holders suing individual customers for copyright infringement has its flaws.

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