Innovation Policy Post

From July 16th to 25th, the world’s copyright decision-makers met, as they do twice each year, at the World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”) in Geneva. 

Are you sleeping yet?

It sounds dull - and these meetings can be - but they may prove to be the key to ensuring that the worldwide copyright system’s legal architecture can remain relevant in the digital age. The result of the work going on in Geneva, which will culminate in important international agreements in the next couple of years, will have ramifications far beyond the conference rooms in which they take place.

Last week the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law held the first of what will probably be many hearings on the privacy implications of facial recognition software. Much of the conversation somewhat predictably focused on how companies are making use of this new technology, and we agree that care should be taken to be sure that this sort of data collection and use is not abused by actors or used in ways that may harm users, or where they don’t know of the use.

Yesterday CCIA filed a letter requesting the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice “fully consider the potential effects of the extensive Commercial Agreements that accompany the proposed spectrum transactions” between Verizon Wireless and the nation’s largest cable companies. 

CCIA was pleased to learn senators added provisions to better protect digital goods ahead of the U.S. Senate Finance committee markup a bill today to permanently normalize trade relations (“PNTR”) with the Russian Federation and Moldova. CCIA issed a news release asking for better trade protections online after the Russian parliament’s vote to blacklist websites and allow them to be shut down.

As Matt Schruers writes in his blog post for CCIA's DisCo Project, "One aspect of the proposed mark-up that merits attention is that it would require the USTR to report on barriers to digital trade in Russia.  The bill achieves this by amending an existing international review process – the Trade Act of 1974’s so-called “Special 301” review– to also identify “laws, policies, or practices” that “deny fair and equitable treatment to U.S. digital trade.” For more please see his complete post: 

CCIA has grave concerns about legislation passed yesterday by the Russian Parliament that would establish a blacklist of websites that government could shut down, and hopes U.S. trade officials weigh this development. While the legislation is ostensibly targeted at child pornography and sites promoting suicide or substance abuse, the establishment of a government blacklist framework is a severe blow to Internet freedom and could be the first step on a path that leads to complete censorship and control of online information by an increasingly authoritarian Russian government.  

The problem with the dream of a free market in telecommunications networks is that barriers to entry are too high.  So high in fact that that the largest cable TV operators who not so long ago were given exclusive franchises to build local networks that might compete in a digital world with legacy monopoly telephone companies, have decided not to bother with the wireless part.  And Verizon with its lock on lucrative access lines for business customers and its dominance of mobile wireless has decided not to bother with any more fiber optic lines to challenge cable’s dominance of residential Internet access and video entertainment.

Last week the European Parliament (EP) rejected ACTA in its plenary session in Strasbourg. What might seemed very unlikely only a few months ago, in the final vote a total of 478 MEPs were against the agreement, with 39 voting in favor and 165 representatives abstaining from a vote. There is a broad agreement that this result constitutes an important victory for all campaigners who raised a variety of objections to ACTA throughout the last years. 

The New York Times ran an article detailing the large numbers of information requests that wireless phone carriers in the United States get from the various law enforcement bodies seeking our private information regarding our cell phones. In most cases, as the article points out, these requests are not warrants -- which must be approved by an independent judge -- but instead are simply subpoenas issued by the law enforcement officer without oversight. The current state of the law permits this sort of access to data, but it should not. Congress should waste no time in taking up comprehensive reform of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act in response to these revelations, and give full warrant protections to user’s content online and in the mobile space, as well as to information about their whereabouts. 

Last week, the House Judiciary Committee passed the Manager's Amendment of H.R. 1860, the Digital Goods and Services Tax Fairness Act, by voice vote.  The bill establishes a national framework for how state and local taxes apply to digital goods and digital services so as to prevent multiple and discriminatory taxation.  CCIA welcomes committee passage of this legislation as we believe it recognizes the importance of innovation and the need to provide for the continued development of the growing digital marketplace.  

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is currently in the 13th round of negotiations.  The text has yet to be released publicly, although there have been some leaks.  However, an important piece of news was made public by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) on Tuesday, July 3, 2012.  The USTR Press Office website announced: